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Strategic Plan: Exploring the Education Frontier

Strategic Plan: Executive Summary

When the Alumni Council began its strategic planning process in 2006, the initial goal was to identify potential areas of growth and value that would define the future relationship of the Academy and its alumni. Over two meetings, the council brainstormed these areas, called “strategic frontiers” by consultant Douglas Bate, and distilled their ideas into a single Education Frontier.

The common themes that emerged were that education is life-long, that Andover alumni want a meaningful relationship with the Academy beyond financial support, and that this relationship allows learning not only from school faculty and leaders, but also from other alumni and current students.

At the same time, these discussions prompted a re-examination of Alumni Council, its purposes, and its structure. Members agreed that serving on the Alumni Council fosters connectedness of alumni with one another and with the academy; allows for personal involvement through volunteer leadership opportunities; encourages philanthropy; engages alumni with the school as it exists today; and allows these alumni to articulate the academy’s mission throughout the country and around the world.

Council leadership developed a three-pronged approach for Alumni Council to:

increase the relevance and importance of Council to alumni and the academy;
maintain a stronger partnership with Alumni Affairs to better serve alumni and the Academy; and
continue to develop new program initiatives with the Education Frontier as the cornerstone of alumni connectedness.

The lively brainstorming sessions resulted in a treasure trove of ideas for program initiatives to serve these purposes and led to a process of redefining the roles of the council’s eight standing committees and including many of these ideas as committee goals. These committee descriptions and goal statements are a key product of this strategic planning process and are included in the full report.

Other initiatives were undertaken by the Council’s leadership and ad hoc committees, including:

Non Sibi Day – a program linking students and alumni in community service projects on campus, in neighboring communities, across the country, and around the world began on September 15, 2007, under the leadership of the Non Sibi Day committee, chaired by Thomas Beaton ’73.
Athletic Hall of Honor – created and established under the leadership of the council’s Athletics Committee, with first induction ceremony in June, 2008.
Communications – an ad hoc committee provided alumni input for the school’s new web site and technology plan and remains involved in a possible alumni web portal.
Governance – established a permanent committee to monitor Council effectiveness, implementation of strategic plan, working relationships with Alumni Affairs, new member selection and orientation, and regular feedback from members and committee co-chairs.
Use of Technology – tested new means of recording proceedings, encouraging broader participation, communicating between meetings, and preserving educational content for dissemination to alumni.
Elected Alumni Trustees – initiated greater Council involvement in nomination process and participation of elected Trustees in Executive Committee meetings.
Council Restructuring – major review of Council By-laws, including restructuring of committees, clarifying responsibilities of members and co-chairs, and reorganizing membership selection process.

The Council committee work plans and the continued implementation of these initiatives reinforces this strategic plan’s intended status as an dynamic, evolving process for continued program improvement and innovation.

Copies of the complete Strategic Plan are available upon request. Contact Judy Turgeon at Alumni Affairs (978-749-4291).

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JANUARY 2009

ALUMNI COUNCIL STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The Alumni Council is the governing body of the Andover-Abbot Alumni Association. As such, the Council’s purpose is to:

provide advice and counsel to the Academy, both on request and at its own initiative, particularly on matters relating to education, administration, admission, financial aid, athletics, alumni affairs, and communication between and among the Academy, its alumni, and the external community;
help the Trustees and administration raise annual and capital funds for the Academy; and
promote beneficial relations, especially by serving as a liaison between alumni and the Academy and by strengthening connections among alumni.

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ALUMNI COUNCIL STRATEGIC PLAN

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Class of 1825

Introduction

The Alumni Council, founded in 1946, is a group of approximately 130 alumni and alumnae who serve four-year terms and meet on campus twice a year to provide advice and counsel to Phillips Academy. Serving on the Alumni Council fosters connectedness of alumni with one another and with the Academy by allowing for personal involvement through volunteer leadership opportunities; encouraging philanthropy; engaging alumni with the school as it exists today; and allowing these alumni to articulate the Academy’s mission throughout the country and around the world.

While Alumni Council meetings often have a specific topic for presentation and discussion, much of the ongoing work of the Council is conducted by its eight standing committees and additional administrative committees. The standing committees are: Alumni Admissions Representatives, Annual Giving Board, Athletics, Class Secretaries and Web Editors, Mentoring and Young Alumni, Multicultural Affairs, Regional Associations, and Reunions and Special Events. Information on the role and goals of each committee is included in this report.

The Council’s Executive Committee includes Council officers, elected alumni trustees and committee co-chairs and meets at each Council meeting and again in mid-winter. It appoints members of the Council, approves committee co-chairs, nominates alumni trustee candidates, and establishes the main topic for each Council meeting.

The Governance committee (which includes the Nominating Committee) organizes the nomination and orientation of alumni trustees, Alumni Council members and committee co-chairs and provides an ongoing review and assessment of the Alumni Council, its work, and effectiveness in accomplishing its mission.

In addition, there are, at this writing, three ad hoc committees with specific, finite charges: Non Sibi Day, Communications Liaison to the Academy (CLAC), and Strategic Innovation (SIC).

The key objectives of the Council’s strategic planning process are: reconsidering the role of Council broadly; reconsidering the Council’s structure with the goal of allowing for greater efficiency; and clarifying committee roles and defining short-term and long-term goals for each standing committee. This effort began in early 2006 under the leadership of Council President Grace Curley ’81 and Alumni Affairs Director Mike Ebner ’70, and was continued by Council President Peter Hetzler ’72 and new Alumni Affairs Director Debby Murphy ’86. The three-pronged approach the Council developed sought to:

increase the relevance and importance of Council to alumni and the Academy;
maintain and strengthen the partnership with Alumni Affairs to better serve alumni and the Academy; and
continue to develop new program initiatives with the Education Frontier as the cornerstone of alumni connectedness.

Steve Matloff ’91 chaired the Strategic Innovation Committee. Part of his contribution was to keep in close touch with all parts of the Council, capturing the work of each committee and regularly communicating with committee co-chairs to seek their reactions to the planning process in an ongoing evaluation of Council effectiveness. His regular progress reports reminded the Council of its own accomplishments and encouraged continued involvement.

In addition, Steve presented a vision of the Council as a testing ground for new operational methods – including utilizing new technology for collaboration – which he enthusiastically demonstrated during the course of the planning process. His concept of separating content and delivery in considering how to advance the Education Frontier impacted both the operations of the Council and the development of the school’s new website.

The following report chronicles the strategic planning process, which on three separate occasions engaged the entire Council in developing and evaluating creative ideas for advancing the general theme. The key documents generated during this process are included as appendices to this report. They contain a rich collection of potential initiatives for accomplishing the Council’s mission, one that future Councils can revisit periodically. As a result, this strategic plan is not a static, step-by-step program but rather serves as a framework for continuing the process of developing and implementing new ideas for the benefit of Phillips Academy and its alumni for years to come.

