Some of my friends know that in my spare time, I’m active with my alumni association at Rutgers. In fact, I was just at a meeting this evening. In keeping with my previous postings on changes at Rutgers, I feel I should post a link to the report on transforming undergraduate education that was recently released to the public, to organize the undergraduate colleges in to a single entity.
For those unfamiliar with the University, the undergraduate teaching faculty, with the exception of the specialized technical schools, are all associated with the “Faculty of Arts and Sciences”. However, several individual colleges within the University set the degree requirements and actually host the students. Hence, you will affiliate with one school, with its own degree requirements, but attend classes with students from all the undergraduate schools, each with different degree requirements. Each college also offers its own academic advising and have their own residential facilities. Long story short, it causes a fair amount of confusion.
Granted, since there are multiple residential colleges within the University, each has its own alumni association marketing to Rutgers alums. Which, naturally, leads to its own mess of confusion.
One of the committees I sit on discusses the dues process (recruiting, retaining, remitting) and how to improve it. One of the elephants in the room relates to the university, and by extension, the alumni structure and how it impacts those three items. What will be interesting to watch over the next several years is how the reorganization of the undergraduate system in to a single New Brunswick undergraduate college will impact the alumni associations.