200 Meetings and a Gift

200 Meetings and a Gift

ON SATURDAY, SEPT. 28, THE HARVEY MUDD College Alumni Association Board of Governors (AABOG), the governing body of the HMC Alumni Association, held its 200th Board of Governors meeting.

In celebration of the event, AABOG hosted an on-campus reception and dinner the night before the meeting. Invited attendees included current and past AABOG governors, HMC trustees and members of the college administration. Following a welcome from AABOG President Dee West ’65, P92/93, the program for the evening began with a brief history of AABOG by Professor Gerald Van Hecke ’61 that included memorable, interesting and fun events in the board’s history.

Gerald Van Hecke ’61

The program also featured an AABOG past presidents’ panel with each past president commenting on events during their term(s). Panel members included: Penny Barrett ’67 (president: ’72–’73, ’79–’81), Pat Barrett ’66 (’90–’91), Bruce Worster ’64 (’92–’93), Jerome Jackson ’76 (’01–’03), John Lulejian ’90 (’10–’12) and David Sonner ’80 (’16–’19). Jerry Van Hecke ’61 (’86–’89, ’14–’17) also read comments from David Goodsell ’61 (’67–’68) and Sally Siemak ’72 (’99–’01).

West announced the creation of a new endowed fund, a gift to the College commemorating the 200th AABOG Meeting. Conceived during a brainstorming session at the Executive Committee retreat last January, the AABOG Curricular Innovation Fund was created with the assistance of the Office of Advancement and funded, initially, by gifts from current and former governors. The fund supports the maintenance of academic excellence by providing grants to faculty for developing new courses, revising existing courses and exploring innovative teaching methods.

Expenditures from the fund’s proceeds will be managed by faculty leadership, and the intention is for the fund to grow indefinitely through contributions from alumni and friends of the College. At press time, $75,000 has been raised, and an additional $10,000 challenge by Emeritus Governor Fred Pickel ’74 is set to be released. Echoing the sentiment of past and present members, Van Hecke said, “It has been a great source of satisfaction to me to follow the development of the AABOG and the BOG from the days of wondering what we should do, to now wondering how can we do all that we want.”