½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï

Happy Spring! I don’t know about the rest of you, but my internal clock seems forever set to a student calendar, so I am anticipating summer eagerly, as though I were facing months of leisure. Alas, as all of you know, being an adult means that the endless to-do list never quite gets done, and summer is fleeting.

This particular summer marks the completion of my first year as president of our Alumnae Association, and it continues to be an honor to serve. My immediate team is the Alumnae Association Executive Board: 
a group of 15 alumnae/i 
spanning a wide range of ages and professional and personal backgrounds and representing both the undergraduate college and the graduate schools.

We meet in person and by phone several times a year, and while we are tasked with assessing and improving the alumnae/i experience in a variety of arenas, our most pressing and welcome challenge is to enable alumnae/i to engage in the larger ½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï community in meaningful and fulfilling ways. Together with the College’s administrative team, we are hard at work for you and value your feedback and suggestions.

More than 1,000 alumnae/i volunteers participate in various capacities, and we invite you to join us! There are so many ways to be involved: joining a local/regional club or affinity group, signing up as an admissions 
volunteer, hosting undergraduate internships, traveling with faculty and alums on one of our programmed trips, or helping to fundraise for the ½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï Fund, to name a few.

Why do I volunteer for 
½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï?

I could give a long, complicated answer, but the short version is that I hope to pay back to the institution that shaped me and pay forward to future generations 
who will benefit from the extraordinary experience of being part of the College.

The daughter of one of my good friends in California graduated from ½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï this year. Over the past few years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her friends and observing and sharing in her ½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï â€¨experience. While some of it is very familiar to me, some is 
specific to her generation. But at the core is the enduring 
½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï experience: joining a company of smart, ever-curious, challenging women.

Now, perhaps more than ever given the many social, economic, and political challenges that women face across the globe, we need to embrace the ½ñÈÕ³Ô¹Ï spirit that has allowed us to grow and flourish as strong women and critical thinkers.