How the Alumni Association Works

Peter D. Shultz '52, general secretary of the Associated Harvard Alumni, would be the first to say that constant communication is the key to success in alumni affairs. People tend to think of the Alumni Association only around reunion time, but the business of keeping the alumni abreast of new developments, answering their questions and complaints, and maintaining their interest is a year-round operation.

Shultz's staff in Wads-worth House acts as a "switchboard," as he puts it, in coordinating alumni activities, but the core of the alumni organization is the clubs. There are about 90 active clubs throughout the country, most of them very different from the Boston and New York Harvard Clubs, the only two with their own real estate. The others are more loosely structured and meet only a few times a year, usually in a rented hall or someone's house.

Some club meetings are designed to discuss goings-on at Harvard, and, understandably, the Strauch Committee report was the focus of many meetings this year. Instead of relying on articles in the Harvard Magazine or Gazette, which tend to be incomplete or misleading, the alumni organization disseminates information and answers questions by sending its directors, 75 representatives who meet at Harvard three times a year to speak at the clubs. The three Harvard meetings include lectures, seminars, and panel discussions aimed at educating the directors as thoroughly as possible before they talk to the alumni at large. The directors have an opportunity to express their doubts, ask questions, and clear up confusing points. This past year, Karl Strauch, chairman of the Strauch Committee, attended all three Board meetings to report his committee's progress.

After the 1969 strike, the directors moved quickly to speak at club meetings and give a detailed account of the events and issues. According to Shultz, they were aided by alumni who had children enrolled at Harvard at the time and had already discussed the crisis with them. The club meetings. Shultz believes, eased some of the tensions that the strike created, and although there was a 10 per cent drop in contributions the following year, alumni support soon resumed.

The feedback from individual alumni to Harvard's faculty and administration is also filtered through the directors. Shultz thinks this system of educating the directors first is preferable to more direct communication with alumni because, he says, it allows for more complete explanations and exchanges of ideas. It also adds a personal element to administration-alumni communication. Since the first presentation of any new development is so important. Shultz would rather trust the job to a director than to an impersonal newsletter.

The system does have its drawbacks: As AHA President John L. Moore, Jr. '51 admits, "The board of directors doesn't speak for everyone." And according to Shultz, some directors are shy about appearing before clubs. Shultz says that the largest hitch in the system is that all the clubs don't get equal attention, although the directors, one-third of whom are regional directors appointed by the clubs, try to spread themselves around.

Club meetings also feature lectures by Harvard professors, who often appear at a club where they are speaking in the area. This activity is coordinated through Wads-worth House, and in return for the professor's time, the AHA helps pay travelling expenses. Every year, Schultz estimates, over 100 faculty members and administrators travel to the clubs.

Even so, many otherwise active alumni never attend club meetings. Attendance fluctuates greatly from meeting to meeting, depending on the speaker (well-known Harvard figures, such as John Kenneth Galbraith, can double attendance), the success of the last meeting, and the time of the year. When Moore was president of the Atlanta Harvard Club about ten years ago, there were about six meetings a year, each of which attracted 100 of Atlanta's 8000 alumni. Robert W. Phifer '69. AHA assistant general secretary for clubs, thinks about 15-20 per cent of Harvard's alumni (including the graduate schools) attend at least one club meeting a year.

The biggest problem that Phifer faces is lack of leadership in the clubs. Sometimes club presidents perform very well their first year, but gradually loss interest in their duties. Phifer, who visits over 30 clubs a year, tries to prod officers to hold regular meetings and offers advice on getting speakers, putting on seminars, and lowering costs, but the officers he supervises are volunteers, and he must treat them gently.

One club activity that seems to need very little encouragement in local interviewing and recruiting of applicants. Each club has a schools and scholarships committee to perform these functions and provide freshman scholarships. Many clubs, according to Phifer, consider this their most important job, and sometimes a club will all but stop meeting during a year when very few of its good local applicants are admitted to Harvard.

Naturally, the AHA is always trying to find ways to involve more alumni, particularly now that economic problems have made the private gift more important. A drive is underway to attract younger alumni to counteract the long-standing tendency of alumni to "disappear until their tenth reunion," as Shultz puts it. Maurice Lazarus '37, former AHA president, already sees a "growing interest on the part of more recent alumni," and the AHA is considering forming a New Class Officers' Organization that would bring together young alumni between reunion years. Shultz imagines this group will offer six week seminars at a low cost for young alumni.

For several years, the AHA's committee on undergraduate relations has coordinated meetings in the Houses between students and alumni to discuss their careers. Now the clubs are beginning to ask their members to report any jobs they might have for undergraduates, particularly for those who want to take a leave of absence. The clubs simply collect names, forward them to the school and then students inquire after the jobs themselves. This type of program is already underway in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and according to Phifer, is working very well and should be expanded.

One of the most exciting recent innovations geared to increase alumni involvement is the Alumni College, which offers three one-week summer sessions taught by Harvard professors. The program has been so successful--each course last year was over-subscribed--that a second Alumni College course on "The American Revolution Reconsidered" is being offered at the University of California at Santa Cruz for the first time this summer.

In conjunction with the Alumni College, the AHA also offers a series of taped seminars. The topics include a talk on Japan by Edwin O. Reischauer, University Professor, and on China by John K. Fairbanks '29, Higginson Professor of History.

The Alumni College and taped seminars represent a substantial shift in emphasis on the part of the alumni office. Shultz feels that the "common denominator that between alumni isn't football parties or dinners, but the classroom experience," and now the AHA is trying to cater more to the alumni's desire for further education, instead of whetting their interest with open bars and pennant waving