Alumni Council met Feb. 23-24, 2018.
Present: Andie Asimes ’13, Jamion Berry ’97, Manjul Bhusal Sharma ’16, Susie Bloom Hudgins ’89 P’18, Jim Carr ’62, Samuel Clougher ’17, James Greenwood ’02, David Hanson ’87, Kamille Harless ’99, Jody Horak Tyrpak ’91, Erin Huntzinger ’86, Jack Killen ’71, Christian Martinez-Canchola ’12, Melzetta Moody ’05, Jen Neubauer ’04, Tamara Parson Anderson ’93, Janae Peters ’10, Brad Remick ’84, Win Sheffield ’77, Cindy Sternberg Thomas ’84
Absent: Veronica Hauad ’03
Staff: Scott Baker, Jessica Stricker
Guests: Suzy Apel ’83 P’16, Susan Berger ’85, Erin Dowdy ’01, Tracey Fatzinger ’91, Michael Hermanson ’10, Ryan Helft ’94, Pegi Goodman ’73, Claudia Smith ’05, Colin Smith ’06
Heidi McCrory, V.P. for College Relations, Holly McCormack, Dean of the Career Development Office, Ted Mason, Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Jacky Neri Arias ’13, Assistant Director, Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Meredith Harper Bonham ’92, Vice President for Student Affairs, Samantha Hughes, Civil Rights/Title IX Coordinator
Friday, February 23
President Cindy Sternberg Thomas called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.
Agenda:
- Thomas welcomed the group. An icebreaker and introductions followed. Thomas requested full
support by Council of the Kenyon Fund.
- Susie Bloom Hudgins moved that the fall meeting minutes be approved. The motion was
seconded by Brad Remick and approved unanimously by the Council.
- Thomas runs through the schedule for the weekend
- Committee breakout sessions
- Time with Heidi
- Student panel working lunch
- Joint session with KFEC
- Discussion with Holly McCormack
- Awards nominations
- Seniore premiere dinner
- Committee Breakout Sessions
- Campaign discussion with Heidi McCrory, V.P. for College Relations
- Campaign goals
- Sustained institutional capacity to support mission
- Broad, meaningful, effective volunteerism
- Alumni participation of 70% and 18,000 donors
- Robust, results-oriented planned giving program
- $300M by June 30, 2021
- How do we get there
- Institutional Capacity
- Volunteerism
- Alumni Participation
- Planned Giving
- $300M Goal
- Campaign objectives:
- Campaign is weighted toward endowment $150 M
- Capital Projects $80M
- Academic & Student “Programs” $35M
- Annual Giving $35M
- Campaign Branding
- Alumni Engagement
- Donor Engagement Plan targeting 1:1, 1:Few, 1:Many
- ‘Surge’ of regional activity to engage prospective major donors
- Event hosting, regional, admissions, career, intimate receptions, small dinners
- Volunteer Integration, introduce speakers, speak on panels or programs, host
- Build/add on opportunities
- Campaign Timeline
- Public Phase Campaign Kickoff October 12-13, 2018
- Regional events to follow
- Would like to say 100% of key volunteers are participating by kickoff
Student Panel moderated by Thomas
Joint session with KFEC and Regional Leaders
- Career Development at Kenyon
- Current Landscape
- Internships are imperative and the most important credential to have according to
employers.
- Current state of affairs at Kenyon
- CDO Fundamentals
- Current Programming
- Where to go from here
- Current work-engaged learning opportunities
- Problems we aim to solve
- Ways to engage
- Upcoming opportunities
- Scott Baker and Shawn Dailey share housekeeping updates
- College Relations doing technology review
- Looking to move to best in class model
- Campaign kickoff is October 12-13, 2018
- Reunion Planning next year is combined with the weekend of Hall of Fame dinner
- Premiere Dinner
- Premiere Prep event
- Be good role models
- Bring name tag and business cards
- Awards Nominations
- Thomas explained the voting procedure and opened the floor for discussion
- Award nominations voted and recorded
Saturday, February 24
Thomas called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.