Peter T. Hetzler, MD ’72, President, Andover Alumni Council
Stephen Matloff ’91, Chair, Strategic Innovation Committee

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CREATING A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR ALUMNI COUNCIL, 2006-2008

Winter/Spring 2006 – Alumni Interviews and Council Brainstorming

In early 2006, Director of Alumni Affairs Michael Ebner ’70 proposed that the Alumni Council undertake a strategic planning process to enhance the relationship between the Academy and its alumni. The Council, under the leadership of Grace Curley ’81, embraced the idea of identifying potential areas of growth and value that would define the Academy-alumni relationship of the future. These areas, called “strategic frontiers” by consultant Douglas Bate, would hold promise for exciting new opportunities beyond existing programs and activities.

To prime the pump for new ideas, Executive Committee members conducted phone and e-mail interviews with 44 alumni to explore their relationships with Andover and glean ideas for new services and programs. Through that process, four possible strategic frontiers were identified: Education, Service, Gatherings, and Electronic Communications. The goal then was to narrow this to one frontier through a brainstorming session with the Alumni Council. During the spring 2006 Council meeting, about 60 members participated in a program in which they were asked to be as creative as possible and list ideas, programs or events for each of these categories. The resulting detailed list is included as Appendix 1.

After all groups had visited each frontier, each member was asked to list one particular favorite idea. After checking through the many forms submitted, it was clear that the area most mentioned was Education. It was not simply the number of potential programs mentioned from that category, but also the overlap with E-Communications, Gatherings and Service. Many of the possible events or ideas in the other categories had the feel of educational opportunities, whether it was video streaming, offering internships, or non sibi events, among many others. The common themes were that: education is lifelong; alumni want a meaningful relationship with the Academy beyond financial support; and more interaction and involvement allows learning not only from school faculty and leaders, but also from alumni who are experts in certain areas.

That Education emerged as the prime frontier for Alumni Council came as no surprise. Informal conversations with alumni had for years suggested that Andover is identified as a place of excellence in educating people – both as students and as lifelong members of the Andover community. Based on this feedback, Alumni Affairs had begun shifting its limited resources toward the notion that Andover is primarily still a place of education in the minds of its alumni. Programs such as AndoverAgain, Broadening Horizons, and Alumni Travel grew out of the concept of education as a central, lifelong interest.

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Fall 2006 – Mapping the Education Frontier

Within the general Education Frontier, the programs and ideas generated at the spring 2006 meeting were organized into six ossible program initiatives which were reviewed by members in advance of the October 2006 Alumni Council meeting:

a broader program of video streaming
expanding the Andover classroom
e-communications: improving the school’s web presence
e-communications: forming new networks for Andover alumni
educational gatherings for alumni
Non Sibi Day initiative: learning through service

These initiatives are described in greater detail in Appendix 2.

The beacon of the Council’s strategic plan has been Non Sibi Day. Conceived by Alumni Affairs Director Mike Ebner ’70 and developed under the leadership of Ebner and new Council President Peter Hetzler, it was to be a collaborative effort between Alumni Council, Alumni Affairs and the Academy to promote learning through service.

President Hetzler created an ad hoc Non Sibi Day Committee with Tom Beaton ’73 as chair to organize a global event for fall 2007 with service projects for alumni, parents, and friends in many national and international regions. Chad Green, Director of Community Service, and his staff began planning programs involving students, faculty and staff in projects in Andover and surrounding communities. Jenny Savino, Associate Director of Alumni Affairs, coordinated the off-campus projects and activities.

With the Non Sibi Day initiative well under way, the October 2006 Council meeting focused on the other five program initiatives, with Council members and other alumni leaders actively engaged in small group discussions. These generated 15 possible activities in support of the five areas described. The work session concluded with a sticker voting process, which highlighted a clear interest in improving electronic communications and direct services for alumni.

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Winter/Spring 2007 – Exploring Content/Distribution and Council Operations

At the Executive Committee meeting of January 25, 2007, strategic planning progress was reported on several fronts. President Hetzler and Steve Matloff reported on a meeting with Alumni Affairs staff that generated a list of current programs and activities to help Council members understand all the functions of the office, only one of which is the Alumni Council. The list is included as Appendix 3.

President Hetzler also announced the following:

The Council’s strategic plan would take on a three-pronged approach:
     - increase the relevance and importance of Council to alumni and the
        Academy;
     - maintain and strengthen the partnership with Alumni Affairs to better
        serve alumni and the Academy; and
     - continue to develop new program initiatives with the Education Frontier
       as the cornerstone of alumni connectedness.
The appointment of Steve Matloff as Chair of the ad hoc Strategic Innovation Committee. Steve defined the Education Frontier as it related to the Council’s strategic plan, distinguishing the educational content produced at the Academy from the delivery of this content. He pushed for Council to reach out to younger alumni especially by exploring new uses of technology and electronic media.
The appointment of Les Callahan ’68 and Christine Balling ’86 as co-chairs of the ad hoc Communications Liaison to the Academy (CLAC) – replacing theformer Communications Committee – to provide alumni input on communications strategies and implementation broadly, on the redesign of www.andover.edu specifically (including a new alumni web portal), and on the Council’s online capabilities.
The establishment of an ad hoc Bylaws Committee chaired by Sara Su Jones ’91 to review and propose changes to the Council’s bylaws and structure.

The Alumni Council meeting of April 28, 2007 included a presentation from Steve Matloff elaborating on the content-distribution distinction undergirding the Education Frontier and a new focus on Council’s practical operations. As part of that presentation, Steve reported on extensive phone interviews that were conducted with committee cochairs to identify potential areas for improvement of the Council’s structure and operations. The minutes reflecting Steve’s presentation are included as Appendix 4.

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Fall 2007 – Initiatives Underway

In response to issues raised at the spring meeting, President Hetzler established a Governance Committee, chaired by Council Vice President Susan Urie Donahue ‘73, to provide an ongoing review of the Council’s work and to focus on roles and responsibilities, composition, knowledge, effectiveness and leadership. This committee worked to organize and conduct the inaugural orientation session for new members on October 26, 2007. Moreover, the Governance Committee raised several important issues for consideration by the Bylaws Committee and played a role in significantly improving the nomination process – both for the alumni trustee election in 2008 and for the recruitment and consideration of new Council members. More recently, the committee has conducted post-meeting surveys and is developing an “exit interview” evaluation to capture ideas for improvement from members as their Council terms conclude.

At the fall 2007 Council meeting, Steve Matloff reported that the following strategic initiatives were already well underway:

Non Sibi Day – The defining programmatic initiative of the Strategic Plan, with the first annual day on September 15, 2007 a major success on campus and worldwide.
Governance – The establishment of a permanent committee charged with advising the President and Executive Committee on issues including Council proceedings and fostering close cooperation with Alumni Affairs, Council member/co-chair satisfaction, new member selection and alumni trustee nominations, bylaws review, progress of the Strategic Plan and ongoing strategic planning, and communications review.
Bylaws – Comprehensive review and overhaul by ad hoc committee (became part of Governance Committee in spring 2008).
New Member Orientation – Creation of orientation session for new Council members to meet every Leaders’ Weekend.
Defining Alumni Council Members’ Roles – Creation of job descriptions for Council members with summaries of committee roles and a Co-chair Handbook.
Communications – Creation of ad hoc committee (Communications Liaison to the Academy – CLAC) charged with collaborating with Alumni Affairs and the Academy to help consider communications strategies and implementation broadly, the redesign of www.andover.edu (including a new alumni web portal), and the Council’s online capabilities.
Understanding Alumni Affairs’ Duties – Participation in Alumni Affairs “retreat” which detailed extensive programs for which Alumni Affairs is responsible.
Alumni Trustees – An extensive overhaul of the alumni trustees nomination process and more direct involvement of alumni trustees in Council meetings and activities.
Athletic Hall of Honor – Creation and establishment followed by the first induction ceremony in June 2008; consideration of similar recognition for Arts and Sciences (concept received little support and was tabled).

