UMass Amherst Alumni Association
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Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Monday, January 7, 2008
Worcester Crowne Plaza
6:00 p.m.
Committee Members: Ron Grasso, Sean LeBlanc, Kathleen Mitchell, Andy Hochberg, Anna Symington, Christine Lopes, Ron Spicer
Absent: Mary Custard, Kim Sherman, Hal Lane
Guests: Mike Morris
Call to Order
The meeting convened at 6:04 p.m.
Alumni Database
Motion: Anna made a motion, seconded by Sean, to go into Executive Session under the privilege of potential litigation. The motion passed unanimously.
Motion: Sean made a motion, seconded by Anna, to amend the resolution passed by the Executive committee on December 11, 2007 to reflect that the Alumni Association owns the alumni database. The motion passed unanimously.
Motion: Sean made a motion, seconded by Anna, to authorize the Alumni Association’s legal counsel to generate a letter setting out the various options of the Alumni Association relative to the possibility of the University taking control over the alumni/donor database owned by the Alumni Association. The motion passed unanimously.
Motion: Christine made a motion, seconded by Jackie, to come out of Executive Session. The motion passed unanimously.
Committee members decided to convene a special Executive Committee meeting to discuss the various courses of action drafted by legal counsel, and scheduled the meeting for Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 5:00 p.m. E.S.T via conference call. Additionally, the committee decided to convene a special meeting of the Board of Directors in accordance with the timeframe outlined in the Alumni Association bylaws. The committee scheduled the special meeting of the Board of Directors for Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. E.S.T. via conference call.
Approval of Minutes
Motion: Ron G. made a motion, seconded by Sean, to approve the minutes of the November 14, 2007 Executive Committee meeting. The motion passed with 6 ayes and 2 abstentions.
Motion: Sean made a motion, seconded by Ron S., to approve the minutes of the December 11, 2007 Executive Committee meeting. During discussion, Andy suggested that the minutes be amended to include the resolution passed by the Executive Committee. The motion to approve the minutes as amended passed with 6 ayes and 2 abstentions.
President’s Update
The Chancellor’s search committee will be talking to a number of candidates in January, and the search committee will have their next meeting in February. Kathleen also noted that she was in a meeting with President Wilson and others, and extended an invitation to President Wilson to attend a future Alumni Association Executive Committee meeting to discuss the life sciences initiative.
Executive Director’s Report
A revised job description for the vacant Executive Director of the Alumni Association position will be sent to Human Resources, and Deb was hopeful that the salary range will increase to make it more competitive and attractive to candidates when compared to similar positions at competing educational institutions. University approval is currently pending for the Alumni Association to hire their preferred executive search firm to recruit candidates.
Deb reported that University Advancement is working to develop a public relations strategy to promote UMass Amherst in the Boston area. Norma will be working to develop a complementary outreach strategy for the Alumni Association
Finally, April 29th, 2008 will be Founder’s Day - the celebration of the 145th Anniversary of the Amherst campus. The Vice Provost is convening a variety of campus constituents to help plan and participate in the event. As part of this event, they plan to invite Governor Patrick, which directly competes with the invitation that the Alumni Association had planned to extend to Governor Patrick to be the guest speaker at a bio-green initiative event. The committee discussed inviting several other individuals to be the guest speaker at this type of event, but decided that having Governor Patrick as the guest speaker was essential in allowing the event to be a successful fund-raiser for the Alumni Association. They decided to postpone the event until mid-September or early October.
February Board Meeting Agenda
A preliminary draft of the February Board of Directors meeting was distributed. Deb noted that she believes that major portions of the new website will be up and running, as well as the career resource section of the website. She hopes to be able to highlight some of these at the Board meeting. The committee also decided that the break-out sessions during the meeting would revolve around the proposed organizational review, including discussions on what constituencies would need to be part of the review, what information they might be seeking from the review, and potential questions that would need to be asked during the review. Sean also noted that he would like the break-out session to have a strong focus on generating questions about the Alumni Association’s membership program that board members would like the consultant to assess during their organizational review.
Kathleen suggested that the Board also consider an analysis of the Alumni Association’s financial assets. She would like to see some of these resources used to generate positive change at the University and raise the Alumni Associations’ profile within the campus community. Sean and Ron both noted that they would like to see the results of an organizational review prior to allocating any large amounts of money to ensure that the Alumni Association does, indeed, have a surplus of funding to finance Alumni Association initiatives in future years.
Additionally, Christine asked that the February Board meeting agenda include a component debriefing the Board on the outcome of the database consolidation proposal by President Wilson’s office.
Committee Reports
Finance and Investments Committee: Ron relayed that the total net worth of the Alumni Association investment portfolio has increased by .5% this year, and noted that the national average is down 1.7%. He believed that the increase in portfolio performance in comparison to the poor financial climate nationally indicates that the Alumni Association’s assets are well diversified and insulated.
Additional committee reports were tabled until a future meeting.
Old Business
None
New Business
Kathleen relayed a request from an alumnus to start a fund for a UMass Amherst golf course. The committee decided that this request should go through the turf management program on campus.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m.
