U Magazine, Fall 1986

Close to the heart Alumni care about their alma mater. Better yet, they want to be involved.

By John Sutherland

A lumni want to be involved with USD. Better yet, they're willing to back that spirit of concern with their time and .talent. Those two findings emerge loud and clear from a questionnaire mailed in March to 8 ,032 alumni (excluding law graduates) by the Office of Alumni Relations. The 19-question form concentrated on gauging interest in various alumni activities and events. The alumni office will use the results to plan future alumni programming. The office received 1,368 completed questionnaires by mid-August, a response rate of 16.3 percent. "We were very pleased to get such a terrific response rate from our alumni," says Joan Murry, director of a lumni relations. "And I was delighted to see how many people took the time to make written comments at the end of the questionnaire. It means our alumni care a lot _about USD." Alumni demonstrated their desire to get involved by volunteering in large numbers to serve on various boards. More than 600 volunteered to either speak to prospective students about the University or contact students already accepted. Another 195 volunteered to serve in an alumni career network program, 148 offered to serve on the a lumni board and 105 volunteered to serve as a class agent or representative. "We're currently working on both a pilot program to involve alumni in student recruitment and on an alumni career network program, so we will involve alumni in the ways in which they expressed high degrees of interest," Murry notes. The depth of alumni concern about USD was best expressed in the written comments. (See next page for more details.) " I hope we coordinate the tremendous talent that has graduated from USD into

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