Berry Alumni Council
Minutes
August 29, 2009
At 9:20 a.m. Frances Richey-Goldby, Alumni Association President, called the meeting to order.
Carolyn Smith opened the meeting with a prayer.
Frances announced to the council that the President’s home would now be called the Webb House in honor of Virginia Webb and her dedication and financial contributions to the College over the years. A reception in her honor will be held Friday, November 13, 2009.
Chris Watters, Director of Alumni Relations, welcomed everyone to the meeting, reviewed the agenda for the day, and provided a few interesting facts provided by the Dean of Student’s Office about this year’s freshman class:
- 630 new freshmen
- 577 first year freshmen
- 76 have a Berry alum in the family
Frances explained how all of the projects the council will be working on this year each relate back to the College’s strategic plan. Frances reviewed the goals for each committee.
Bart Cox, Parliamentarian, inducted the following new council members that were not able to be at the annual meeting in June: Larry Eidson, Tim Goodwin, and Laura Sutton.
Bart also presented the minutes from the January council meeting to the council for approval. There was a motion to approve the minutes as distributed and it was seconded. The motion passed without opposition.
Chris reviewed the Alumni Relations organizational chart and explained some of the changes that had taken place in the department in the last couple of months. The changes reflect the goals of the Alumni Relations office: increase alumni involvement and engagement on campus. The office is aligned with the focus on alumni in different segments.
Gary Waters, Vice President for Enrollment Management, joined the meeting to present about the newly created Gate of Opportunity Scholarships.
Rufus Massey, Assistant Vice President of Enterprise Development, joined the meeting to provide an update on the student enterprises on campus. Rufus also brought some of the students from the different enterprises to talk about what each of their groups is currently working on. The group announced that there would be a Farmer’s Market on campus in the Clara Bowl on September 26, 2009 from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
At 11:05 a.m. everyone was dismissed to join their respective groups for committee meetings.
At 2:45 p.m. Francis called the meeting back to order.
The vice presidents presented their committee reports to the council:
Awards Committee (Clara McRae):
- Reviewed the nomination and awards process for the new members
- Discussed ways to increase nominations
- Discussed using Facebook and Twitter to solicit younger nominees
- The committee will call and write letters to reunion chairs to encourage them to nominate alumni for awards
- Have a small display at Mountain Day
- Worked on adjusting the timeline for awards criteria to be distributed and returned to the committee
Events Committee (Patrick Carter):
- Worked on identifying potential class leaders for upcoming reunions at Mountain Day and Alumni Weekend
Work Week Update (Lewis Copeland):
- Lewis thanked Brenda, Larry, and Milton for all of their hard work over alumni work week
- There were 160 participants and 26 projects completed this year
- Work week 2010 will take place May 23 – May 28
Heritage Committee (Allyson Chambers):
- Reviewed historical information provided to incoming freshmen and made a few changes to it
- Worked on information for the Find A Grave website for the Mount Berry cemetery page; some members of the committee will be meeting at the Sara Hightower Library to do some research for it
Young Alumni and Student Relations (Drew Landis):
- Working on having uniform communication to young alumni
- Samantha Knight talked about the student philanthropy group working to communicate the importance of giving to the college while the students are still at Berry
- Talked about how to communicate with young alumni
- Working on a possible young alumni Facebook page
Financial Support (Larry Eidson):
- Bettyann O’Neill, Vice President of Advancement, presented information about a possible future campaign for the College, but the planning would not be finished until 2012-2017
- Currently they are looking at the needs of the College and how to go about raising the funds
- The student work program and scholarships are the number one priority
- The College still needs $6 million to complete the funding for the Cage Center
- Rufus Massey talked about the need for funding for the student run enterprises
Frances made a few announcements:
- Someone donated the money needed for the student run enterprise to print labels for the milk
- Someone donated money to the guest cottages student run enterprise
- Virginia Web said that she would donate the money to make it possible for the genetics student run enterprise to attend a conference
- Frances is working on finding a generator for one of the enterprises
Frances thanked the Alumni Relations staff and their student workers for all of their hard work.
With no other business Carolyn Smith closed us in prayer and the meeting was adjourned at 3:10 p.m.
Kim Terrell, Secretary