Assembly LIX: The Tercentennial of Yale University
Thursday, October 4  through Friday, October 5, 2001
Executive Summary
Opening Plenary

Alumni Relationships at Yale: Directions and New Frontiers

Assembly Chair Ed Dennis '63 welcomed the delegates and gave a preview of the Assembly and its theme of challenges, dreams, and plans for future alumni relations.

Maureen Doran '71 MSN, Chair of the AYA Board of Governors, focused on the history and future direction of alumni activity. Yale alumni have made financial contributions to the university since 1831 when Connecticut discontinued its financial support of the University. When the University encountered financial difficulties again during World War I, it turned to its alumni for support. Once they had a greater stake in Yale, the alumni began to look more closely at the University and found it lacking. They formed an alumni committee that worked to help restructure and reorganize the university into its current form.

In 1971, the Association of Yale Alumni was founded.  Alumni provide a reality check for the University's actions and values. The AYA's activities include relations with classes, clubs, graduate and professional schools, and special interest alumni. The study of foreign cultures has never been more important. Future priorities include the need to focus on international diversity, international issues, and high tech communications (in order to establish continuous contact with alumni rather than sporadic contact).

Linda Koch Lorimer '77 JD, vice president and secretary of the University, began by noting that while students represent promise, alumni represent the successes of the University. Currently the Yale student population represents virtually every nation and region of the world. This is a remarkable change for Yale, which was only a few decades ago a regional institution.

The challenges the University faces today are financial, organizational, attitudinal, and global. The endowment is currently $10 billion, an increase of 6% over the previous year during a time when almost all institutional portfolios lost rather than gained ground. We need to find new ways of connecting alumni to Yale. Yale needs graduate and professional school alumni to become better connected to the University. We need to support affinity groups such as the Yale Alumni Chorus. There is now a large global alumni body and we are taking little advantage of this so far.

AYA Executive Director, Jeff Brenzel '75 spoke about the extraordinary changes at Yale within the last 10 years. These include the University's financial situation, its physical plant, and its relations with the City of New Haven. New Haven has turned from a source of embarrassment to a source of pride. For example, New Haven has, over the last 18 months, received $1 billion in investments for the biotech industry and has become Connecticut's most dynamic city for retail development and the arts. Our job is to present New Haven as a positive advantage rather than something Yale need to "overcome" when attracting students and faculty. Yale has also addressed significant areas of challenge with tremendous success, as evidenced by the $500 million investment being made in science and engineering and the School of Management's rise to the top rankings in new national studies.

The new theme for alumni is establishing lifelong relationships. An online alumni directory will be available soon and should assist in helping alumni retain connections with their friends. Online communities are also coming soon. The E-Line newsletter, which contains recent University news, is being sent out to all alumni on a regular basis.

Alumni relations also faces a number of challenges:

• Demographics - Students admitted after the late sixties tend to differ from their predecessors in social and religious background, ethnicity, and gender. We need to work to insure that these alumni of the last thirty years develop the same loyalty to Yale as their predecessors.
• Competition - We have to compete with many personal, cultural, social, and political causes to which alumni increasingly devote themselves and their time.
• Communications - Alumni increasingly expect the University to move its alumni communications and services online.
• Expectations - In this consumer society, alumni expect first quality communications, customer service, and hospitality. Yet top universities, like Yale, do not tend to view themselves as customer service enterprises.
• Motivations - In the past, alumni relations often revolved around nostalgia or athletic team success. Now, alumni are more interested in seeking adult engagements with one another, and with the intellectual and social life of the University. They wish to continue their personal growth, to maintain Yale affiliations that correspond to their current interests, and to make use of the Yale "network" of friends and services in their career and life-stage transitions.

Major questions for the future of alumni relations: 

• Yale Clubs and Associations - What is the most important objective for Yale clubs? How can Yale clubs attract a greater diversity of alumni (school affiliations, age, gender, ethnicity)?
• Education and Assembly Programs - What educational opportunities should Yale be providing for alumni? What should AYA Assemblies be seeking to accomplish in the next three to five years?
• Graduate and Professional Schools - What would most attract Graduate and Professional alumni to engage with Yale? How should Yale and the AYA communicate with Graduate and Professional alumni?
• Yale College Classes - What should classes seek to accomplish with Yale College Reunions? Aside from reunions, how could classes act most effectively to promote class identity and networking?
• Identity and Personal Interest Alumni Groups - What support and services do groups organized around a particular interest need from AYA or Yale? Should groups organized around particular life interests (as distinct from classes, clubs, and schools) be represented in the AYA governance structure?

Following the plenary, delegates were invited to attend one of five sessions where AYA staff and board members presented questions for discussion and brainstorming.

Executive Summary Contents
I. Home
II. Opening Plenary
III. Class Breakout
IV. Club Breakout
V. G/P Breakout
VI. SIG Breakout
VII. Ed. Breakout
VIII. Reception