Alumni involvement:
Why active and supportive alumni are critical to the university

Ohio Today: First of all, we would like to talk about the involvement of alumni in Ohio University and why that's so important. The goal is for this to be a very easy, free-flowing conversation among the three of you. What do each of you think is the value of alumni to an institution? What can alumni do to help further a university?

ALDEN: You want me to start?

GLIDDEN: Why not? You're the "senior" (president) here.

ALDEN: I think it's very important to get the alumni involved because I think that the alumni should take pride in the university, and we should do everything we can to instill that pride. One of the first things I did when I came here -- in January of '62 it was -- was to go out and visit every alumni club we had. And at each of the clubs I talked about the importance of alumni involvement.

First of all, they ought to come back to the campus as often as they can. Secondly, they ought to be involved with students in their area. We'd like to have alumni recommend students to the admissions office. Thirdly, I'd like to have them come back to campus and talk with people in their individual colleges -- whether it's engineering, or liberal arts, or business or what have you. And then, of course, the alumni ought to get involved in contributing to the university. I think it's an important obligation, and the more they do it, the happier their lives will be because when somebody gives money and sees it go to work for the university, it gives them a great deal of excitement. So those are my thoughts about alumni involvement. 

PING:  Well, I would second everything that Vern said, and I think the nurturing of the sense of pride in the university through active alumni groups is very critical. I think that a university's alumni, potentially, are a very powerful force for public advocacy. I don't think public universities have ever figured out how to marshal that potential or how to use it well. But, it clearly ought to be a powerful factor in being persuasive with the governmental processes and funding resources. Secondly, I see the alumni as being important to the funding of the university and providing a margin of difference -- funding beyond the basic operating costs that come through tuition and appropriations. I think they are, as Vern said, very important in helping identify, recruit and hold the interests of potential students. And you can do this in a myriad of different ways, from (hosting) gatherings of students who have been admitted to (helping with) the Sibs Weekend transportation. And I think that the point is well made that the alumni represent an important bridge between the student on campus and a variety of careers.

Ohio Today: What about public advocacy? What can the university do to encourage alumni involvement in that?

PING: Well, I think that one of the very basic tasks is the process of keeping (alumni) informed, making sure that they understand that while tuition is going up, if you look at the revenue that the institution has (from the state and federal government) to fund each student, (what is lacking) is in fact striking. And I think there needs to be a very deliberate effort at identifying alumni who are active in political parties and linking them to particular legislators. For almost two decades we went, as a group of university presidents, round and round about this. We've tried a variety of strategies, and I don't think we found a good, effective way.

GLIDDEN: We have a program that was effective to a certain extent. It was based on electronic technology that would use a Web site (to send) things directly to legislators. And the alumni association really sponsored that and organized it. In fact, we took the lead in the state, and some other institutions picked it up after us. Well, the problem with that is that, once you've done something like that for about so long, legislators sort of catch on. And they'll get a flood of mail about something, and then they may not consider it quite as seriously. But electronic technology does enable us to do a lot more things than we could ever do.

PING: And, Bob, you use that very well. (Before) it was a tool that was not available.

GLIDDEN: I think the only thing I can add to what Vern and Charlie have said about alumni involvement is that we have gotten great service from alumni in our professional schools to help us revise curricula or come up with programs that are needed by their respective professions. Probably the most effective has been the civil engineering advisory board. I can think of several specific things in their curriculum (that they gave advice on), one of the most recent being the construction engineering management program. A group of civil engineers said, you know, one of our problems is that people are trained as engineers or they are trained in management. We need some people who have expertise in both because we can't find people who have engineering knowledge to help us manage these big projects. And so, they have taken the lead in, first of all, raising money to help make such a program grow and then advising on exactly what the curriculum should contain to help prepare people for this. And that's just one example. So that's another way alumni can be really helpful to an institution. They will give you free service and free advice from their own experience. You could hire your own consultants, spend a lot of money and not get as good of a result.  

PING: And that's been a recurring pattern. It's been going on for a lot of years. And it's greatly needed in professional schools.

GLIDDEN: Yes, and it is really dependent upon how much the dean and the faculty are willing to really listen to alumni. And that is one of the reasons it has been so effective in engineering at Ohio University. They have really used the board well and really listened to it. We've had some other boards of visitors. The business board has been very active and helpful in that regard.

