The 50th Anniversary Campaign (Endowment, 2012

The 50th Anniversary Campaign (Endowment, 2012).

May 10, 2013, SVSU announced “Talent. Opportunity. Promise. The Campaign for SVSU,” with a $25 million goal and a focus on the institution’s 50th anniversary.

During a “quiet phase” the previous academic year, the university solicited donations from major regional donors and the SVSU faculty and staff. The resulting endowments, according to the foundation, would help “attract and retain the top talent in faculty, staff and students; continue to provide a wide range of distinctive opportunities for academic, professional and cultural development; [and] create a more promising future for our students, our region, and the world.”15

Chairs for the campaign were attorney John A. Decker, businessman D. Brian Law, contractor Herbert A. Spence III and philanthropic foundation executive Jenee L. Velasquez. A steering committee of seven persons worked on the campaign: investment advisor David J. Abbs, a former SVSU Board of Control chair; Donald Bachand, SVSU vice president for academic affairs and provost; K. P. Karunakaran, M.D., former chair of the Board of Control; retired banker and foundation board member Dominic Monastiere; former hospital executive and foundation board member Terence F. Moore; electricity company executive Linda L. Sims, a former Board of Control member; and accountant Jerome L. Yantz of the Board of Control. Honorary committee members included Braun and his wife Ruth; former Board of Control member Charles Curtiss and his wife Sue; Linneaus and Phae Dorman; Dr. Malcolm and Lois Field; retired Air Force General Dave Hall and his wife Jackie; attorney B. J. Humphreys and his wife Laura; foundation executive Alan Ott and his wife Jean; excavation company owners Tom and Ginger Marx; foundation executive Margaret Ann Riecker; former SVSU president Jack Ryder and his wife Lila; businessman Martin Stark; retired banker Bob Vitito and his wife Bobbi; and community leader Judy Yeo.

Of notable mention at the time of this publication’s printing is the largest single gift from an SVSU alumna. Janet M. Botz, 1974, B.A., announced a gift of $1 million for the 50th Anniversary Campaign to create the Botz Fellowship, an internship program for liberal arts students in the College of Arts & Behavioral Sciences.

John A. Decker

D. Brian Law

Herbert Spence III

Jenee L. Velasquez

The Alumni Association — in this photo, meeting in 1993 in the Alumni Lounge when it was still located in Zahnow Library — is responsible for several traditions, including establishing the Landee Award for Teaching Excellence.

Chapter 8

The Alumni Association and Alumni Relations

The Alumni Association’s charter meeting took place April 6, 1967, less than a year after the college’s first graduation of 10 students in 1966. A half-century later the alumni corps had grown to nearly 40,000.1

Already in 1967, charter alumni were venturing beyond Michigan. Two members of the class of 1966 posted Illinois addresses and one resettled in Texas; six of the remaining seven were in what is now the Great Lakes Bay Region, Arenac and the Thumb, and the seventh had moved to East Lansing.

In May 2011, SVSU alumni were living in all of Michigan’s 83 counties (the only exceptions were Keweenaw County in the remote tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula and isolated Isle Royale in Lake Superior). Moreover, SVSU graduates were living and working in all 50 states, with significant populations in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, as well as North Carolina, Texas, California and, especially, Florida. Of course, most alumni remained closer to home in eastern and southeastern Michigan. But due to the campus globalization over the past few decades, many alumni are residents in other parts of the world.

Over the years, the association matured significantly since Bertram Schafer enrolled in “Saginaw Valley College” as student number 01, Roselyn Argyle became the first student to receive an “SVC” degree and the first class elected initial officers — Schafer as president, Argyle as vice president, Mary Caumartin as secretary and Richard Wallace as treasurer2 — to lead the charter membership of Frank J. Isackson (B.S. chemistry), Faye C. Frank (B.A. psychology), Stanley J. Gorzinski (B.S. biology), Allen D. Shaddock (B.A. psychology), Henry Hatter (B.S. chemistry) and Richard S. Wallace (B.A. economics).

A number of significant association traditions took shape during the very early years of the association. One is the Landee Award. Each year the university has recognized one, or occasionally two, full-time faculty as the recipient of the Franc A. Landee Award for Teach-

ing Excellence.3 Alumni — as well as students, faculty and staff — nominate the candidates. The award committee, representing a cross-section of the university, makes the selection.

The Alumni Board lapsed into a brief period of inactivity in the early 1970s and returned to life when Ryder assumed the presidency. The board adopted a constitution and bylaws May 1, 1976, and the organization developed continuously after that.4 By 2013, 18 members of the SVSU Alumni Association Board of Directors were working with the university’s Alumni Relations staff to fulfill the association mission statement’s stipulation that it “… engage graduates and students in a mutually beneficial relationship with the university and … promote loyalty and support among our alumni” and to work toward its strategic vision to “... create awareness of the association, strengthen membership, support students and create distinctive initiatives.”5

Attracting more alumni to the association was a pervasive theme over the years, and to this end it established a number of regularly scheduled social events that included annual homecoming observances each fall and an alumni recognition banquet and fundraiser.

The association has provided ushers for commencement and supervision of the annual spring student telethon in support of the Annual Fund. In 2012, the Office of Alumni Relations partnered with the Office of Admissions to create CARDS, a recruitment initiative designed to encourage alumni to connect with prospective students. The acronym stands for Cardinal Alumni Recruiting Dedicated Students.

Alumnus Jason Swackhamer ushers graduates to their seats during the May 2011 commencement ceremony.