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The Alumni Council Opts to Stay and Chooses otho Kerr

He's the sort of grad you put on a Fundraising brochure: Green Key. I ire & Skoal, Phi Delt track, choir; senior class president, winner of the Barrett Gup, Harvard law degree, New York civic leader, investment banker.

In fact the College has put him on a fundraising brochure, in which he reminisces about "sprinting up Moose Mountain" and "tremendously talented professors." You almost wonder why the Alumni Council felt it had to vote to make him president. Kerr, who is vice president of Deutsche Bank Securities Corp., says he's working toward "reinventing the way the Council and the College communicate with alumni." How? For a start, "making the Council sessions much more enlightening, entertaining, and engaging."

The strains of a rock bandon the Green floated into Alumni Hall in the Hopkins Center as a group of alumni councillors debated their organization's future existence over Green Key weekend last May. A 12-member ad hoc committee recommended replacing the existing 109-member council with two bodies. One would be a 30-member executive committee of alumni organizations that would coordinate activities among the groups. The second body would consist of 100 representatives who would attend semi-annual forums on campus.

The committee was responding to growing criticism that the Alumni Council has been largely ignored by Dartmouth. According to Curt Welling '71, TU '77, a former Council president, the Councirs purpose is to choose alumni Dartmouth Trustees, recognize outstanding alumni, serve as the College's "institutional memory," and link the College and alumni organizations. But with only two meetings a year, and an unclear mission; the Council has been "marginalized," says Welling.

Council members broke up into small "buzz sessions" to consider the proposal, The consensus; Thecommittee report didn't hack it. "It seems perverse in order; to streamline one organization to create a second one," said one buzz-group leader. So the committee came up with a second proposal: a pan-alumni coordinating group that might eventually replace, or absorb, the Council. The problem was, committee members admitted, the. Council didn't have the authority to form the group. So Council leaders agreed to approach alumni organizations-including classes, clubs, development volunteers, enrollment volunteer's, graduate- and professional-school alumni associations, and recognized affinity groups - to see whether they can't get together. We'll keep you posted on the results.

How to deal with the Alumni Council's lack of identity? "We need a logo," said member John Aronsohn '90 during a mee ting of the Communications Committee. Any suggestions? You can email him at wjohn@aol.com

Our favorite fundraisingcomment came in a report by Bequests Committee Chairman David ; Hilton '51. Updating councillors on the totals of money willed to Dartmouth, he said, cheerfully: "Our results depend on how often you die,' so,you can't Count on them. But the results recently have been phenomenal." if

Kerr's Council will be lively.