- The Last Word

Other Departments:
- The President's Perspective
- From the In Box
- Across the College Green
- Through the Gate
- From Your Alumni Association
- In Green and White
- With Your Support
- On the Wall
- Bobcat Tracks
- In Memoriam 

Ohio University unites us all

Rick Fatica

Charles Clarke Jr., AB ’33, Patricia Ackerman, BA ’66, and President Robert Glidden at the 1998 Black Alumni Reunion.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of our work in the alumni business is getting to know thousands of fascinating, committed graduates and friends of Ohio University. Their interests in and support of the University are as diverse as their nationalities, regions, dialects and skin colors. In most ways imaginable, our graduates are a microcosm of our exciting and wonderful world.

This issue of Ohio Today — with its focus on our University’s ties around the world — prompted me to reflect on my own ethnicity. It made me think about what it means to be an African-American in today’s society, what it means to be the CEO, a black CEO, of a major university alumni association. Is the world a better place for me, I wondered, than it was for my father, 20 years my senior?

I concluded that we are getting better, yet we still have room for improvement.

Rick Fatica

Alumni leaf through a yearbook during a recent Golden Era Reunion.

All of this leads me to a topic that has been weighing on my mind lately. How do we best serve the wonderfully diverse populations of Ohio University graduates? How can we reach out in ways that are meaningful and valuable? What does it take, and how do we know when we have done it correctly?

About the same time this magazine arrives in your mailbox, the Alumni Association will be sponsoring a huge reunion. This unique event promises to attract more than 600 African-American and other black Ohio University graduates to Athens to reconnect with each other and their alma mater. The idea is to effectively engage these alumni in the life of Ohio University.

Next March, we plan a Celebration of Women Weekend with special events and programs aimed at female graduates. It will focus on issues facing women today, give graduates the opportunity to share their experiences and ideas about success with current students and provide a forum for faculty, staff and administrators to gain insight into how best to prepare female students for the leadership roles they will assume in life.

These are just two examples of the types of dynamic programs that are making a difference on our campus and others across the country. Yet this sort of specialized programming might lead you to believe we are trying to segregate our alumni populations. In fact, I receive several calls a year from alumni concerned that this sort of targeted activity actually hurts the social fabric of the institution. “By now,” they ask, “can’t we all get along?”

Not surprisingly, this conversation is taking place in alumni association boardrooms and staff meetings across the country as we work to best serve our universities and meet the needs of our amazingly diverse alumni. The fact is, programs based on college, school or specific interest draw people together in meaningful ways — and all are held in the name and spirit of Ohio University. The alumni office thinks of this type of programming not as special, just different.

As the University has grown over the past half century, so have the backgrounds and interests of our students and graduates. We are all benefactors of that diversity.

So the next time you get together with the folks who live on your block, with the people who attend your church or with the friends and relatives who share your heritage, consider how valuable the thread that connects you with others.

And if that thread is Ohio University, all the better.

Ralph Amos is assistant vice president and executive director of alumni relations.