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Winter/Spring 2008 – Structural Changes and Revitalized Committees

Discussions on many of the initiatives continued into the winter, with the Council’s officers, Bylaws Committee and Governance Committee developing ideas to both advance the Council’s strategic goals and to address concerns expressed by the committee co-chairs. Associate Director of Alumni Affairs Dick Howe ’64 outlined these discussions and the resulting proposals in a document submitted to the Executive Committee in January 2008. These proposals provided a single process for recruiting and selecting Council members, consolidated Council committees into nine permanent committees, and proposed several changes in the structure of Council meetings. The complete document is included as Appendix 5.

This document was discussed and approved by the Executive Committee at its meeting of January 31, 2008. The Bylaws committee was asked to draft amendments to put these changes into effect. Many hours of drafting, review and discussion led by co-chair Sara Su Jones provided a revised set of bylaws that was submitted to and approved by the full Council on May 3, 2008. These changes are summarized in Appendix 6.

During this same time period, Vice President Susan Donahue led an expanded Nominating Committee through the task of contacting more than 50 alumni by phone, providing extensive information about Alumni Council, membership responsibilities, meeting schedules, and committee choices. Thirty-four new members were approved by the Executive Committee and were invited to join the Council.

Also at the spring meeting, the strategic planning process continued within the Council committees. Both at their Friday afternoon meetings and during the Saturday morning brainstorming session again facilitated by Doug Bate, Council members thoroughly reviewed and discussed strategic planning progress to date. Each committee refined its mission, discussed its potential impact on the Education Frontier, and developed shortand long-term goals as follows:

Alumni Admissions Representatives Committee

            Co-chairs:
            Brooke Webster ’76, Sara Su Jones ’91, Michael Marrus ’81,
            Katherine Bartlett Kimball ’01

            Description:
            Members are selected from the pool of current Alumni Admissions Representatives
             (AARs). They conduct outreach to potential applicants, interview candidates for
            admission, and recruit and train other AARs. Committee members also advise the
            Admission Office on issues of importance to the admissions process and report on
            these issues to the Alumni Council.

            Short-term goals:
            - Continue to expand the role and usefulness of Committee.
            - Where possible, seek to arrange alumni interviews in place of principal
            interviews (which occur when there is no local AAR to conduct an interview).

            Long-term goals:
            - Continue to strengthen AARs’ connection with Admissions. Increase the
            number of AARs, especially in underserved areas, and identify new potential
            sources of applicants in those underserved areas.
            - Increase awareness of AAR program among all alumni, perhaps through an
            item in PA’s electronic newsletter.
            - With the Admission Office, continue to develop the concept of AAR regional
            coordinators and refine their role.
            - Help to identify additional underserved areas for future focus, with
            committee members and other AARs proactively seeking to extend the reach
            of the Admission Office.

Annual Giving Board

Co-chairs:
Claudia Arrigg Koh, MD ’67, Alfred Blum Jr. ’62, Mary-Ann Somers ’82

            Description:
            Members are selected from alumni who are successful head class agents and
            other active fundraising volunteers. The AGB provides volunteer perspective,
            advice and support to the Academy on strategies, objectives and programs
            related to the Andover Fund. Areas of focus include annual and reunion giving,
            integration of annual giving in capital campaigns, and special projects such
            as donor recognition opportunities.

            Short-term goals:
            - Address the decreasing number of gifts less than $250 by making
            solicitations more specific and tangible.
            - Build giving and participation of the 10 youngest classes through “20/20”
            initiative.
            - Increase giving and, especially, participation from classes of ’60s, ’70s.

            Long-term goals:
            - Help devise strategies, messages and solicitations that address the issue of
            declining participation in annual giving. Give particular attention to the
            classes of the ‘60s and ‘70s, modeled on success of the “20/20” initiative.
            - Recommend ways to improve annual giving stewardship.
            - Integrate Andover Fund goals/messages with those of overall campaign.

Athletics Committee

Co-chairs:
John Kane ’63, Abigail Harris ’96

            Description:
            Provides support for Andover athletics; promotes good relations between
            the athletic program and alumni, parents, and students; and oversees the
            selection and induction of individuals and teams for the Athletic Hall of Honor.

            Goals:
            - Identify ways for alumni to provide mentoring to students and other alumni
            on athletics issues (e.g., youth coaching, competitive experience), including
            speakers/panels/dinners on campus.
            - Identify and promote opportunities for alumni to volunteer in athletics on
            campus and in their own communities.
            - Explore possible online athletics network for exchange of ideas and
            information.

Class Secretaries and Web Editors Committee

Co-chairs:
Thomas Seeley ’90, Alan Cantor ’76, Stefanie Scheer Young ‘81

            Description:
            Members selected from the group of Class Secretaries and Web Editors;
            maintains good communications among these alumni and with the Academy,
            represents their common interests, and encourages the use of new technology
            to improve alumni communications.

            Short-term goals:
            - Develop new Handbook to incorporate findings of 2004 survey of class
            secretaries and make it available online as well as in hard copy.
            - Encourage each secretary to work with the Academy to seek rich
            information on individual class members to improve contacts.
            - Improve tracking of various communications with individual alumni.

            Long-term goals:
            - Encourage multiple class secretaries in order to better follow-up on
            information on class members.
            - Seek ways to improve timeliness of news to class, especially for obits.
            - Encourage class webpages, blogs, listservs, and other electronic
            communications.
            - Consider inter-generational pairings of classes (perhaps with common
            reunions) to help bridge Andover generations.

Mentoring and Young Alumni Committee

            Co-chairs:
            Thomas Beaton ’73, Carolyn Butler Dow ’61, Margaret Klarberg ’96,
            Morissa Sobelson ’05, Michael Koehler ’94, Lisa Lincoln Chioffi ’86

            Description:
            Seeks to create opportunities to connect alumni with Andover and with each
            other across and within generations, professions, and geographic regions,
            and seeks to increase the usefulness and utilization of the online mentoring
            program.

            Short-term goals:
            - Organize mentoring events in additional regions beyond Boston with a range
            of professions and interest groups.
            - Expand the audience for mentoring events through different mechanisms,
            including:
                    * possible videotaping or simulcasting online;
                    * inviting students to Boston-area alum events; and
                    * engaging current faculty to speak where appropriate.
            - Continue to support mentoring module on Andover website.
            - Increase number of connections to mentoring module, especially current
            seniors and reuning alumni.

            Long-term goals:
            - Explore ways to facilitate connections through Facebook.
            - Encourage additional connections between alumni and students through
            current student groups on campus (e.g., news industry professionals
            connecting with The Phillipian).
            - Establish summer job/internship event/program for current students.
            - Compile list of variety of ways Andover communicates (mail, Facebook, etc.).
            - Enable alums to link Bluelink directory with their Facebook pages.
            - Seek and record more mentoring stories/testimonials.
            - Host events with faculty to help re-establish relationships with former
            students.

