UMass Amherst Alumni Association
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Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Memorial Hall
10:00 a.m.
Board Members: Craig Brown, Tom Campbell, Bill Carroll, Shyno Chacko, Alex Chan, Mike Fiorentino, Colin Glatzel, Ed Godek, Jackie Govoni, Ron Grasso, Madeline Haynes, Dave Hautanen, Andy Hochberg, Sean LeBlanc, Christine Lopes, Kathleen Mitchell, Michaella Morzuch, Dave Richter, Bob Shaughnessey, Kim Sherman, Joel Slovin, Anna Symington, Kevin White, and Rick Williams
Absent: Mary Custard, Paul Hohenberger, Sara Coady Howe, Hal Lane, Andy MacDougal, Kerry Mulcahy, Paul Sienkewicz, Ron Spicer
Alumni Association Staff: Deb Masloski, Kevin Fleming, Norma Heim, Melanie Corbeil, Elena Lamontagne, Breck Pierce
Guests: None
Meeting started at 10:22 a.m.
Approval of Minutes.
Motion: Ed Godek made a motion, seconded by Rick, to approve the minutes of the November 10, 2007 meeting. The motion passed with 21 ayes and 3 abstentions.
President’s Update.
The Chancellor’s search committee received approximately 100 applications, and is excited about the caliber of the applicant pool. They hope to narrow the field down to approximately 12 candidates in the near future, and then submit a list of 3 to 4 finalists to President Wilson for consideration towards the end of the process. Once they forward the names of finalists to President Wilson, these names become public at that point.
The database subcommittee met with President Wilson and several representatives regarding the UMass Amherst alumni database.
Motion: Andy made a motion, seconded by Ed, to go into Executive Session. The motion passed unanimously.
Motion: Bill made a motion, seconded by Dave Richter, to come out of Executive Session. The motion passed unanimously.
Kathleen also noted that the Secretary of the Faculty Senate, Ernie May, passed on the progress report of the ongoing Higher Education Report for Massachusetts. Kathleen made these results available to any Board members who wished to see them, and noted that Ernie extended his personal gratitude for the actions the Alumni Association had taken thus far in response to the alumni database situation. Finally, she informed the group that there were two proposed bills in the Massachusetts legislature, each for one billion dollars for improvements to the UMass system. If passed, a significant portion of the funds would be allocated to UMass Amherst. She asked the Board to talk to alumni and generate support for both bills.
Executive Director’s Report
Deb provided several staffing updates. The position description for the Executive Director position has been revised with a more strategic orientation and to incorporate more public relations responsibilities, and the salary has been increased to be competitive for similar jobs at other institutions. Greater emphasis is placed on proven ability to move groups of various constituents forward in a cohesive fashion, and prior experience in alumni relations has been de-emphasized. There is also a strong preference for an alumnus or alumna. Deb is hopeful that HR will approve the revised description in the next several weeks, hire the search committee after that, and then begin the search. She hopes to conclude the process somewhere between July and September. Additionally, Kendra Porter has taken a new job with Mercy College in New York. The Alumni Association will be searching for her replacement, as well as the vacant membership position.
The Alumni Association is participating in and/or hosting several upcoming events. The women’s Atlantic-10 basketball tournament is from March 7th – 10th, and the men’s tournament is March 12th – 15th. UMass Amherst will host Founders Day, a celebration of the 145th anniversary of the founding of the campus, on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. UMass Pops with Natalie Cole will be held on May 8, 2008.
Financial statements were distributed in Board packets. Deb noted that there is currently a large revenue surplus, but cautioned that many large expenses (such as reunion and the Distinguished Alumni Awards) were upcoming in the latter part of the fiscal year.
Website Update
Elena Lamontagne provided an overview of the new Alumni Association website, which will be launched on February 28, 2008. Some of the features reviewed included the following:
- Portal Changes: Class notes will be posted on the front page of the site, as well as “Ad Boxes” on the right of the screen that take the user to various places within the site. A spotlight section will highlight the current initiatives of the Alumni Association, and “Alumni Association points of pride” will be incorporated throughout the site. Additionally, the Association will be selling limited advertisement space on the home page to generate revenue.
- Registration: The user can login to the community, and the site will verify their user roles and which features the user has access to.
- My Page: Users will be able to set their preferences as to what they display to others on the community, and view how their “public profile” will appear to other users. They can also update their personal information. Users can post a personal photo, maintain a list of friends within the community, send invitations and emails to them, bookmark profiles, and do a search of the online community (basic search is available to all members of the community, and advanced search options are available to Alumni Association members who are alumni). Snippets of class notes from the user’s graduation year are included on “MyPage.” Also, for the first time, we are able to show users if they are an Alumni Association member or not, when their membership is set to expire, and also whether or not the user’s preferences are set to receive emails from us or not.
