Alumni Association changes structure
The Alumni Association of Utah State University has changed to better serve its academic, athletic and membership goals.
“Alumni Chapters” will now be known as “Aggie Chapters” in an effort to attract not only former students of USU, but also friends who did not attend classes but wish to support the university.
“We want everybody that would like to support the university to be able to do so,” said Randy Talbot, vice president for University Advancement. “[Aggie Chapters] is a more user-friendly name.”
USU has chapters around the country to raise money, keep in touch with more than 180,000 alumni and recruit new students.
In addition to the name change, chapters now have a vice president for each of the association’s three goals: academics, athletics and membership.
The role of the academics vice president is to attract the best students out of high schools for USU, Talbot said. For example, he might arrange for the director of the Honors program to speak to a group of high school students and their parents, whereas the athletics vice president might invite coaches to speak to star high school athletes.
Talbot said he thinks the division of the vice presidents will help the university cater to individual interests of alumni and potential students.
“We will make sure we cover everyone’s interests,” he said. “We’re going to allow people to gravitate towards the things they want to participate in.”
The changes coordinate well with President Kermit L. Hall’s call to increase measurable academic quality in his State of the University Address on Thursday, Talbot said.
“We have developed the pernicious habit of valuing what we can measure, rather than measuring what we value,” Hall said.
“This [chapter] structure will allow us to measure performance,” Talbot said. “This is going to be a good program that will add value to the university.”
The Alumni Association faces a challenge in the university-wide budget cuts, but Talbot said he is confident it can be overcome.
“It isn’t the optimal situation to work with,” Talbot said. “But you’ve got to keep going.”
-heidithue@cc.usu.edu