Multicultural Affairs Committee

Co-chairs:
Christopher Auguste ’76, Rosalina Feliciano ’81, Sidney Smith ’85

            Description:
            Strives to support the Academy in the successful integration of students of
            diverse backgrounds into the Andover community and to foster awareness
            and communication among alumni on topics related to multicultural affairs,
            such as through events and publications.

            Short-term goals:
            - Work with CAMD to plan and conduct GSA reunion in February 2009 and
            Af-Lat-Am 40th anniversary celebration in spring 2009.
            - Assist in setting agenda, alumni outreach, and providing a mentoring
            platform.

            Long-term goals:
            - Replicate in other locations the NY gathering for new admits of color and
            their parents, working with Admissions to determine feasible locations.
            - Work with Mentoring/Young Alumni Committee to encourage new links
            among students and alumni of color.
            - Consider on-campus panel discussions with current students.
            - Work with GSA on future events.

Regional Associations Committee

            Co-chairs:
            Margaret Block Stineman ’92, John James Jr. ’89, Murrey Nelson ’80,
            Michael Meiners ’91

            Description:
            Members selected from current or recent leadership of regional associations
            seek to share best practices for events and activities that successfully
            connect alumni and parents to each other and to the Academy.

            Short-term goals:
            - Test use of shared drive to make common regional association documents
            accessible to RA leaders and Alumni Affairs staff.
            - Prototype online “event management tool” to test facilitation of
            registering all seniors for mentoring, calendar, registration, payment,
            attendance lists, and sorted e-mail lists from alumni database through
            filtering.

            Long-term goal:
            - If short-term goals are successful, integrate into andover.edu and possibly
            open up for broader alumni use to farm the best event ideas and generate
            greater interest through “crowd-sourcing.”

Reunions and Special Events Committee

Co-chairs:
Richard Babson ’76, Susan Urie Donahue ’73, Brian Elworthy ’98

            Description:
            Supports the Academy in creating community among alumni, parents,
            students, faculty, and friends through the annual reunion weekend and other
            shared celebrations, lectures, programs, symposia, and travel.

            Short-term goals:
            - Find sustainable model for Broadening Horizons.
            - Encourage and expand mini-reunions.
            - Evaluate post-reunion survey and modify, if necessary.
            - Explore idea of capturing alumni stories at reunions (modeled after NPR
            StoryCorps with pre-specified questions) to help build content library.

            Long-term goals:
            - Explore development of alumni speakers bureau.
            - Explore possibilities for on-campus symposia.
            - Encourage web-based course and expansion of AndoverAgain.
            - Continue as sounding board and source of ideas for reunions.

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Fall 2008 and Beyond – Implementation, Updating, and Monitoring

In his last Strategic Plan update in November 2008, Steve Matloff urged that several themes continue to guide the efforts of council and committee leadership and members, as well as Academy staff, in engaging in – in President Hetzler's words – ongoing strategic living. The following themes can guide ongoing innovative living, as well.

1. De-couple content and distribution

The opportunities for an entity to communicate with its constituents have grown significantly in the past decade as internet adoption and usage have exploded. In this environment of seemingly infinite possibility, establishing a communication strategy can be very complex. To simplify the task, it is useful to separate what is to be communicated (the messages or content) from how it is to be communicated (the method of distribution). In fact, single messages often can and should be distributed through many different communication channels. This is a guiding principle of leaders in the media space. As the President of MTV’s Global Digital Media stated it, “… [we] make sure our content is everywhere our audiences are ... to keep our brands relevant.”

2. See all programming as content opportunity

There is an implicit cost in time and budget to the planning for and implementing of all programming. To leverage that fixed cost, all programming should be captured in a format that can be cataloged and preserved, and that can have descriptions attached to it (“tagging”) and therefore can be accessed when appropriate. Long Tail theory – the business strategy of “sell[ing] a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities” – is as applicable to a community seeking to engage a diverse constituent base as it is to a businesses seeking to sell to a diverse customer base. The success of such a strategy, though, is partially dependent upon the incremental cost of such capture and storage being low – a goal that can be achieved through systemic focus on the task, ongoing testing of capture methods, and greater and greater volume as some of the costs associated with capture and storage are fixed. That there is some interest in everything searchable has been an important lesson of the internet – a very important lesson for our community since interest sparks engagement.

3. Continue promoting experimentation

At the Donor Luncheon during the Council’s spring 2008 meeting, student speaker Trisha McCrae ’09 stated that, “I learned at Andover that diving in is the only way to learn anything.” Constant experimentation and adaptation is the core of Andover’s academic model and the Andover experience, in general – and it has yielded terrific results in the form of excellent students and citizens for over 230 years. Not surprisingly, this model also yields similarly terrific results for some of today’s most innovative companies – including Google and Facebook – which constantly release product changes, monitor user reaction, and adapt in a short timeframe to positive and negative reaction. Our administrative model for Council and for the Academy in general should continue to covet our academic model and value experimentation, failure and adaptation as critical in developing our institutional intelligence.

4. Address concern over “Digital Divide”

The Andover community as a whole is a diverse one with great variation in – among other characteristics – communication preferences, and Alumni Council is a fairly representative microcosm of the whole. While there may be some correlation with age, the correlation at the very least certainly is not perfect as evidenced by the Class of 1959’s effort to digitize and distribute its historical and current memories in preparation for its 50th Reunion and the Class of 1964’s ongoing active usage of a class listserv. It is important that we recognize and accept that any effort to conform with the lowest common denominator in our community in relation to communications is going to severely limit our ability to engage our community as a whole, for while we RISK alienating some community members if we use “new” communication tools, we ENSURE alienating many others if we do not. “New” tools should be considered complementary to “old” tools, but different in that they offer the only cost-effective method for distributing certain rich content. Our community has begun using these tools with positive response, and we should continue to expand our understanding and use of these and other popular and promising tools. Further, since we know that our alums still look to Andover for education and we are placing great emphasis on mentorship, we should welcome this divide as a great and rare opportunity to turn the mentoring model upside down and to have more technologically-savvy members of our community provide mentorship to those who are less savvy in the use of these tools.

5. “Crowdsourcing”

“Crowdsourcing” is “the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call.... [Responders] submit solutions ... [and] sort through the solutions, finding the best ones.... Perceived benefits ... include:

Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost, and often very quickly.
Payment is by results.
The organization can tap a wider range of talent than might be present in its own organization.”

The Andover community is also diverse with regard to creativity and expertise, and again, Alumni Council is a representative microcosm. We have seen numerous examples of individuals stepping forward to provide guidance – and much more – based upon their specialized knowledge. Usually, those individuals are ecstatic themselves to have the chance to apply their knowledge to a task that benefits this community that is so special to them. As our community continues to face a resource-constrained environment, external input of this sort could be extremely productive and valuable. As such, it likely is worthwhile to experiment with structuring and hosting such open calls for solutions.

