A Spirit for Service
Posted on Sept. 13, 2002In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, many of us have reflected on our priorities and renewed our commitment to service — service to our community, to the sick and to those in need. Sponsored by nearly 40 local Carolina Clubs across the country, many Carolina alumni joined together in their hometowns last October for the first Tar Heel Service Day, providing much-needed support to many worthy causes — soup kitchens, care homes, blood drives and environmental clean-ups, to name a few.
Doug Dibbert ’70
Your General Alumni Association is all about serving serving our University and serving you, our alumni and Carolina friends. Some of our support and the expenditure of your dues comes in very tangible forms. Last fall, the first GAA Scholars enrolled at Carolina, supported from an endowment created with a $500,000 gift from the GAA as our early contribution to the Carolina First Campaign.
The GAA’s Tar Heel Network is composed of more than 1,000 alumni from North Carolina’s 100 counties and serves Carolina by vigorously advocating on behalf of UNC with members of the N.C. General Assembly in support for our vital state appropriations.
Daily, our GAA Records Department serves UNC and Carolina alumni by maintaining information that is important if alumni are to remain connected to each other and to Carolina. In the past year, our GAA Records department made 114,898 home address changes, 20,115 business address changes, 20,382 name changes and 15,064 relationship changes — and 18,676 “lost” alumni were found. We maintain home and business addresses and phone numbers for 223,230 alumni for whom we have valid addresses, and we maintain e-mail addresses for 77,283 alumni and friends of Carolina.
The GAA serves Carolina’s current students with more than 30 programs a year, including etiquette dinners; money management and developmental seminars; student leader dinners; and sponsorship of the Clef Hangers, Loreleis, senior awards and Fall Fest.
The GAA serves by helping to identity, recruit and welcome new Carolina students through 40 admissions-related programs held across North Carolina and across the country, including admitted student receptions, admissions forums and student send-offs.
The GAA serves our campus through our collaborations with many campus colleagues in student affairs, undergraduate admissions, athletics, the Educational Foundation, each of the academic schools and the College of Arts and Sciences.
The GAA serves our alumni by reconnecting you to our gifted faculty through a range of program offerings, including language seminars, the Civil War series, alumni travel, weekend seminars and our Carolina College for Lifelong Learning. Approximately 40,000 UNC alumni and Carolina friends participate in one of our 850 programs supported through 50 campus partnerships.
The GAA serves UNC faculty and staff as well as Carolina alumni with a campus home — the George Watts Hill Alumni Center and the availability of a dining club with a variety of programming at The Carolina Club.
Readers of this award-winning magazine; visitors to our Web site, alumni.unc.edu; recipients of our monthly e- mail newsletter, “Out of the Blue”; and the University are all served with regular updates on Carolina’s notable achievements and pressing challenges as well as timely information about what is new in Chapel Hill, at Carolina and with classmates.
While the GAA is not directly responsible for raising money for Carolina, through alumni records, alumni programs and alumni communications, tbe GAA serves Carolina’s important development efforts by providing the opportunities to identity, to interest, to inform and to involve UNC alumni and friends, enhancing the probability that we will choose to invest in Carolina.
Your GAA has served our University and our alumni and friends for nearly 160 years. We remain grateful for your membership and assure you that while continuing to provide you with valued benefits, we also serve you by serving our University.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
