Rick Luis '67 - President, Yale Alumni Association of the Northwest

Guido Calabrese. Siedlecki/Cozza and Gridiron Greats. Howard Lamar (with the original Lewis and Clark diaries). Tom Wolfe. Those were my "electives". The "required" curriculum: John Mauceri (my classmate) conducting "Royal Blue", Thomas Duffy's rollicking production of "Light Blue", the AYA Assembly, Yale Medal Luncheon, Rick Levin and friends on the economy, George H.W. Bush and others on public service.

This was one delegate's schedule - and maybe I'm alone in those particulars, but I know I am not alone in wishing I could have done more. Jonathan Spence, Garry Trudeau, and Murray Biggs come to mind, and how I'd love to learn about musical conducting! To me, the weekend was a microcosm of my academics at Yale - wonderful classes, and how I wish I had more time to take more great teachers or learn about areas I "missed" (like music and art and all the gargoyles I never appreciated as a student).

Then there was the "extracurricular" activity - lunching with undergraduates who will intern in our Club's area this summer, cocktails/dining with my mid-60's contemporaries at Sterling Library, the Tercentennial Gala topping it off (with Dean Richard Benson's great commemorative gift book of Yale photos), and spiritual reflection at Battell Chapel Sunday morning.

Even an unauthorized "lark" to Mory's for beer with my old roommates prior to Saturday afternoon classes resulted in shaking hands with George ("41") and Barbara Bush. I managed quick peeks at the art galleries. No "road trip" - too much doing in New Haven.

The campus never looked better! Are more residential colleges coming? We had good weather, the students seemed happy (Spring Fling, Tang Cup were flourishing) and the protesters were polite. New Haven was livelier than remembered. All in all, the whole experience, shared with an interested spouse (who ghosted for me with Spence, Biggs, and Trudeau), made me even prouder to be a Yalie. Boola, boola!

As AYA delegates, we were privileged to hear Professor Gaddis Smith speak of alumni influences on Yale over the years and Eustace Theodore on a possible future for its alumni. Both raised the provocative issue of whether the alumni, in fact, define and are the true entity that makes Yale "Yale".

Professor Emeritus Gaddis Smith ('54, '61 Ph.D.) was especially enlightening on how alumni pressure has always influenced what happens and what changes on campus. I am a product of two huge changes - the opening of Yale admissions to public school grads and the push to have a "national" student body. I was on campus during the height of the debate over another major change - going coed. And, I have been an AYA delegate since the transformation of the undergraduate student body to a more racially/ethnically diverse group, better reflecting the make-up of our society. The next "demographic" challenge seems to be whether Yale will succeed in becoming "international" in its student body to match (maintain?) its international reputation and influence. And for those of us ignorant of Yale "inventing" class year identity, alumni clubs, and class secretaries, Smith's reflections provided revelation. Who knew that alumni forced out a Yale President after World War I and formed a Commission that reorganized the University's structure? Or that keeping Yale "Yale" was once a euphemism for an anti-Semitic, pro-legacy admissions policy? In the end, Yale can take pride in having, very possibly, the most cohesive alumni of any university. In large part, we have the AYA to thank for that, and Smith outlined the Association's history, from Fred Rose to Jeff Brenzel, as well. Thank you Professor Smith for helping put all this into perspective!

Aspects of Yale's future, and how it may be shaped by its alumni, were raised by Eustace "Ted" Theodore, '63 and immediate past Executive Director of the AYA, who currently heads an educational consulting firm. Theodore, also a former Dean at Calhoun College during the tumult surrounding Yale's recruiting and admitting many more students of color, divides the university community into four "estates": faculty, students, staff, and the alumni. His theme was: Where will the Fourth Estate (alumni) be in the Digital Age? He forecasts that alumni involvement will evolve from "episodic" participation or intervention into a continuous, lifelong engagement in the affairs of the school. Theodore sees this process beginning from the time one enrolls at Yale (the students are all "on-line") and continuing throughout their lives and outside careers. Alumni will stay involved, after leaving Yale physically, in on-going issues of campus life by participating electronically. Electronic on-line communities will become the future format for graduated classes, and alumni clubs as well, with all this facilitated by the AYA. Alumni also will utilize the opportunity to continue as students over the Internet, facilitated by the recent alliance of Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Oxford.

Theodore cautions that the fundamental core of a university - to preserve, create, and transmit ideas - must not be lost as the Digital Age unfolds. That is, the temptation for faculty to become "entrepreneurs" who establish quasi-companies specializing in the marketing of their research and ideas in partnership with "philanthropists" whose "enlightened self-interest" is driven by a desire for outcomes at the expense of pure academic research must be kept under control. In a sense, Yale may be there already, since half the university's operating budget is funded by government grants, a balance Theodore believes will not go away. Who owns the brain of a faculty member?

An issue raised at recent assemblies is that as the Digital Age expands, why do students have to be in New Haven in order to get a Yale education? Theodore has a short, sweet reply - the students still have to be together to gain the rest of the Yale experience, that which the classrooms do not provide. And, recalling an earlier theme, that is what must live on to make Yale "Yale".