6. Shift conversation from “communications” to “knowledge management and transfer”

As a volunteer organization that meets formally only twice per year, Alumni Council has a somewhat unique and challenging profile. Perhaps even more challenging, though, is the fact that one-quarter of all Council members are new at every other meeting (i.e., each fall). As such, Council is constantly challenged by the integration of new members. As has already been discussed, to address this, an orientation for new members has been created and a survey process is being refined to allow Council to learn from its members what is good and what is not. Both of these steps are good and important.

Further, though, it is important for Council and committee leadership and members to recognize that every communication offers an opportunity to build a catalog of institutional knowledge. This is important both because cataloged knowledge can be searched by anyone interested in a particular subject/keyword and because the transfer of cataloged knowledge from one “generation” to another is significantly less burdensome for all involved – both on the “teaching” side and on the “learning” side – than transfer of unstructured knowledge.

Because so much of our communication is e-mail based, though, this requires a cultural shift. While most of us still celebrate e-mail as a significant improvement over hard copy and print-and-mail based communications, e-mail actually is a terrible knowledge management tool. First, the knowledge embedded in each message gets buried in the recipients’ e-mail accounts. Second, only the specific recipients of each message have access to the knowledge in that message. Bringing a new Council member up to speed on a particular topic, then, requires one or more Council leaders and/or members and/or Alumni Affairs staff members to locate relevant messages and to forward them to new participants, as well as to adjust future distributions to include these new participants and to exclude former participants. As anyone who has been faced with this task knows, all of this represents a major burden for those involved and ultimately makes volunteering hard and managing the group of volunteers even harder.

New collaboration tools allow for systematic cataloging of knowledge. We have begun experimenting with some of them, and these and other tools should continue to be tested in the future.

Over a three-year period, the strategic planning process not only identified an important overall theme for Alumni Council – The Education Frontier – but also reaffirmed and deepened the Council’s effective working relationship with Alumni Affairs. At the same time, important structural changes equipped the Council for a broader range of initiatives and activities while assuring the Strategic Plan’s continuing evolution in building a stronger program of educational opportunities for Phillips Academy alumni. As President Hetzler has commented repeatedly, the Council’s strategic planning efforts have created a structure and environment that allows the Council to engage in ongoing strategic living. As such, the initiatives summarized in this report will continue to be refined and implemented by the Council’s committees with support from the Alumni Affairs staff.

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APPENDIX 1

BRAINSTORMING THE EDUCATION FRONTIER (Spring 2006)

First Group

1. Education – Faculty/Students/Alums

Off-campus visits
Education on Education
- Trends, models to parents, alums

2. Using alums to support faculty in classroom and as on-campus speakers

3. Technology to connect alumni, i.e., streaming video

4. Sharing Andover experience with whole world

5. Promote AndoverAgain

Online learning for alums
2-hour video class – virtual class

6. Capitalize on PANet; let alumni in on classes and PANet use

7. Utilize local education resources

8. Index online resources from courses

Students create for alumni

9. More offerings at reunions – extend reunions for more educational content

10. Life-stage education – new parents, future alums, aging parents, retirement choices, etc.

11. Community-building – connect PA community with education

12. Online lectures – weekly

13. Bring alums to campus, different careers – Broadening Horizons

14. Use web to engage alums with tours of museums, student presentations, campus speakers

15. College placement; video stream recent grads from their colleges

16. Current technology in classes, make available to alums

17. Listserv, video streaming for parents of new students

18. Alum-to-alum linkage through education

19. Community of learning through regional groups both face-to-face and online, like online book groups

20. Link alums with students for independent projects

21. Emphasize finis origine pendet

22. Person-to-person, high-touch educational experiences for all

23. Internships, placements for students, experiential learning for students and alums alike

Look at other models: Young Presidents’ Organization, corporate approaches

24. Global and future themes

Encourage more short-term visits, especially from foreign students, not just in immediate area; link with current world issues
Capture student concerns/trends for alumni interest
Stay linked with faculty globalization discussions

25. Alumni back on campus for 3-5 day programs, symposia

Second Group

1. Service learning – faculty/staff/alumni/students together

Using classes in community service

2. Orientation for new community service volunteers (alumni)

3. Trips for alums

4. Back to campus for history, other classes; alums as classroom resource

5. Externships – students and alums matched for short course – research offerings available from alums to students

6. Use parents and alums in classrooms as resource

7. More vacation learning with students and alums together

8. Alumni Council ambassadors to regional associations with campus updates

9. Online post-grad education (AndoverAgain), book clubs, sharing articles

10. Interactive discussions online; but needs to be specific

11. More options for alumni, using faculty emeriti

12. Host faculty at alumni homes to sponsor neighborhood talks

Possible admissions links also

13. Weekend alumni symposia – spring break with 6-7 faculty offering classes

14. What’s happening on campus – video streaming museum tours, student performances, would help admissions representatives

15. Video of on-campus speakers; promote with e-mail alerts: here’s what’s new

16. Streaming video of Alumni Council meetings for those who can’t be here

17. History teachers on the road; art, music too – or videos

18. Play discussions before play viewing; also campus poets, art gallery

19. Making curricula and syllabi available for alums

20. Allow alums to access course info on PANet

Third Group

1. Traveling class to various regions; link to current news

2. Alums to attend on-campus classes as guest presenters

3. Faculty talks – wherever they go in the summer; allow faculty to share their other passions with alums

4. Alumni trips with faculty speakers

5. Aspen Institute symposia – 3-day weekends

6. Islam, other current subjects – around country

7. Alumni authors – stay more current and disseminate info

8. Share repository of course materials and how courses evolve

9. Audio-books – faculty to record lectures; also well-known campus speakers

10. AndoverAgain – online learning, keep it coming

11. Career changes – online, and in-person exchanges

12. Lifelong learning

13. Broadening Horizons for alumni

14. Workshops on coaching (soccer, etc.)

15. Pairing alumni and faculty on course development

16. Part of mentoring: faculty to access reservoir of alum talents

17. Alums – learning what’s happening on campus

More conversations among alumni/students/faculty

18. For parents – curriculum and academics online; also Andover living, explain what to expect

19. Network parents through listserv

20. College counseling advice to young parents:

Streaming video of college counseling presentations
Also alumni admissions info

21. Career options – Broadening Horizons – include non-profit options, both volunteering and jobs

22. Plug in time and talent to on-campus education

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APPENDIX 2

THE EDUCATION FRONTIER – PROGRAM POSSIBILITIES (Fall 2006)

1. A Broader Program of Video Streaming

Alumni and parents need only a computer with high-speed internet access and some free software to be instantly connected to the campus. The school has already provided streaming video of Commencement and the Andover-Exeter football game, with both generating considerable positive feedback. But video streaming can be much more fully utilized to bring Andover’s educational excellence to alumni and parents in their own homes. Greater use of video streaming could include:

lectures by faculty, alumni, and other campus visitors;
interactive classes taught by faculty to alumni during alumni weekends, reunions, and symposia, perhaps with phone-in participation;
faculty panels on topics such as trends in education, globalization, current events, etc.;
life education offerings to alumni and parents alike on topics such as parenting, education choices, college counseling, career strategies, caring for aging parents, retirement choices, etc.; and
guided tours of campus museums, and presentations of student concerts and theatre productions.

