Advisory Committee to the Business Honors Program
Agenda for September 13, 2003 Meeting
Dean’s Conference Room, GSB 2.104
8:30 AM CST
Conference Line: 512-471-3099
Participants:
In person: John Mills, Michael Klein, Robert Buchholz, Scott Campbell, Andrew Allemann, Dominic Sung, Bob
Bennett, John Highbarger, Stewart and Donna Robinson, Sarah Sanghavi, Eli Cox, Lara Scheindlin, Adam Ward
Via phone: Craig Wielansky, Mitch Kreindler, Lynn Utter, Owen Nieberg, Glenna Sharafeldin, Boris Siperstein, Greg
Gerstenhaber, Danielle Pfaffenberger, Steve Carlson, Nandu Madhava, Robin Boesch, Tanmay Desai, Crissy Perez,
Wesley Fuller, Maria Yuan, Chee Ming Li
I. Welcome-Robin and Andrew
New Members: Parents’ Council:
Bob Bennett
John and Debbi Highbarger
Stewart Robinson
Chee Ming and Jenny Li
II. Program Update - Dr. Cox
III. Alumni Survey Report –view more results online at: www.mccombs.utexas.edu/bhp/advisory
We connected with 286 alumni through the survey
Participation was skewed towards younger alums
Overall theme: alumni want more updates and information on what their classmates and peers are doing
They want more of a forum for networking
Events:
More events in cities: Dallas, Houston, Austin, New York, SF
Happy hours are great, keep them coming, but add events for older alumni
Get events in Chicago
Piggy back on UTBN, TexasEx events; co-sponsor events
Get the Dean or large speaker to speak at events
Regional recruiting events
Communications:
No message boards
A job board would be good if its easy
Put more focus on paper newsletter than email newsletter
Highlight class years/industries to spotlight in each newsletter
Alumni events calendar on the web
BHP alumni directory
Fundraising:
An annual report of an alum’s giving an where it went
BHP specific reminders of what they gave and when the next gift is due
Highlight matching impact of Robert’s gift
Include corporate matching search website
Notify alumni that their company matches
Provide lifetime giving information
Consecutive giving years recognition
IV. Projects
-Someone to coordinate getting each class chair to send communication to their class about Robert's challenge
donation. Perhaps we could pair Robert involved with the help of a younger alumnus.
- Benchmark our mentor program against other college mentor programs. Create ideas/report
- Gather alumni profile ideas for newsletters (or, we give the ideas, get someone to write the profiles)
- Alumni involvement for '04 reunion. Get committee members who graduated in those years to spearhead.
- Collect alumni newsletters from other schools to compare. Good examples: MBAs send us newsletters they receive
- someone to contact major publications and try to get BHP mentioned
- someone to focus on (or sit on the committee) that makes changes to the curriculum ... maybe help get other alumni
involved in that as well
- someone to be a liaison with Plan II so that we can coordinate things with them ... now that they have a new group
Alumni interested in any of these projects should contact Andrew: awa@alumni.utexas.net
V. Alumni Relations
A. Area Events
Houston-Luncheon, June 18th
Austin Area Luncheon- October 8th-UT Club
Fall Goals-host an event in each of the cities in the fall
B. Reunion- Spring ’04 for Classes of ’64, ’74, ’84, & ‘94
Date set for February 6-8, 2004
VI. Admissions and Alumni Recruiting
A. Sophomore Admissions
Applications Received: 143
Students Accepted: 35
Average GPA: 3.9
B. Freshman Admissions
Applications Available: Oct 1
Student Recruiters
Fall Info Sessions Planned for Houston & Dallas
Students continue to be great
VII. Resources-
A. Annual fund complete for FY ‘03
49 gifts for a total of $5187
B. Excellence Fund
1. Totals
a. $66,610 pledged
b. $31,857.50 received
c. Robert’s gift- Thank you!! Huge momentum for us
d. Campaign
tie deadline for matching back to use reunions as opportunity to engage people and then ask
them to give to excellence fund (March 31 st?)
use calling trees and class chairs to ask; peer to peer more successful
2. Alumni AC solicitation update. Class of ‘84
5-10 members have pledged $750
1-3 have pledged around $150
5-10 can’t give at this time
3. Committee member gifts
VIII. Communication-Scott and Adam
IX. Parents’ Council
Structure/Membership
The Parents' Council would initially start a group of 4-8 parents of students from the
Business Honors Program; one parent(s) from each class year. From here we want to include all of
the parents in as many programs as possible. Having an initial small group will help us determine what
programs are realistic and needed by parents. It is a new program that we are creating with the hopes
of involving our parents of BHP students further into programming and communication. We are definitely in
the building stages of this program. We hope to have the Parents' Council to serve an advisory role to the
staff of the program--to help us develop appropriate programming and communication that will be
appropriate to the parents. Over the next couple of weeks
we hope to put together an organized list of goals we would like the council to advise us on. We hope to
incorporate this council of parents into our existing
Advisory Committee to the BHP. The committee meets quarterly to serve as a guide to our program.
Goals:
1. BHP Parents Weekend Events - information about the program, access to information about honors activities and
classes, a reception with alumni are our tentative plans
2. Parents Resource Mentor Program (Backpacks to Briefcases) - parents serve as resources to current BHP students
who want to investigate careers that might be held by our parents. Opportunities for BHP students to shadow a
parent in their job will be tied to this.
3. Parents to Parents program - resources and recruiting efforts by current students parents to parents of newly
admitted students
X. Next Meeting –tentatively set for Saturday, December 6 th