|
 
Columbia couple Bill and Jolene Schulz, foreground, cut
a rug on the temporary dance floor set up on Carnahan Quad
during the MU Alumni Association’s 150th anniversary
gala celebration Sept. 8. Nicholas Benner photo
View
more gala photos on the association’s Web site. |
Staying
Power
When the MU
Alumni Association was officially launched in 1856, its organizers
boasted some impressive ties to Mizzou. The first members, cousins
Robert L. Todd and Robert B. Todd, were also the first MU alumni,
graduating in 1843 as the only members of that class.
The alumni association still lays claim to
impressive ties to MU. The original handful of members has grown
to 37,550 today, the largest number ever. Today’s alumni
leaders threw a 150th
birthday party for the association with a gala dinner and
dance Sept. 8 in a tent under a full moon on Carnahan Quad.
Some things haven’t changed over the
years, says Todd McCubbin, the association's executive director
and associate vice chancellor for alumni relations. “Our
members are very proud of their alma mater,” McCubbin says.
“People are still getting together because they want to
support this institution. The MU Alumni Association is a difference-maker
for this institution.”
He points out a few of the many ways the association
makes a difference on campus:
- The association and its chapters provide nearly $200,000 each
year in scholarships for Mizzou students.
- The Richard Wallace Research Incentive Grant budgets $35,000
a year to help faculty fund their research projects.
- It organizes speakers from the campus community to talk about
MU’s achievements at gatherings around the state and the
nation.
- The number of chapters has grown to 115 in locations around
the world.
- The association has won more than a dozen national awards
for its programs, including Tiger Walk, Homecoming and Mizzou
Match, which celebrates alumni couples.
McCubbin says the association is looking forward
to a few new wrinkles during its sesquicentennial year. Beginning
Jan. 1, 2007, the group will officially be known as the Mizzou
Alumni Association.
McCubbin says the association also plans to
initiate what is being called the “Mizzou Legacy Walk”
for the walkway in front of the Reynolds Alumni Association. Donors
will purchase bricks that will repave the walkway and that will
include inscriptions that acknowledge individual gifts.
“We have a lot of great things ahead
of us and we want to look to the future,” McCubbin says.
“Let's use this celebration to launch the next 150 years.”
With 240,000 living MU alumni, the association
still has plenty of fertile ground for recruiting new members.
“We say there is no such thing as nonmembers,” McCubbin
says. “We have members, and we have future members.”
Editor's Note: This story
was published originally in Mizzou Weekly, a publication
for faculty and staff of the University of Missouri-Columbia.
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November 15, 2007
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