2. Expanding the Andover Classroom

The Lifelong Andover Classroom could build on the success of AndoverAgain! by also including 3-day symposia, both on campus and in other locations. It could include more substantive learning experiences by engaging faculty more deeply in reunions, offcampus mini-reunions, regional association meetings, and alumni travel. At the same time, the Alumni Affairs office could help explore new ways of bringing alumni knowledge and experience into the classroom to broaden faculty-taught courses. The lifelong classroom could involve opportunities for experiential learning through community service projects, both near campus and in other areas; and these might involve students and alumni together, with faculty planning and guidance.

3. E-Communications: Improving the School’s Web Presence

Andover’s website, perhaps with a special alumni portal, could be the centerpiece for building deeper, continuing relationships between the school and its alumni and for advancing the school’s education mission. A more robust website with broader content and a more accessible database are critical investments worth making. In addition to increased use of video streaming (see above), the elements of this initiative could include:

a new monthly e-newsletter sent to all alumni containing not only short campus news items, but also links to student and faculty research, writing, and Powerpoint presentations, perhaps with audio or video streaming;
using the school’s website to host content created by others to address important, current topics;
a step-by-step program to help alumni who are less technically adept to utilize the various capabilities provided by the school, allowing each alum to select a comfortable level of electronic involvement; and
a broader range of visual and audio images of the school and alumni gatherings around the country.

4. E-Communications: Forming New Networks for Andover Alumni

To be successful in the long-term, any alumni education program must reach and engage the school’s alumni in ways they find most valuable and convenient. Andover could consider how best to utilize and expand its alumni database to create a powerful social network for its alumni, helping alumni to electronically find and sort a wide range of information about other alumni and to connect with those alumni in appropriate ways. Even today’s limited database could be more easily accessed so alumni can use their computers to quickly gather, sort, and use information that would otherwise take days to glean from the printed alumni directory.

By linking this database access with school newsletters and programs, and by carefully encouraging the formation of alumni listservs, blogs, and affinity groups, Andover could continually reinforce the broader educational purpose of its social network. At the same time, the school could gradually reduce its use of print-and-mail communications in favor of e-communications with its alumni.

5. Educational Gatherings for Alumni

In addition to engaging the faculty more actively in expanding the lifelong classroom (see 2 above), the Alumni Affairs office could broaden the program of off-campus Andover gatherings. Although alumni volunteers may wish to organize events of a purely social nature, the staff and financial resources of the Alumni Affairs office could be concentrated on providing educational programs. This might mean:

increasing the number of off-campus events for the Head of School, top administrators, and well-known faculty members;
utilizing more alumni speakers, especially those with high profiles and expertise on current topics or professional issues;
bringing Andover to smaller regions beyond the major associations;
facilitating off-campus programs or performances involving students; and
organizing events featuring faculty when they travel off-campus during vacations (sharing travel costs).

6. Non Sibi Initiative: Learning Through Service

The important message of non sibi could be reinforced (or revived) more clearly among the Andover alumni body not just to encourage service, but also to stimulate thoughtful discussion and reflection on broader moral, ethical, philanthropic and political issues. This program initiative might include:

a national Non Sibi Day with service projects in every region;
Andover-Lawrence service projects (like Habitat for Humanity) for two days before reunions;
increased emphasis on mentoring, Broadening Horizons, and other efforts to link students and alumni exploring career choices;
greater efforts to honor Andover’s service heroes (in addition to donors);
encouraging families to develop and convey a tradition of service; and
linking service projects to current issues such as housing needs, environmental sustainability, or income distribution.

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APPENDIX 3

ALUMNI AFFAIRS PROGRAMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES (January 2007)

1. On-Campus Programs and Events

Reunions – June weekend; 14 separate classes; 1500 alumni and guests
Senior Class Events
     - Commencement weekend, including Senior/Faculty Dinner, Baccalaureate
     - Senior/Faculty Dinners with speakers
     - Senior Leaders Dinners (6)
     - 100 Day Senior Party
     - Senior Donor Dinner
Broadening Horizons – 60 alumni, 60 students
Parents Programs
     - Parents Weekend
     - PSPA (Parents of Students of Phillips Academy) monthly programs
     - Parent/Faculty appreciation
AndoverAgain Online Courses
Dinners for Tang Scholars, Phelps Scholars
On-campus speakers, All-School Meetings, including Fuess Award
Andover/Exeter weekend (even years), including alumni reception
Andover/Exeter football broadcast/video stream
Alumni athletics (soccer, crew, etc.)
Opening of School events
- Alumni/Parent Reception
Symposiums (interfaith, summer)
Dedications (buildings, Bell Tower)

2. Alumni Council and Trustees

Council meetings (2) and Executive Committee meetings (1)
Leaders Weekend, including Distinguished Service Awards
Trustee ballots (even years)
Council membership and committee support
Mentoring program

3. Off-Campus Programs and Events

Summer send-off parties for new/returning students (11)
Regional association events (40-50)
Head of School events (3-5)
Young alumni college events (6)
Young alumni city events (4)
Non Sibi donor events (2-3)
Mini-reunion weekend
Alumni travel

4. Alumni Affairs Office Support

Budget oversight ($250,000 plus personnel costs for 8 staff)
Reunion registrations (4 month process)
Events – mailing lists, invitations, online registrations, logistics
Bluelink – online directory, passwords, class and chapter pages
Class Notes and other Bulletin pages, Bluescoop
Online newsletters (regional and young alumni)
Sympathy process and notes for alumni deaths
Database updates

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APPENDIX 4

MATLOFF PRESENTATION TO ALUMNI COUNCIL (Spring 2007)

Excerpt from Council Minutes of April 28, 2007:

Strategic Planning Implementation: Steve Matloff ’91 summarized progress on the strategic planning effort since the Council’s Business Meeting in October 2006 led by consultant Doug Bate. After further analysis of the sticker vote at that meeting, twonatural pairings were identified: CONTENT (comprised of the Andover Classroom and Education Gatherings) and DISTRIBUTION (comprised of Web Presence, Electronic Communications and Video Streaming).

CONTENT – and especially educational content – is our community's core competency as we have been creating it in various forms since our founding and continue to create it every day. The questions we have to answer are: What content can we capture, catalog and share? What resources will this require? What content is of greatest priority/interest?

DISTRIBUTION can occur through many channels, including: offline, online via products built specifically for us, and online via products/communities built for general consumer usage. We always have made use of offline distribution channels (such as inperson, standard mail and phone communications) and more recently have made use of custom-developed online channels (BlueLink historically, and now the website redesign work of BigBad). We have not, however, made use of generically-built online channels that are characterized by peer-to-peer interaction and have proven to be popular among millions of users. Some of these communities have thousands of Andover students and alumni registered – concentrations of Andover community members large enough that if they were in the physical world, Andover would be sure to have an official presence there in the form of regional associations, faculty visits, etc.

The sticker vote from the October 2006 Business Meeting revealed that understanding these issues is one of the main priorities of Council members. Identifying how our community members like to communicate by researching which alums are using which tools may be an important component of our future distribution strategy.

Our future distribution strategy will likely face several challenges. Protecting the Andover “brand” – especially if user-generated content is encouraged – is one issue.

