Warm greetings from your Alumni Association, figuratively and literally! You’ll read this sometime after the Autumnal Equinox, but now the August temperature is pushing 93 degrees: hot times.
“Hot times” also describes our June Reunion. You applauded the ghost stories, Hankey Center offerings, and the Sunday memorial chapel service. The wine tasting proved a “happy hour” indeed. We’re conscious of Reunion improvements needed: better golf cart coordination and more time between offerings among the suggestions. And we’re very aware that lengthy meetings do not a happy audience make.
As summer advanced, we made ready to welcome the Class of 2028. During Campus Crew Week (July 29 – August 2), a number of us volunteered for beautification projects, and served as class mailing facilitators and Move-In Day bag stuffers. Alums tackled needful campus tasks like weeding, painting, and generally acting as extra hands making work light. The invitation to join them is always open.
That’s where we’ve been. Let me tell you about where we hope to be heading.
To build a stronger community with students, the Alumni Board is working toward seating a student observer at AAWC Board meetings. The AR Office and Matthew McBride, assistant professor of interdisciplinary practice, are also exploring several media options that will facilitate students’ familiarity with the Alumni Association and our workings.
Our commitment to student outreach is self-explanatory. Without student awareness of alumni, there will be no future alums; clearly the way to nurture future alums is to support current students.
As alums buttress student welfare, we further bolster the College. To be a Wilson alum (al is the stem of the Latin “alere”: “to nourish, support”) means, literally, feeding our alma mater with our time, treasure, and talent.
In 1999, the documentarian Ken Burns released “Not for Ourselves Alone,” a film about the 50-year friendship between the pioneers of the Women’s Movement: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The title is fitting. Anthony and Stanton and their heirs nurtured the cause of women’s suffrage that in all, encompassed 80 years, beginning in 1840. Both died before the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920. Women—and men—benefit from their efforts to this day.
The AAWC is the present. We represent a collective sharing by inviting every alum to help us secure Wilson’s future. The work is not for ourselves alone.
Best wishes,
Patricia W. Bennett ’68
President, AAWC
