Upfront: My Friends, Your MSU Alumni Association Remains in Good Hands
MY FRIENDS, YOUR MSUAA REMAINS IN GOOD HANDS
As you peruse this very special issue of the MSU Alumni Magazine, your pride will be captured, I hope, by some exciting happenings at your alma mater. Just to mention a few, we have the affiliation of the Detroit College of Law with MSU, the Tuition Guarantee that keeps tuition at the level of inflation so long as we continue to enjoy the same levels of support from the State of Michigan, a national championship by our debate team, President Clinton coming to our Spring Convocation, and the $10.4 million technology fund recommended by Governor Engler.
Closer to home, our good friend and ten-year MSUAA associate director Keith Williams will become my successor as executive director effective July 1, 1995. Although I have already begun my new responsibilities as vice president for university development and president of the MSU Foundation, I could not be more pleased by and supportive of President McPherson's choice of Keith Williams as the MSUAA's new leader. Keith has served your alumni association for ten very effective years. In addition, he has served our university as director of academic programming, coordinator of the annual student recruitment Open House, director of Upward Bound, and assistant professor of French. Most recently, Keith was associate vice chancellor for university advancement/relations at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst. Among other things, he was responsible for the design and implementation of programs that interpret the mission of the university to its constituents, internal and external, to create a climate of public and private support.
I know Keith will enjoy the same level of support the alumni have so generously given to the association these past years. Although it would be very tempting to focus on our many accomplishments, and there have been many, I am going to resist that temptation and focus instead on what has been our mission--from the viewpoint of alumni, which I consider one of the greatest resources available to Michigan State University.
- You have helped us in student recruitment. For example, 70 representatives from our regional clubs came to campus this year to acquire knowledge and skills, which they took back to their regions and helped with follow-up calls to more than 7,000 prospective students.
- It was you, the alumni, who helped us stage 170 'college nights.' It was our Student Alumni Foundation that hosted a hospitality suite for our annual student recruitment Open House and gave campus tours to hundreds of prospective students and their parents.
- You breathed new life into our alumni advocacy program this year when so many of you contacted your legislators, elected officials and the media to support important legislation impacting MSU, on issues ranging from the affiliation of the Detroit College of Law to support for the $10.4 million technology fund.
- More than 5,000 of you, alumni and friends, participated in a variety of our educational programs such as Evening College, alumni study-travel programs, Kaleidoscope and lectureships.
- You helped make this our best year ever for alumni lifelong education. You also helped our development activities with your generous contributions. In addition, many of our regional clubs and constituent associations have established endowed scholarship funds.
- Our hats are off to our Oakland County alumni regional club, which this month has fully endowed a $100,000 scholarship for students attending MSU from its area.
- Finally, you form the network of users and linkages as your MSUAA has emerged as a national leader in making electronic mailboxes available and in creating a new and exciting Homepage on the World Wide Web (http://alumni.alumni.msu.edu/alumni/).
This list continues. I trust that the hallmark of the MSUAA remains the many different ways it can assist our alma mater by utilizing our most valuable resource, you, the alumni. Thank you for 12 and a half most wonderful and enjoyable years.