Overcoming a perceived Digital Divide – that online tools will be used by younger members of our community only and so older members will be excluded from communications – is another. In reality, the online tools being discussed are intended to be complementary to the offline channels described above, so those who choose not to use the new tools will not be excluded from all communications, although they may not have access to additional content that can only be distributed in a cost-effective manner via online tools. Also, while there is a discernable divide in how members of our community choose to communicate, it does not lie exclusively along age lines. In fact, some older members of our community are the largest users of the listserv capability that we currently have. So we actually have a great opportunity: since we know that our alums still look to Andover for education and we are placing great emphasis on mentorship, we could create a program to bring together more technologically-savvy members of our community and less technologically-savvy members for education and mentorship in the usage of new online communications tools.

A third challenge likely will be addressing structural constraints in Alumni Affairs and in Alumni Council. With regard to Alumni Affairs, the department held an all-staff “Retreat” on January 12, 2007. From that retreat, an extensive list of Alumni Affairs’ responsibilities was identified that included many on-campus programs & events, Alumni Council & Trustee-focused work, off-campus programs & events, young alumni fundraising and internal office support. The list is very impressive, especially given the relatively few fully-dedicated staff members within the department.

With regard to Alumni Council’s structure, a series of extended phone interviews were conducted with committee co-chairs to identify what they feel Alumni Council’s purpose is, what works well, what does not, how we operate, with whom we interact, and what the environment is in which we work. In response to “What works?”, respondents stated that they love returning to campus for Council meetings to reconnect, that dedicated staff support of committee work is extremely important, that committees that focus on outreach benefit from being large, and that some active communication between meetings is productive.

In response to “What does not work?”, respondents cited a lack of training/orientation for new members, a lack of solicitation of honest feedback, general confusion about committees’ missions and general overlap in those perceived missions, frustration arising from being involved in brainstorming but not execution, a lack of training for committee co-chairs who often are not experienced in managing volunteer organizations (especially ones that are widely dispersed and only meet twice per year), difficulty in communicating progress back to this type of organization, and dual reporting structures (i.e., in addition to reporting to Council, the Admissions Committee reports to the Admission Office, the Multicultural Affairs Committee reports to CAMD and the Annual Giving Board Committee reports into Development) that can cause confusion.

On the topic of how we operate, there is a clear need to review our bylaws – a process that already is being conducted in depth by the ad hoc Bylaws Committee.

While formal recommendations have not yet been made, it is expected that some of the following will be recommended:

a possible combination of committees with overlapping missions;
a possible reduction in the size of other committees to address the problem of volunteer management;
a possible reallocation of these Council members to a Governance or Membership Committee which, among other responsibilities, would create and run a formal Orientation for new Council members and would solicit feedback through exit interviews and anonymously (this Committee is being formed currently);
a possible reallocation of Council members to committees oriented toward outreach; and
possibly providing these outreach committees with extra staff support.

And last, because it is clear that Alumni Council is a unique organization – none of our peers have a similar structure – this Strategic Planning effort is very much being approached as an optimization project as opposed to a “fix it” project.

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APPENDIX 5

STRATEGIC PLAN – ALUMNI COUNCIL STRUCTURE (January 2008)

Background

As Steve Matloff reported at the 2007 fall meeting, the Alumni Council’s strategic planning exercise has resulted in the establishment of a general theme (the Education Frontier as a cornerstone of alumni connectedness) and a renewed focus on maintaining the strong partnership with Alumni Affairs and increasing the relevance and importance of the Council to the Academy and its alumni. Immediate initiatives include increasing the educational programming at alumni reunions (June 2007), supporting the Academy’s first world-wide Non Sibi Day (September 2007), and developing and gaining approval of the Athletics Hall of Honor (to be inaugurated in June 2008). Establishment of an alumni portal as part of the Academy’s new website will result in both improved dissemination of educational content and significantly better means to connect alumni to the Academy and to each other.

At the same time, the Alumni Council has taken steps to improve its own effectiveness by clarifying job descriptions for both Council members and elected Alumni Trustees, by conducting an orientation for new members, and by developing a Handbook for Committee Chairs. Discussions have also taken place among Council officers and members of the Bylaws and Governance Committees about possible changes in the structure of Alumni Council, in an effort to further increase the Council’s ability to serve its mission and advance the Education Frontier theme. This proposal seeks to focus and advance those discussions; it is by no means written in stone.

Selection of Alumni Council Members

Current Structure: Presently, Alumni Council includes approximately 135 members, each serving a term of four years. Each year the Nominating Committee proposes a slate of 12 new members-at-large, and each of the five Standing Committees proposes members to fill vacancies on that committee (usually three each year). These nominees are submitted to the Council’s Executive Committee for approval. Each new member-atlarge chooses a Special Committee on which to serve (there are currently four Special Committees). The bylaws specify that each Standing or Special Committee will have 12 members, though numerically that does not always work out.

Proposed Structure: This proposal suggests retaining membership at about 120, with no distinction between members and members-at-large and with about 30 new members nominated each year by an expanded Nominating Committee and approved by the Executive Committee. In addition, the four Alumni Trustees and the Faculty Representative will continue to be voting members. The Nominating Committee would include the three Vice Presidents and perhaps two or three additional members appointed by the President to assist with the process of recruiting and selecting members. All committees and members will be asked to suggest potential new members. The President, in consultation with the Nominating Committee, will appoint the members to committees, respecting their preferences insofar as possible.

Alumni Council Committees

Current Structure: Presently, there are six Standing Committees – representing Admissions Representatives, Annual Giving Board, Athletics, Class Secretaries/Web Editors, and Regional Associations, and also the Nominating Committee, which consists of three members of the Executive Committee (in recent years, the three Vice Presidents). Each of these Standing Committees is responsible for proposing new members each spring for approval by the Executive Committee.

There are also four Special Committees – Mentoring/Networking, Multicultural Affairs, Special Alumni Events, and Young Alumni. New members-at-large choose a Special Committee on which to serve.

Recently, there have also been a number of ad hoc committees – Bylaws, Communications Liaison to the Academy, Governance, Non Sibi Day, and Strategy Innovation. In general, members of ad hoc committees also serve on a Standing Committee or Special Committee, which sometimes creates schedule conflicts.

Finally, the Executive Committee consists of the President, the three Vice Presidents, the co-chairs of the Standing and Special Committees, the four Alumni Trustees, the Faculty representative, and up to three at-large Council members. In addition, the following are non-voting members of the Executive Committee: the Head of School, the Director of Alumni Affairs, the Secretary of the Academy, the Dean of Admission, and the Director of Annual Giving.

Proposed Structure: This proposal suggests nine Standing Committees and perhaps two or three ad hoc committees. Each Standing Committee would have between 10 and 20 members, though Governance would continue to be smaller. There will be no set number of members on each committee; some may need more members than others. The Standing Committees would be Admissions Representatives, Annual Giving Board, Athletics, Class Secretaries/Web Editors, Governance, Multicultural Affairs, Regional Associations, Reunions/Special Alumni Events, and Young Alumni/Mentoring/ Networking.

The Governance Committee would continue to be chaired by a Vice President with membership including the President, three Vice Presidents and two other members. The Nominating Committee would be a subcommittee of the Governance Committee, which has oversight of nominations as part of its charge.

