Alumni Council Study
To ascertain how well it is doing the job it professes to do, the Alumni Council is turning an introspective gaze on its own purposes and procedures and is soliciting comments and suggestions from other alumni.
Possibly stung by criticism accompanying last year's contested nomination for alumni trustee, first in the history of the modern College, and the anticipation of another confrontation this year between council nominees and candidates nominated by petition, the council decided the time had come to see how well it was functioning as representative of alumni in general.
At the December meeting, council president William L. Randall '52 appointed a 17-person committee, chaired by Stanley C. Smoyer '34 and J. Blake Hering '53 and charged with looking into council performance in four areas and recommending changes if any were to be deemed appropriate. Membership of the committee includes seven former council presidents. Four sub-committees are studying various aspects of the council's responsibility. One, chaired by Thomas H. Schwarz '57, is looking into communications between the council and other alumni; another, headed by Vice President Jonathan Strong '56, is weighing how effectively the council represents its constituents; a third, chaired by Sara H. Hunter '76, is investigating procedures for nominating alumni trustees; the fourth, headed by Raymond J. Rasenberger '49, the council's nominee for trustee last year, has internal organization as its topic.
As presently constituted, the Alumni Council consists of 61 members: 26 representing geographical areas; one faculty member; six elected by alumni class officers; three elected to represent the alumni clubs; three ex officio members: the chairman and the secretary of the Alumni Association, to which all alumni automatically belong, and the senior alumni member of the Athletic Council; and 22 elected by the council itself two undergraduates, three representatives of the associated schools, and 17 at-large members.
Aside from the six who chair the study committee and its sub-committees, the members include former council presidents Robert D. Brace '52, E. Swift Lawrence '55, Don W. Hummel '55, and Josiah Stevenson IV '57, now director of development for the College; David L. Duclos '59; Bert E. Barnett Jr. '62; Ronald B. Schram '64, who is currently a council nominee for alumni trustee; Paul R. Mahoney '65; Stephen H. Quigley '73; council president Randall; and J. Michael McGean '49, secretary of the council and of the College.
