CAC January 2014 Call Summary
January 27, 2014
I. Welcome & Introductions
- We had 52 representatives from 39 Geographic and Special Interest Chapters & Clubs participate on the call.
- Also on the call were Dr. Christine Wilkinson, Bob Boschee, Alissa Pierson, Jennifer Haye, and Trish Thiele-Keating from the ASU Alumni Association Board and Staff.
II. Updates from the Board and Council – Bob Boschee, Chair-Elect, ASUAA Board of Directors
-Bob gave an update from the Board & Council meeting with took place over Homecoming weekend in October. The Board reviewed the success of Sparky’s Touchdown Tailgates from the fall. Thank you to Texas, Los Angeles and Northern California groups for all their support on those great events. Thank you also to the San Diego Chapter for their work in collaboration with the Holiday Bowl festivities.
-Bob also shared highlights from the recent Athletic Board Meetings
§ Sand Volleyball has been added as the 22nd Sun Devil Athletics team
§ Over the last ten years, student athlete graduation rates have gone from 68% - 80%
§ Overall student athlete GPA is 3.02
§ Highlights from Basketball: Men’s team has 5 students with a 3.0 GPA or better and Women’s team has 4 Barrett scholars
§ Men’s Basketball has also reached out to former players who did not complete their degrees and has able to work with 2 so far to help them finally graduate
§ And out of 333 schools, ASU finished 18th in the Director’s Cup this year
- The next Board & Council meeting will be Friday, Feb. 21 on the Tempe Campus. New groups that are up for approval include Geographic Clubs in Hawaii, Northern Colorado and possibly New Orleans, as well as an International Connection in Mumbai, India.
III. Reports from Staff
a. Updates from ASU - Dr. Christine Wilkinson, President, ASUAA
- Dr. Wilkinson reviewed the selection of Ray Anderson as the new Athletic Director for Sun Devil Athletics. He will begin his time in the position following the Super Bowl since he is currently the Executive VP of football operations with the NFL. Ray was a two sport athlete during his time at Stanford (football & baseball), and continued his education at Harvard Law. We hope to have Ray speak with the chapter & club leaders during the two spring leadership conferences.
- Dr. Wilkinson mentioned to recently unveiled Stadium Momentum initiative related to renovations to Sun Devil Stadium that will take place over a four year period, beginning with changes to the North end zone with the addition of a giant screen by fall.
- Dr. Wilkinson acknowledged the recent situation involving TKE fraternity and the resulting statement and action the University has taken against the group. They were already on probation for incidents occurring in 2012. The recognition for the chapter has now been permanently revoked. Click here for the official statement from the University.
- Dr. Wilkinson announced the opening of the ASU Chandler Innovation Center. “TechShop” offers a fabrication studio for entrepreneurs to work on their projects.
- Dr. Wilkinson highlighted the upcoming hearings in D.C. for ASU alumna Diane Humetewa for the U.S. District Court. If approved, she will be the 1st female Native American to serve in the federal judiciary.
- Dr. Wilkinson also touched on the Student Athletic fee that has been approved by the student government and will be implemented starting in fall. The $75 fee per semester would allow the opportunity for all students who want to attend football games to have access to tickets, for less than what season tickets cost now. Other aspects of the fee program include support for TA stipends, increasing inter-campus shuttles on the weekends, and reduced cost for graduate school test prep. This was a student led initiative and there will be a student governance committee who will be tasked with reviewing the structure of the program.
b. Updates from ASUAA – Alissa Pierson, Executive Director of Programs, ASUAA
-The annual Legislative Advocacy Breakfast was held on Jan. 14. Dr. Crow presented on the University’s legislative agenda and how Alumni Advocates can help spread the University’s message to others. The next event on the Legislative Advocacy agenda will be the ASU Day at the Capitol on Feb. 11. This includes a full ASU showcase of programs and departments on the plaza outside the State Capitol and the legislators and their staff come out for a lunch on the plaza to learn more about what is happening at ASU.
-The Alumni Association sponsors the Legacy Scholarship Program, for students who are related to a member of the Alumni Association. The application is now available at http://alumni.asu.edu/services/student-scholarships/legacy-scholarship.
c. Chapters & Clubs
i. Updates & Reminders – Alissa Pierson, Executive Director of Programs, ASUAA
- We were thrilled with the great fall activity from all the chapters & clubs, with lots of game watchings. Shaun from Colorado reported their largest attendance at Blake Street Tavern was 350 Sun Devils. Steve from Chicago said they had standing room only at Cubby Bear with 230 and an appearance from Sun Devil Legend Al Harris. And a big THANK YOU again to the chapters who helped with the tailgate preparations for the away games. We’re already looking forward to this upcoming season with Sparky’s Touchdown Tailgates in Colorado, USC and Seattle.
- During the October Board Meeting we increased the number of groups in our Geographic and International Networks, officially adding the Michigan Club, led by former Chicago alum Joe Schneider, and also Connections in Chile, Peru and Turkey.
- We’re seeing more T-shirt designs come through our office from chapters – keep them coming, definitely send any designs to us for review and approval before ordering. ASU Trademark & Licensing wants to be sure only licensed vendors are being used for shirt orders. They recommend http://www.designashirt.com/, the company is owned by John Anton and is an approved vendor for ASU.
