How about getting the Alumni Association to conduct the survey? ... You can put me on as a sponsor of the survey...
Thanks Allison, Carl, David, Don W., Ellin, Phil, and Tom for being willing to cosponsor the survey!
Are there any others who are willing to put your name "on the line"? (I believe you are, Gus, but I'll await your confirmation when you get a chance to read your email.) I’ll explain a bit more below why this might be important.
First I want to mention that Debbie Rodman Lawther – back in Kentucky after many years in the UK – has joined us (making 33 who have “checked in” about reunion-planning!) and is looking forward to a Homecoming/Class Reunion in Santa Fe in 2008. I’ve attached an updated spreadsheet including her email address and what is known about all others. I get so happy when a new person checks in, or even when I find contact info for someone for whom I didn’t have it before – please help!
I'm blind-copying those who would rather avoid lots of emails (so they'll be spared continuing discussion), but I’ll also post this message to the blog (http://sjcsfalums.blogspot.com/) so perhaps some of the discussion can shift there. (Whether there’s a way to attach a spreadsheet to the blog – and replace it periodically with updated versions – I don’t know. David, do you know? Or perhaps that wouldn’t be desirable, since it would make it public?)
Now about lobbying the Alumni Association board to conduct a survey of all Santa Fe alums about scheduling Homecoming:
I've been told that the College has problems with technology and with data -- so an online survey has two hurdles to jump right there. In addition, I'm told that the Alumni Relations Office -- which we might think of as the "secretariat" for the Alumni Association -- is under-funded and understaffed. And the association itself is a volunteer organization, paying expenses out of our annual dues. So there’s a natural tendency to avoid things having to do with technology, data, money, and time/effort. And – perhaps because of ignorance about the ease of online technology – there may be a fear that a survey of all Santa Fe alums would be quite expensive and time-consuming.
Then there’s the fact that they’ve already changed their Homecoming-scheduling policy – possibly for lots of complicated reasons beyond the announced one, that they believe it will make for more vibrant and rewarding Homecoming-experiences for us. When I tried to ask about those other possible reasons (since the reason given seemed a bit thin to me), I hit a stone wall of defensiveness (which is why we're now in the position of organizing a survey ourselves). But those other possible reasons are actually beside the point, I believe (unless the College simply doesn't want Homecomings in the summer regardless of how many -- or few -- can attend in the fall; in which case they should say so).
We’re pursuing a two-prong strategy:
We’re preparing as professional a survey as we can (more on that in a moment; you've seen the draft before).
And we’re lobbying the alumni board to get the association to sign-on as official sponsor of the survey, giving them some prior oversight of it’s contents before it goes out, and thus hopefully getting them more willing to act based on its results.
If they’re unwilling to cooperate, we might decide to send out the survey anyway, and/or to schedule and organize our own Reunion.
But I’m hopeful that we’ll get them to cooperate. In that respect, if there’s anyone you know on the association board (http://alumni.stjohnscollege.edu/?AlumniAssociation2), please discuss the matter with them, and let us know what you find out. We have a multi-pronged lobbying effort going on, the details of which I won’t go into now. But if you make sympathetic contact with someone on the board, we can get them in touch with others so they can strategize together.
Don Whitfield, who is in Chicago, has just given us the results of a survey done there (on local issues) by the Chicago chapter president, Rick Lightburn (SF’76), whom I plan to contact. He apparently does surveys professionally, and might be willing to look over our draft and suggest improvements.
I’d like as many people as possible to sign on as cosponsors of our survey – and I plan to ask the 34 people from later classes who responded to my little poll as well – because that will give added credibility, I believe, when we formally present what we propose to the Alumni Association. (If we're going to go ahead anyway with something quite professional and broadly-sponsored, and thus quite credible, wouldn't they be wise to sign on to get a little control?)
Beyond that, there are two (or perhaps three) big chores:
One is setting up the survey on www.SurveyMonkey.com or some other online site – and Carl has volunteered to work on that (and might welcome help?).
Then there is emailing an invitation to participate in the survey to all the Santa Fe alums, and I have volunteered (as long as I’m not in Alaska at the time -- so either before June 17, or after August 1) to go through the college’s online alumni site and extract all the email addresses of Santa Fe alums (I will welcome help, of course, as it will probably take a day or two of fulltime work).
And then – assuming that the online site tabulates the results automatically -- someone will have to interpret and report them. If the association signs on as official sponsor, I would think that someone on the board (Lightburn?) might want to do that (though we would certainly want access to the data too).
Anyway, it all seems doable to me. What do you think?
Regards,
Rick
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