And the other thing that I think was touched upon, but really is very important, is networking. If alumni feel engaged and have the pride in their institution that these gentlemen have talked about, they will help young graduates when they get out of school to get located. That is particularly true in places such as New York or Chicago where students may want to go to make their careers, but are a little bit lost as to how to get started. And boy, (it helps) if you just have somebody there, maybe even just somebody you can stay with for a while until you find a place to live, or (somebody helping with) the contacts for interviews and certainly, a reference, and getting you tips as to where to go for what and so forth. It's really valuable.

Ohio Today: Can each of you point to specific initiatives or projects during your presidencies in which alumni really made a difference?

GLIDDEN: Well, if you think about specific curricular projects, for example having to do with the educational heart of the institution, I think what I just mentioned is probably the most obvious effort in which alumni have said, "Our students really need to know this." I can't think of a general initiative that we relied on alumni alone to do, but there certainly have been a lot of recruiting efforts. The Dayton chapter, for example, gosh, they have sponsored events to recruit students for years and years.

ALDEN: When I was here, I tried to set up (a visiting committee) for each of our colleges. Each was composed of alumni who were in that particular field. For example, in the College of Business we included people who were heads of companies, who would come in once or twice a year just to meet with the faculty and the students and so on. After I left, the visiting committees were sort of abandoned, but I thought they were very useful when I was here, and they consisted of alumni, whether it was engineering or journalism or business. They were very helpful. Alumni comprised most of the people on that committee although I also brought some people who were not alumni to it.  

PING: I think the boards of visitors or advisory boards, college by college, continue to be alumni initiatives that have had an impact on curriculum and careers for graduates. In the mid-'70s, one of the big issues was how to build the student population, and the alumni clearly were a help -- because it's not just getting applications. It's getting students who have applied and been accepted to (take the next step and) matriculate and getting the students that you most want from that pool to matriculate.

ALDEN: One event I recall very vividly: A group right outside of Boston one time put on a program that would commemorate Rufus Putnam and Manasseh Cutler. In my inaugural address I talked about the New England influence on Ohio University, and so I was just delighted when they put on this Putnam-Cutler event because it, again, gave me and others an opportunity to talk about our heritage that went back to the early days of New England. I oftentimes boasted about the fact that we were one of the first universities established in the western territories and that we had this heritage that went back to the early New England states. Putnam and Cutler, I thought, were important in our history, and I think taking pride in the history of Ohio University is very important for alumni as well.

GLIDDEN:  Let me go back to mention one example of an alumni board that is not professionally linked. It's easier to get specific advice from people in a given profession. But the Honors Tutorial College alumni board is a different kind. Now that is a special college, and those are very gifted students to begin with. But their alumni really take an interest in how that college is doing, its direction, its philosophy, academic standards, what they can do to help the students, etc. It's kind of a heartwarming example. They are just an excellent example of how alumni can really sort of keep a faculty and a dean moving forward and moving in the right direction.  

PING: I suspect all of us would have a catalog of events like the one Vern mentioned that the alumni organize and sponsor. (I remember one at which) they served the dinner that Jefferson had served Manasseh Cutler in the White House. It was really a very extraordinary event that I think nurtured the sense of history and pride in that history.

GLIDDEN: It's hard to know how much effect our distinguished or distinctive history has on alumni loyalty, but both are quite extraordinary with Ohio University. I mean we have all been associated with various institutions in one way or another, and I've never seen anything like the kind of affinity for their alma mater that Ohio University alumni have among other public universities. I think that maybe the history is part of that sense of pride.

PING: History and place. There is a sense that this is, in fact, a very special place.

ALDEN: Even the Templeton background…

GLIDDEN: [Interjecting in agreement] Sure.

ALDEN:  Even the fact that we had, very early, a minority student come to Ohio University. Oberlin brags about it, but I think we predated them, didn't we?

GLIDDEN:  Yes. I’m not sure when their first graduate was, but when was Oberlin founded?

PING: 1830s.

GLIDDEN: Yes, see, and our first (minority student) graduated in 1828.

ALDEN: Right.

Continue to Section 2: Favorite memories
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Posted 09-12-06