Aiming Council

There's an old saying that alumni volunteers love their alma mater so much, they just can't bear to leave it behind. And while I confess to enjoying more than my share of Dartmouth nostalgia, it's really the future—and not the past—that drew me to my new role as your Alumni Council president.

The Alumni Council is built for dialogue, and I'd like to frame the topics that are important to all of you and to encourage the alumni and administration to have some robust conversations around them. Do you have questions about the role of research at Dartmouth or the growth of the Colleges endowment? Are you interested in the progress of the capital campaign? Perhaps you want to know more about what's being done to ease the housing squeeze on campus. These and many other important questions are raised when I visit with fellow alumni.

Transparency and clarity are essential to effective alumni communications and to building strong alumni relations with the College. In addition to gathering alumni feedback, I'm working to ensure that when the Alumni Council meets, the agenda reflects the topics that matter to you. I'm not the only one who's been rolling up his sleeves. The members of the Alumni Governance Task Force have been working hard to generate a new constitution that will bring the Association of Alumni and the Alumni Council together as one organization, strengthening the alumni voice and providing greater democracy and meaning for all members. The task force has spent hundreds of hours on this important document, which will be presented for your consideration at the annual Association of Alumni meeting on Sunday, October 23, at 11 a.m. (during Homecoming). I hope you'll make plans to join us and let your voice be heard. Until then, please feel free to e-mail me with your suggestions, concerns or volunteer interests at richard.m.routhier.73@alum.dartmouth.org. I look forward to hearing from you.

'73, Tu'76, President, AlumniCouncil