Agenda:
- Debrief of Seniore Premiere Dinner
- Students got the message to be on time
- No wine bottles on the table
- Students seemed well prepared
- Networking session felt long
- Welcome to the alumni association message did not come across very well; students
saw it as more of a CDO event versus “welcome” reception
- Program felt very segmented
- Name tag showed wrong city - asked for hometown
- AC reach out to students you know and ask them to come prior to the event
- Some way to make connections for quickly (maybe if excomm acts as greeters they
could help point people out)
- Committee Reports
- Targeted Focus
- Two goals by May meeting
- Want to be a source of info about all of the different alumni/student
groups that exist and list them all
- Take six or so groups and go into those at depth to show activities that
each are doing; build on that to allow best practices to be shared
- Communications
- Spoke with Janet Marsden regarding the project around marketing and branding & survey
- Objective - improved relations between committee and
Communications/Janet
- Request time on May agenda
- Improving awareness of AC
- Strategy for centralizing communications
- Follow up phone calls
- Regional
- Would like to formulate survey by May meeting to send to pilot regions to
gather data
- Could recruit more volunteers through this
- Is regional group meeting needs
- Could be used prove that more support is needed from College
- Send pilots over summer; look at success at fall meeting
- Have event attendees take survey at events
- SFO requests to be part of the survey pilot
- Most regions did not know about funding opportunities through APE
- Got funding through CDO
- Welcome packet to send to regions
- Phone call in future
- Create better institutional pathways at the school for better communication between offices to promote regional success
- Fluidity within the regions to allow for individual nature
- Don’t want to wait until a region flatlines before college steps in to help them
- School relies on regions, but there’s no plan on how regions will accomplish it
- Strengthening the regional associations
- Regional leaders shared best practices and a report of what’s working for them
individually
- Challenges
- Communications outside of “office hours”
- Once attendees sign up can email addresses be shared
- Provide contact phone numbers of regional volunteers on invite
- Finding steering committee members remains challenging in some regions; help
is intermittent; peak/valley rhythm continues
- Facebook doesn’t reach young alums, but allows for fluidity of leadership
changes
- Creating bandwidth
- Clearer instruction needed from the College; more accessible info; better sense
of who to contact in other offices (CDO, admissions)
- Problem finding people in the regions with Kenyon connections
- Steering committee reaching out to ppl they know personally to drive
attendance
- Young alumni remain a challenge
- Budget discussion followed
Joint Session with President Decatur and KFEC
Lunch Discussion Groups
- Diversity Efforts at Kenyon with ODEI staff and Alumni of Color Mentors
- Greatest challenges facing Kenyon’s efforts
- Faculty searches
- Diversifying curriculum
- Financial support of diverse students
- Impact of national racial tensions on Kenyon students
- Not slipping into a deficit model
- Policy changes happening at Kenyon
- Discriminatory harassment policy (in draft stage) in line with Title IX policy
- ODEI vs Community Planning Community
- Chart a way forward (CPC)
- Shared mission: how do we move forward and find ways to work across
difference
- We could strengthen our capacities as listeners
- Rigorousness and generosity
- What is Kenyon doing to attract diverse faculty
- Position descriptions used for searches (advertise ourselves as someone looking
for diverse pool)
- Looking into search procedures
- Top 10 candidate list review
- ODEI role on campus
- Students going through grieving process for sense of Kenyon that they
expected/hoped
- Ensure the we have structures and personnel as we work through issues that
are bound to happen
- External review of the office last August
- Restructured the office to provide clarity as who to go to for what
- Discriminatory harassment policy
- Investigation based, streamlined, clarified process
- Revamp diversity programming during new student orientation
- Review of student handbook
- Resources and support for student community
- Low-income student class material assistance
- Grad school/Job/Internship interview/application cost assistance
- REACH mentoring program
- Upper-class mentors for first-year students
- KEEP program loan forgiveness and work study forgiveness
- Unity house and Snowden cultural center
- Weekend Review
- Student panel is integral
- Provide background info on panels in advance
- Substance and core work has improved
- Build time in to discuss what we’ve just heard at prior sessions to decide Council’s role
- Would like to see a panel of seniors and hear what they’d like from us
- Survey will be sent out as a follow up
- Preparations and Agenda items for May meeting
- AC nominations
- Report from Admissions
- Time with President Decatur
- Shorter presentations with more time for questions
- Janet Marsden re: results of the survey regarding marketing/branding (get the report
ahead of time)
- AC event at beer tent at Reunion Weekend
- AC sponsored event at Commencement
- Extend Executive Committee terms
- Killen leading effort to look at alumni volunteer organizations to see if AC is
operating under an old model, take a 30,000 ft view of Council and other groups
- Strong alumni representation in VP of College Relations search
- AC nominations process
- Ask each AC member to nominate at least one person
- More substance is better
- Send out link to nomination form multiple times
- Tap regional committees and class agents
- Baker thanks Council for attending and asks regional leaders to stay for discussion
Meeting adjourned at 2:55 p.m.