Favorite memories:
The students and alumni who made a difference
Ohio Today: What other memories or reflections do you have about your interactions with students and alumni while you were president?
ALDEN: When I was here, I was very much interested in the students who seemed to have the potential for leadership. And I'd look for them and see if there were any ways that I could maybe help them with conversations or setting up internships or what have you. Two examples of people who have remained with me all my life: One is Robert Fallon (AB '69), and the other is Bob Walter (BSME '67). Both of them were people who seemed to me to be outstanding when they were students here, and I recommended that they go to the Harvard Business School because that is where I had gone and I had taken pride in that. So they went there, and so that was really the beginning of a lifelong relationship with both Robert Fallon and Bob Walter. Both of them have been enormously generous to the university and very much involved. So, those are specific memories of alumni who have stayed very close friends of mine.
PING: You’d be interested (to know) Robert Fallon took a couple of our Cutler Scholars as interns to Korea over this past summer.
GLIDDEN: By the way, that's another thing to mention: We have a lot of alumni who regularly take our students as interns. And Bob, for example, takes a couple of students every summer and has for years. But we have many, many alumni who do that, and it's a service to the students and to the university that often is not recognized as much as it should be. But it's a very important thing that the alumni do for the university. I didn't mean to interrupt the flow of this conversation.
PING: To go back to your original question, I suspect that all three of us have memories of very special experiences with alumni groups. I, as Vern did, because we needed to rebuild relationships, made the rounds of all active alumni groups. One of the things in that first year I learned is how deeply some people feel about the university, and that is a base to build on.
ALDEN: For example, Wil Konneker (BS '43 and MS '47 ) and Edwin Kennedy (AB '26) and so on are alumni who really became involved with the university. They are really examples of people who've made an enormous difference in the university.
GLIDDEN: The alumni from my era at Ohio University are quite a bit younger, of course, but it is heartwarming when you get a letter or an e-mail message from an alum. Some of the people who have written to me or stayed in touch are people whom I knew in student government. You know, students who were leaders in that way.
I once had -- and I can't remember his name -- a young man whom I had a little bit of an e-mail altercation with. He wrote me a very rude note in the middle of the night about something or the other. [Everyone laughs] I don't have any idea now of what it was, but I wrote back and said to him that I wondered if he would talk to me that way to my face and that if he'd like the opportunity, I'd be glad to see him in my office. [More laughs] And he wrote back an apology that I think was pretty sincere; he really did actually mean it. And I got a note from him not so long ago, since I have retired, thanking me for that little lesson. So, there are little, personal, heartwarming things like that.
Now, for me, I hear now from students that I had back from when I was a music dean back at Bowling Green or Florida State. (People) who are now at that point in their lives when they think, "Gee, I ought to thank some of my teachers."
PING: Isn't it nice?
GLIDDEN: So there is that kind of relationship. But, I agree with Charlie and Vern about alumni gatherings. We did a lot of those over the years, and they were always heartwarming. And there were some big ones: The Dayton alumni chapter celebrated an anniversary, and that was a huge event with a dinner. I still have some champagne glasses from that event. So there is that kind of thing, but also, I can't tell you how many times I've been in an airport somewhere and someone will come up and say, "Aren't you President Glidden?" So, you have those kinds of encounters, and it makes you feel good.
ALDEN: Bob, it's hard not to sit anywhere in the world (without running across) an alumnus that you gave a degree to.
GLIDDEN: I was calling on (the owner of) a wine shop in Bonita Springs, Fla. I was down there in December, and this fellow owns a very elegant wine shop, and so we were stopping and talking with him about the alumni center, as a matter of fact, among other things. And I noticed there was a young couple, and they kept looking at me -- almost to the point that I began to feel a little self-conscious. [Laughter] We were having a conversation in a different part of the room, and they were sitting over here at a table in the corner, and so as they went to go, the young man sort of turned and said, "It was nice to see you, President Glidden." I said, "Wait a minute! Come back!" Turns out they were graduates, and they were there I think it was for a funeral, and they just happened to be there. Yes, that's always heartwarming.
Continue to Section 3: National prominence
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Posted 09-12-06 |