Alumni Council Meetings

Current Structure: Presently, Alumni Council meets once in the fall and once in the spring, coinciding with Trustees meetings. Council meetings begin Friday afternoon, with orientation and perhaps one or more meetings of ad hoc committees. From approximately 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., Standing Committees and Special Committees meet. Generally, there is a brief cocktail reception and a dinner – in the fall honoring faculty recipients of endowed instructorships, and in the spring recognizing retiring faculty. On occasion, there has been a lecture in the Chapel after dinner.

On Saturday morning, there often has been a student panel over breakfast, followed by the Alumni Council meeting. This meeting may include faculty presentations of interest prior to the Council’s business meeting. Recently, the Saturday luncheons have recognized distinguished alumni volunteers and benefactors (in the fall) and have honored student scholars and the Non Sibi donors who support them (in the spring).

The Council’s Executive Committee meets after lunch for 90 to 120 minutes to hear brief reports on action items from committee co-chairs, to approve new members (in the spring), and to plan future meetings. The Executive Committee also meets from approximately 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (including lunch) on the Thursday of Trustee weekend in late January. Every other year, this meeting selects four nominees to run for Alumni Trustee.

The fall Alumni Council meeting coincides with Leaders Weekend. In addition to Council members, alumni who are class secretaries, class agents, reunion leaders, and other key volunteers are invited to campus. They attend special training sessions, often sit in on Council committee meetings of interest, and attend meals with Trustees, faculty, and Council members.

Proposed Structure: This proposal suggests beginning Alumni Council meetings with Friday lunch, which might include brief remarks from the Head of School or a Dean. (In the fall, Orientation for new members might take place prior to lunch.) In the afternoon, there would be two sets of Council committee meetings (approximately 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 3:45 p.m to 5:15 p.m.), with four of the Standing Committees meeting in the first slot, and the other four in the later slot. This would allow members to “audit” meetings of a second committee of which they are not members. The Governance Committee, the ninth Standing Committee, would meet prior to all other Council activities in the fall and spring. Friday receptions, dinners, and possible speakers would remain the same.

Saturday morning’s program should continue the student panel breakfast and at least one faculty or staff presentation to a Council general session. This will require continuing the practice of keeping the Council business meeting brief and to the point by limiting reports to short presentations by some Standing Committees perhaps on a rotating basis.

The Education Frontier and Council Effectiveness

As the Council considers its committee structure and meeting schedule, it is important to keep in mind the Education Frontier as a cornerstone of alumni connectedness, the renewed focus on maintaining the strong partnership with Alumni Affairs, and the importance of increasing the relevance and importance of the Council to the Academy and its alumni. Each committee should regularly re-examine its purpose and agenda to make certain it is serving these goals. Moreover, the overall program for Alumni Council meetings must continue to expand educational content for members through presentations by faculty, staff, students, and (on Friday evening) distinguished alumni. The best of these presentations can then be disseminated to the broader alumni audience through the Bulletin, video streaming, or the alumni portal.

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APPENDIX 6

SUMMARY OF PROPOSED BYLAWS CHANGES

(Approved by Alumni Council at meeting of May 3, 2008)

At the January meeting of the Executive Committee, the Bylaws Committee recommended several changes to the Alumni Council Bylaws. These include changes to the membership and committee structure and nominating procedures. The Executive Committee recommends the approval of the amended Bylaws by the full Alumni Council. The substantive changes are summarized below:

1. In Art. II, Sec. 4.A., the requirement that Council members be “regular contributors to the Andover Fund” has been eliminated to allow for greater flexibility. Financial contributions to Andover can and should be encouraged, but in ways other than a flat requirement of Council members.

2. In Art. II, Sec. 4.B. et seq., the distinction between Standing Committees and Special Committees has been removed. The Bylaws now specify eight Standing Committees, in addition to the Executive Committee, the Governance Committee, the Nominating Committee, and ad hoc committees. (The roles of the standing and ad hoc committees will be specified in an appendix to the Bylaws, so that they may be updated as needed from time to time without triggering the formal approval process required for changes to the Bylaws.)

3. Accordingly, the distinction between members-at-large and other members has been removed, and there will no longer be two separate selection processes. All members will now be nominated by the Nominating Committee in a single process and approved by the Executive Committee.

4. In Art. II, Sec. 4.C.1.a.ii., the requirement that each committee have 10 members (apart from the two co-chairs) has been changed. The new Bylaws specify that each committee have 8-20 members, allowing greater flexibility for new members as they choose committees and for committees that may need more members. With 120 members and 8 standing committees, the average committee will have 15 members (including two co-chairs).

5. In Art. II, Sec. 4.C.1 a.ii, the requirement that the Annual Giving Board include the class agent of the most recent graduating class has been eliminated, as has the requirement that the Class Secretaries and Web Editors Committee include the class secretary of the most recent graduating class. This gives the Nominating Committee greater flexibility to select recent graduates who are able and willing to make a four-year commitment to Council.

6. Under Art. II, Sec. 4.C.2., the senior class will simply elect one member of the class to serve as a Council member. The requirement that Council include members of each of the four most recent graduating classes – a requirement that could skew the age balance on certain committees – has been eliminated. The Nominating Committee will seek to ensure adequate representation from young alumni classes.

7. Under Art. II, Sec. 4.C.3., the Council’s trustee members now include only the four elected Alumni Trustees; the provision for two Charter Trustees (one man and one woman) to serve as voting members of Council has been eliminated to reflect current practice. Including Charter Trustees in Council meetings has not been practicable.

8. Under Art. II, Sec. 4.C.1.b. (a new provision), a member of a standing committee may request reassignment to a different standing committee, something that has been allowed informally in the past without a Bylaws provision. The Vice Presidents of Council and the co-chairs of the committee that the member wants to join must approve the reassignment, which will not change the length of the member’s Council term.

9. Art. II, Sec. 5 specifies the composition, leadership, and responsibilities of the Governance, Nominating, and ad hoc committees, reflecting current practice.

10. Under Art. II, Sec. 5.C.1.b., an ad hoc committee may include individuals who are not Council members but have particular expertise needed by the ad hoc committee to which they are being appointed. This new provision codifies existing practice (e.g., CLAC).

11. The former Art. II, Sec. 7.C. (Attendance) has been eliminated. This provision, which stated that a voting member who missed two consecutive meetings would be deemed to have resigned from Council, was not being enforced, and its rigidity caused some concern.

12. Art. III, Sec. 1.B.3. (concerning the nomination of elected Alumni Trustees) adds a reference to “other criteria and requirements established by the Nominating Committee,” to ensure that the Nominating Committee will take into account criteria that are not limited to the purposes of Council listed in Art. II, Sec. 2.

13. Art. III, Sec. 1.B.3. now includes an explicit statement that no current Executive Committee member may be nominated to serve as an elected Alumni Trustee, thereby clarifying what had been implicit.

For the Bylaws Committee:
Christopher Auguste ’76 and Sara Su Jones ’91, co-chairs
John Kane ’63
Michael Marrus ’81
Richard Howe ’64

4/18/08

Strategic Plan: Exploring the Education Frontier

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