- For those groups with scholarship or operating accounts at the ASU Foundation, we mentioned in the December edition of Chapter Chat a revision to the management fees for the accounts that went into effect Jan. 1. There will now be a flat 5% fee assessed on all deposits. The Foundation has previously discontinued the 2.2% fee for credit card charges, as well as the 2% fee for outgoing transactions. There is still no fee assessed for scholarship transfers to the students’ accounts.
ii. General Communication reminders – Jennifer Haye, Communications Coordinator
- Be sure to have any upcoming February events added to our website via an Event registration page or Calendar Announcement by Monday, Feb. 3. That is the deadline for events to be included in the February edition of the ASU Alumni e-newsletter that will go out on Tuesday, Feb. 11.
- The next issue of ASU Magazine that is in production will go out in May 2014. The deadline to submit Chapter event recaps, photos and Save the Date announcements will be Friday, Feb. 14. Send your magazine submissions to Jennifer, 200 words or less and pictures, pictures, pictures!
- Remember that requests for Chapter e-newsletters are still due by Fridays at Noon, and the emails are sent out the following Wednesdays. We’ve added a new email design specifically for Shadow Run announcements, so if you want to just have a message go out to promote your Shadow Run, you can mention that in your request.
- We’ve also added a new feature to the Event Registration request form. You can request an initial email to go out about your event within the same form you use to set up the event registration. This follows the standing chapter e-mail timeline, so requests received by Fridays at noon will have the event email go out the following Wednesday. If you want additional emails to go out to promote your event, please submit the standard email request form in the Online Toolkit.
- Last week we unveiled the new design for the ASU Alumni website. There are still a few kinks to work out, so please let us know if you come across a page or link that is not working. This is a great time to take a look at the content on your chapter or club page and send us any updates that should be made. Currently there is a generic photo at the top of each chapter/club page, but that can be replaced with an image that you provide from your events. The dimension requirements are 1170x400 pixels. Send your photos to Jennifer and we will get the pages updated.
- As always, send any updates you’d like to your Chapter or Club page to , read Chapter Chat the first Friday of every month, and check out the Online Toolkit for all the important forms you need.
d. Events & Activities – Trish Thiele-Keating, Coordinator for Chapters & Clubs
i. 2013 Pennies For Points recap
-Congrats to those groups who participated in the scholarship fundraising Pennies for Points during the Fall Football season. The team scored 519 points in the regular season. So far we have collected $3,972.40 in donations.
-If you’re interested in developing a scholarship program for your chapter or club, let us know and we can help you set up an account with the ASU Foundation and create an application for your award(s). You can give any award amount and the selection process is up to you.
-We had a few groups who awarded their first scholarships for this academic year, and so far Austin Chapter is planning to make a selection for their first scholar for the upcoming school year.
-A reminder for all groups who are going into the selection process for the coming school year, please have your applications reviewed and scholars selected and confirmed by the end of June. This may be earlier than some groups have selected in the past, but we have a new timeline from the Scholarship Office for by when the funds need to be entered for the students’ accounts. We still would love to have scholars recognized at the summer Send-Offs, but the selection needs to be completed probably before Send-Off season begins.
ii. ASU Cares – March 2014
- We are promoting the full month of March as ASU Cares Month. All alumni groups are strongly encouraged to participate in a community volunteer project in their local area during the month of March as part of the ASU Cares program.
-Please select your project and send your time/location/description to Trish by Monday, February 3.
-We will create online registration pages and list all projects on the ASU Cares web page - http://alumni.asu.edu/volunteer/asu-cares.
-The Alumni Association will again be assisting the ASU Arboretum Crew with their orange harvest down by Alpha Drive. The oranges are then used in local restaurants and sold in local markets with the proceeds returning to ASU. Sign up to join us on March 1!
-We will promote all the projects in the February and March ASUAA e-newsletters beginning on Feb. 11.
iii. Spring Leadership Conferences
-The Spring Leadership Conference for Geographic Chapters & Clubs groups will be held on Friday, March 28 and Saturday, March 29. We will pay for airfare & hotel on Thurs/Fri nights for 2 representatives from each chapter and 1 from each club. The hotel accommodations will be at the Four Points by Sheraton on Rural & Apache.
- The agenda for the conference will include tours of new facilities on the Tempe Campus including McCord Hall for the College of Business, the renovations to the Sun Devil Fitness Complex and Manzanita Hall; as well as time spent on preparations for the coming FY and time for idea sharing with the other group leaders.
-Complete registration details and airfare information will be sent out via email to the Geographic Chapters & Clubs on Jan. 28. Please discuss amongst your group the best individuals to send as representatives for your chapter or club. If you have attended the previous 3 Forums or Conferences, we ask that you send a different representative this time.
-The deadline for registration is Feb. 20.
-The Spring Leadership Conference for Special Interest Chapters & Clubs will be Wednesday, April 9 from 5-8pm at Old Main. We’ll be reviewing some important information regarding plans for the upcoming FY as well as sharing ideas and best practices with each other. An email with more information will go out soon.
iv. Pat’s Run Shadow Runs – April 2014
-We are excited to have a record 32 Shadow Runs scheduled for April – including a few first time locations, such as Hawaii, thanks to the efforts of the soon-to-be official new Hawaii Club led by Mike Kedzie formerly of the Chicago and Georgia Chapters.
- The Alumni Association has taken the lead for Shadow Run coordination this year and we are excited to have a student intern join us this semester to be your direct contact for questions and requests. Adrian Ramirez will be graduating this May with a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Service and Public Policy. He is your go-to for registration issues or questions on insurance documents, etc. He will be coordinating the mailing of the t-shirts to Shadow Run participants through the Tillman Foundation. Feel free to reach out to him for anything you need. Adrian is in the office Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings until noon and can be reached at .
- There are still some Shadow Runs that need to confirm their run location and start time. Please send those details to Adrian as soon as possible so we can get the registration pages updated.