Partnering For Carolina
Posted on March 13, 2001In the January/February issue of the Review, I wrote about how important the General Alumni Association’s records, publications and programs are in providing the identification, information and involvement so critical in encouraging alumni investment in Carolina. Many alumni mistakenly believe that the principle purpose of the alumni association is to solicit private gifts on behalf of Carolina. (Although the alumni association in 1952 founded Alumni Annual Giving, it quickly and appropriately turned over the administration ofAAG to the University.) Carolina Alumni members are Carolina’s most consistent and most generous donors, and our GAA volunteer leaders and staff believe that GAA programs, publications and records are essential contributors to the record-setting giving by our alumni.
Beyond our collaboration with our advancement colleagues, the GAA has many other collaborative partnerships across our campus that also are important to our alumni and our University.
Knowing that admissions is an area of intense alumni interest, the Review regularly provides timely and helpful information about admissions. For many years, the GAA has worked with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to identify and recruit outstanding students (who are, indeed, our future alumni). Once admitted, we have worked to encourage these students to attend Carolina, and once committed to Carolina, we have worked with local clubs to give students an appropriate send off. Several of our local Carolina clubs also provide scholarship support through the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid to entering students.
Each year, we delight in working with our colleagues in student affairs to welcome new students. And knowing that the quality of their student experience will determine how involved they are as alumni, we have developed a student membership program and other student-oriented programs to connect today’s students to the GAA while they are still on our campus.
Not only do the presidents of each of the constituent alumni associations serve on the GAA Board of Directors, we also regularly coordinate meetings of the constituent alumni association staff from across campus to share information and to learn from each other.And we work with each of these schools — law, nursing, medicine, business and education, among others — to encourage alumni to participate in the All Alumni Weekend while also participating in their school- based reunions in the fall.
Where our collaborations have grown the most in recent years is in our growing involvement with Carolina’s faculty. Each year, more than 100 of Carolina’s faculty members speak at local clubs, serve as enrichment lectures on our alumni tours, brief alumni at our Passport Lectures, and address alumni who return to campus for reunions, for our College Lights lecture series (with the College of Arts and Sciences), our Weekend Humanities Seminars with the Program in the Humanities and the College of Arts and Sciences, and our Carolina College for Lifelong Learning.
Among the greatest contributions Carolina’s 226,000 alumni make is our advocacy on behalf of Carolina to elected officials-most particularly to the N.C. General Assembly. Carolina’s annual state appropriation is the equivalent of the earnings from a $8 billion endowment, and working with Chancellor James Moeser and his administration along with Carolina’s trustees, faculty, staff and students, alumni regularly and effectively remind legislators that Carolina remains the best investment North Carolina tax payers make each year.
Athletics bring alumni together, and Carolina alumni are among the nation’s most enthusiastic supporters of our Olympic sports as well as our football and men’s basketball teams. Here again, the GAA partners with colleagues in the department of athletics and at the UNC Educational Foundation to host pregame events at away football games, at Tar Heel Town before football games in Kenan Stadium, and at TV viewing parties sponsored by local Carolina clubs for basketball and football games.
This review of just a few of the scores of collaborative partnerships the GAA enjoys with our campus colleagues reaffirms that alumni care about and wish to be involved with the entire University community. Alumni have much to contribute beyond our important financial contributions and attendance at sporting events. Our GAA volunteer and staff collaborations and partnerships are all intended to connect and reconnect our alumni to Carolina, to inform and involve alumni, and to continue to build an even stronger Carolina for today’s and tomorrow’s Carolina students.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
