Clark Atlanta eliminates its alumni affiliation
Clark Atlanta College is ending its settlement with the present alumni affiliation, in accordance with a college announcement Thursday.
The traditionally Black college in Atlanta introduced the creation of a brand new alumni advisory council and added two new roles to help alumni relations. The college additionally promoted Lorri Saddler, its vice chairman of alumni affairs, to vice chairman and chief alumni engagement officer, The Atlanta Journal-Structure reported.
The modifications took impact Oct. 1.
In response to the announcement, the transfer got here in response to “shifting alumni demographics and evolving preferences in how alumni have interaction with the college.” It cited a Could 2024 survey that discovered that alumni “search extra customized, dynamic, and digitally related interactions”; 40 % of respondents mentioned they have been “inactive or felt underserved by the present mannequin.” The college plans to host roundtables in main cities to debate the transition and permit alumni to ask questions and provide enter.
Shoring up alumni relations is essential to the “long-term stability of our establishment,” George T. French Jr., president of Clark Atlanta, mentioned within the announcement. “By reinventing our alumni engagement mannequin, we’re guaranteeing that CAU leads in alumni relations amongst all establishments and fosters a stronger, extra related international alumni base.”
Clark Atlanta alumni advised The Atlanta Journal-Structure that the affiliation was susceptible to divisions and infighting, together with over how the affiliation ought to be run. They pointed to tensions between alumni who graduated earlier than Clark Faculty and Atlanta College merged in 1988 and those that graduated after, in addition to a broader generational divide. Some alumni noticed the choice to take away the affiliation as a optimistic step that was lengthy overdue, whereas others described it as abrupt and doubtlessly dangerous to alumni relations.
“This determination has eroded belief,” Veverly Byrd-Davis, former president of the alumni affiliation’s Atlanta and Dekalb County chapters, advised The Atlanta Journal-Structure.
