Ideas

I have this recurring phobia that some day a decade or so from now I will leave this fascinating alumni business and that I will suddenly have an epiphany that would revolutionize the business and leave me slapping my head that I hadn’t thought of it sooner.

Fortunately I belong to a fairly esteemed group of alumni directors from around the country. They share their epiphanies. Most all of the directors of the large schools in the Big 10, Pac 10, ACC, SEC and Big 12 are outgoing, bullish on their institutions and definitely pro alumni. They believe in the power of alumni and university partnerships and they are pretty darn good at what they do.

For instance the LSU alumni association and their director Charles Roberts became the manager of the campus shelter subsequent to Hurricane Katrina. He and his staff became overnight hotel managers and did not go home for 2 weeks during the aftermath. Archie Griffin…yes that Archie Griffin is the alumni director at Ohio State. His Association hosted a party for 70,000 people the night before their championship football game. Finally, Howard Wolf—alumni president at Stanford lunches with Google and Yahoo CEOs and truly understands how to communicate in a technological world gone amuck. They all share their insights.

But let’s get back to some new ideas. Unlike rocket scientists (like Ellen Ochoa ’80, Deputy Director of NASA and former astronaut), but not quite as much as Baseball Managers (like Bud Black ’79), alumni directors are prone to being second guessed. So here is what I want you to do: Send me your ideas and suggestions for our Alumni Association. Here is my email: herrick1@mail.sdsu.edu I promise I will give them real scrutiny and consideration. Not only that I’ll share them with these other alumni directors at next month’s meeting.

Perhaps, together, we can evolve something significant for San Diego State and our alumni. Thanks.