What We Do — And Why
Posted on Nov. 14, 2000It is unlikely, when John Motley Morehead and 33 fellow UNC graduates returned to Chapel Hill in 1843 to form the GAA, that Morehead and his fellow Carolina alumni envisioned how The University of North Carolina General Alumni Association would evolve as it sought to achieve their stated goals, as you see on this page.
It is instructive to recall that beginning with that first “reunion” — and continuing with organizing local clubs, collecting and maintaining alumni records, developing a membership dues program ($1 was the initial annual rate), and continuing in 1912 with the launching of this magazine — these initiatives were created and sustained by volunteers. It was not until 1922 that Daniel L. Grant ’20 became the first full-time alumni secretary with offices in South Building. (Thirty years later, recognizing the importance of private support, the GAA started Alumni Annual Giving and later turned this responsibility and AAG over to the University.)
Today’s GAA is still volunteer-driven and remains self-governed. The opportunities to inform Carolina alumni about each other and about our University and to involve Carolina’s former students with each other and with our University have expanded greatly.
‘to perpetuate the friendships
formed in the collegiate course’;
‘to promote the welfare’
of Alma Mater; and
‘to promote the cause
of education generally.’
What began in 1843 as an annual reunion luncheon meeting at Commencement is now a series of class and affinity reunions in the fall and on Commencement weekend in the spring. What were a handful of annual local club meetings in North Carolina and up and down me eastern seaboard are today multiple gatherings among alumni at any of 80-plus local clubs across Norm Carolina, in most of the 50 states and in several foreign countries.
Instead of relying on 3-by-5 cards to maintain alumni address records, today we use a sophisticated computer system to manage home and business addresses as well as phone numbers, e-mail addresses, occupational titles, degree information, student organizational data and scores of other data elements on each of our 223,000 living Carolina alumni.
Besides this award-winning magazine, the GAA also publishes “Out of the Blue,” an online monthly newsletter; BluePrints, a six-times-a-year newsletter for younger Carolina Alumni members; and Going to Carolina, a twice-a-year newsletter for parents of current Carolina students. And we maintain a robust Web site full of timely information about GAA programs and UNC news as well as archives of GAA programs, including “History of Carolina Basketball” and Chancellor James Moeser’s installation address given on University Day.
Our GAA programs provide alumni with numerous opportunities to reconnect to Carolina faculty and to me intellectual life of our campus through our Carolina College for Learning in Retirement; international and adventure travel; weekend seminars, co-sponsored with the Program in the Humanities and the College of Arts and Sciences; and our always popular Civil War series.
Recognizing that it is the quality of the student experience that determines their alumni involvement and support, in recent years we have developed a growing number of student programs, including mentor and intern programs, sponsorship of the Clef Hangers, the Etiquette and Student Leaders dinners, local Admitted Students receptions and a student membership program. Our Alumni Career Services provide individual consulting assistance, and through our Alumni Advisor Network, more than 6,000 Carolina alumni share their career expertise and advice with fellow alumni as well as UNC students.
Since preserving and enhancing the value of a Carolina diploma is important to all Carolina alumni, through our Tar Heel Network, the GAA advocates on behalf of our University to legislative leaders and others. Our alumni leaders always have recognized that the alumni constituency is not just the largest constituency in the Carolina family; we are the only permanent members of the family. While happily our faculty is remarkably loyal to Carolina, their recognition comes from their discipline and, like staff and administrators, they can and sometimes do leave. Students are supposed to leave, and when they do, they become alumni. Once an alumnus, always an alumnus!
In his installation address, Chancellor Moeser noted the unique and special “Carolina spirit” that is unlike anything he has observed on any other campus. He correctly noted that it is found among our gifted faculty, among our loyal staff, among our remarkable students and especially among our alumni. It was that spirit that inspired John Motley Morehead to join with others to form the General Alumni Association, and it is that spirit that sustains today’s alumni volunteer leaders and staff in service to Carolina alumni and to The University of North Carolina.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