- Events: Users can view the events calendar in a variety of different ways – either in days, weeks, months, years, or in a list view. Users can also view the events they have registered for in MyPage.
- Career Center: All community members can post resumes, and Alumni Association members can search them. Members can also post job openings, and community members can search through jobs posted on the UMass Amherst community, and the user has the option to search all jobs posted throughout the network of schools that use Harris as their web vendor. Association members have access to Career Beam, a professional service that offers resume building assistance, career search tools, and access to personal consultation (personal consultation does require an additional fee). Finally, the Alumni Association will be actively promoting its mentoring program to both alumni and students.
- Class Notes: All alumni are able to post class notes. While viewing class notes, the user can search for specific notes of interest through a number of search criteria.
- Photo Gallery: The photo gallery currently is primarily for the Alumni Association staff to post photos of events. We hope that, in the future, this feature will be rolled out to individual users in the community.
Board members seemed to be very enthusiastic about the site, and Elena was recognized for her hard work and dedication to implementing the site. Also, Tom noted that some other institutions have a Spanish version of their website, and suggested that we might want to investigate that possibility in the future.
Student Update
Colin and Madeline provided an overview of the current climate on campus amongst undergraduates. They noted that many students are currently very worried about the exorbitant price of books, and Madeline noted that one of her friends had to pay over $700 for course textbooks this semester. They noted that the departure of Mike Gargano, former Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, has had a polarizing effect on students – many very supportive of the work he did on campus, and others who did not believe he allowed the students to have as much of a voice as they would have liked. Also, they discussed the current proposal on campus to have all-freshmen residence halls, rather than mixing freshmen in with upperclassmen. Colin noted that many of the students were not in favor of this proposal, whereas Madeline believed that it might be beneficial for freshmen. She noted that most freshmen are at the same stage in their lives and might connect much more easily with one another, and also noted that upperclassmen might have already established ties at UMass Amherst and be less apt to actively meet freshmen in their residence hall.
Several Board members inquired about how prepared students feel to graduate. Colin and Madeline both noted that they personally witness a significant amount of personal growth in students as they progress from freshmen to seniors, and that students feel well-prepared to enter the next phase of their lives. There are a number of resources available on campus, and many of the students take advantage of them.
Board members also asked about student affiliation for the Student Alumni Association and the Alumni Association as a whole. Colin and Madeline believed that, generally, the student affiliation for both organizations is low. For SAA events, the students noted that competition among many different events each day at the University makes it difficult to have your own event become prominent among all the others. Madeline did note, however, that a number of their events have been well attended, including many of the campus to career programs. For affiliation to the Alumni Association as a whole, many students are not aware of the benefits the Alumni Association can provide upon graduation. The student Board members believed that continuing to get in front of underclassmen was the best way to raise the awareness and profile of the Alumni Association among students and transition it into membership and participation in the Association after graduation. They also believed that raising awareness of the Alumni Association with parents will raise awareness among students, as current parents tend to be very involved in students’ lives. They noted that creating tangible benefits early on in the student experience will transition into perceiving tangible benefits as alumni.
Committee Reports
Finance & Investments:
Ron presented a modification of the investment policy that defined the responsibilities and procedures when making tactical modifications to investment allocations, within targeted percentage limits. The revisions provide the Finance Committee with the ability to approve these tactical changes with a majority vote of the committee members.
Motion: Dave Richter made a motion, seconded by Andy, to approve the modification to the investment policy. The motion passed with 18 ayes, 1 nay, and 5 abstentions.
During discussion, several Board members expressed concern that the proposal would provide the Finance & Investments Committee with too much power. It was also noted that the majority of the Finance Committee members were non-Board members, and did not have the same fiduciary responsibility to the Board of Directors. They suggested that the Treasurer must sign off on the tactical changes recommended by the committee. Other members of the Board noted that the Treasurer is the head of the committee, and that the committee members are the professionals within the field. They believed that their recommendations to the minor, tactical changes would be appropriate.
Ron also noted that the investment portfolio is down 1.57% over the year and down 3.56% overall including cash. However, he noted that we are performing well when compared to benchmarks, and overall we are doing an excellent job of controlling risk.
Nominating Committee:
The proposed revisions to the standing rules were distributed.
Motion: Tom made a motion, seconded by Joel, to approve the proposed revisions to the standing rules. The motion passed unanimously.
Nominations for the Board of Directors close on February 13, 2008. Anna encouraged Board members to nominate any qualified people that they knew to the Board, and noted that the committee sought nominations of individuals from underrepresented groups – particularly women and alumni of color.
Old Business - None
New Business
The Finance & Investments Committee will be looking into socially responsible investing.
General Announcements: Shyno got married, and Dave R. will be moving to Boston
Adjournment – Dave made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Colin. The meeting adjourned at 1:11 p.m.
