Transcript:USC Alumni Association Regional Programs Town Hall Meeting via Zoom

Tuesday, June 23, 2020
3:00 – 5:08 p.m. PDT

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Patrick Auerbach (PEA): So if you could please go ahead and click Continue on your screen, you’ll be able to proceed with the meeting. We thank you

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PEA: For your forbearance there. And also, we asked, please enable your video feature. We’d love to see you, especially as we’re scrolling through and taking questions.

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PEA: If you just want to show your headshot or your name, that’s fine. But we encourage as many people as possible to enable your video feature as long as it doesn’t compromise your connection. So we thank you for that.

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PEA: We can now advance the slide please.

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PEA: So we’re going to do some brief introductions.

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PEA: What we’re then going to do is we’re going to give a quick overview and hopefully this will only take about 15 total minutes we’re going to do a quick overview of the Alumni Association.

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PEA: We’re also going to review the regional program overhaul, which we’re calling reimagining regional. This is a review because this has already been shared with all of our club leaders.

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PEA: And president who participated on our presidents call back on June 3 but we do want to review it for everyone’s benefit here.

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PEA: Then we want to spend the bulk of our time with as Danielle already described an open forum, the open forum is an opportunity for you to share your thoughts concerns and

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PEA: Questions that you may have. We want to make sure that we’re answering all of them being as clear and transparent as possible.

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PEA: And at the same time, perhaps clarifying any inadvertent misinformation, which might be out there right now we understand there’s lots of questions. And so we’re really pleased to have this opportunity to share responses.

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PEA: At the end we’ll quickly recap and go on to next steps and then we will adjourn. It’s an aspirational goals to be done in an hour, but we think we may actually take up to one and a half hour. So again, we thank you for spending the time with us.

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PEA: And again, if we can ask you to please mute. If you haven’t been muted by the host. So really briefly, I want to introduce a couple of

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PEA: guests who are with us here today, if we could advance the slide.

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PEA: Thank you Jaime Lee, who’s a USC trustee. She’s a past president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors and she’s also the co Chair of the

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PEA: Board of Trustees alumni affairs and university Development Committee. We’re very pleased to Jaime Lee is joining us today. And also, Dr. Amy Ross fellow trustee. We’ve seen on the call with us. So thank you Amy as well.

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PEA: We have John Iino with us today. John, as you may know, is the recently installed president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors so john, welcome. Thank you.

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PEA: And now let’s go ahead and I’m going to again hopefully take this opportunity for a very brief overview and a very brief review for everyone’s benefit. So the next slide please.

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PEA: We want to engage all alumni lifelong and worldwide that’s the mission of the USC Alumni Association.

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PEA: We want to build a culture of philanthropy among the Trojan family and we want to be a representative voice for all USC alumni. That is the overall mission of the USC Alumni Association. Next slide please.

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PEA: Now, as most of the students who have graduated from a few weeks ago, they’ve now been moved over in our system into

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PEA: Living degree to alumni. We’re really proud to announce that as of today, we have more than 437,000 living alumni around the world.

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PEA: Those stats are literally 24 hours old. And just to give everybody an idea, roughly half of our alumni live in Los Angeles and Orange County.

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PEA: And if you break that down a little further about 40% live in LA 10% live in Orange County. So where are the other half of the alums?

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PEA: Well, about 45% out of the other 50% so about 90% of the other alarms are in the United States, but they’re just not in LA. Orange County.

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PEA: And then about 5% of our alums live outside the US one other really key statistic that we’re always very intrigued by is the fact that 35% of our alumni are considered young alumni that is that they are age 35 or younger.

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PEA: Next slide please.

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PEA: So that’s a brief overview of the Alumni Association would now like to just for those of you who have not seen this presentation, show you why we reimagined our regional alumni engagement program.

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PEA: Our region alumni engagement program needed an overhaul because we needed to broaden engagement by breaking down barriers to involvement and we’ll explain what this means.

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PEA: We needed to mitigate some inadvertent and undue risk and liabilities, which we’re facing the university and our volunteers.

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PEA: We wanted to make sure with our time and resources that we’re really we’re putting them in the very best position so that we could maximize engagement of our Trojan family.

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PEA: We wanted to standardize the alumni experience across all of our different regional clubs, both in large cities and smaller cities in terms of how

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PEA: they got interaction and engagement with the University

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PEA: And then importantly as the university looks towards providing more financial assistance and scholarship support for our current students

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PEA: We wanted to expand the opportunity for the regional scholarship philanthropy, to really support Dr. Folt’s affordability and accessibility initiative. So we believe that by reimagining our regional format will be better able to support the scholarship need of our current student body.

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PEA: So here’s the need for change. We’ve discovered over the years that there have been certain challenges which have come our way when it comes to regional alumni engagement.

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PEA: For example, with our alumni clubs and chapters, there are limitations to outreach.

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PEA: Most alumni clubs and chapters are only able to reach by way of alumni opting into their to their local clubs about 10% of their audience. Some are higher and some are lower.

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PEA: So we do have that we to limitations and also this is not a fault. This first of all is not a fault of the regional clubs and chapters. It’s also a data security issue with the university. We are not allowed to just share our data.

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PEA: Out there, our data is the property of the university and we have a pretty tall responsibility to protect the integrity and the security of our data.

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PEA: The Alumni experiences inconsistent and I see some questions coming in about. We could certainly speak to those about inconsistency and alumni experience.

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PEA: This does not apply to all clubs, but a common theme that my staff has heard over the last four to five years.

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PEA: Is a lot of our clubs have challenges when it comes to finding people to fill out all the positions on their board which are required.

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PEA: So that’s when we talk about volunteer burden and burnout. We’ve also had many instances of alumni clubs and rather large markets large cities are large

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PEA: Large metro areas where an alumni President suddenly gets called out of town he or she has to take a new job or tend to some family matters, and we don’t have anybody who’s willing or able to step up to fill the role

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PEA: Our scholarship fundraising outcomes. We believe could be stronger if we brought into our whole engagement initiative.

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PEA: We’ve also had issues with Charter compliance and this isn’t everybody. I really appreciate your listening to these items here.

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PEA: These were all issues that we’ve been discussing for several years with our alumni club leaders, only about half of our alumni clubs are in compliance with university requirements.

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PEA: And finally, financial oversight. That’s always a concern when there’s money changing hands within our club structure and we needed to find a way to optimize

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PEA: And really systemized how these funds were being collected by the university. So these were these were opportunities for us to really examine what the challenges were and how we could make this opportunity better

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PEA: We can go to the next slide, please. So what we’ve done. And again, we ask that you maybe visit this a little later, unless you want to take a quick stroll right now is we’ve retooled our alumni associations regional page.

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PEA: Within our website. So instead of finding an alumni club near you. Now what you do is you go to our website and under the get involved tab under communities you find alumni near you.

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PEA: Next page, please.

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PEA: And here are the opportunities that we’re really going for. We want to continue to build community and we want alumni to connect with one another. That’s what the Alumni Association is all about. It’s about engaging all alumni lifelong and worldwide.

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PEA: We want to make sure that our alumni have the opportunity to volunteer or participate in our annual traditions.

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PEA: Game watches service projects, scend offs, etc. Those are those programs are bedrocks of the USC Alumni Association and we understand there’s been a lot of questions out there about how these projects and programs are no longer going to happen.

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PEA: That is actually the opposite. These are the programs that are going to continue to happen under this model.

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PEA: What’s really exciting for us is sharing our expertise with the Trojan family mentoring students and alumni.

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PEA: providing opportunities for our alumni who work in banking real estate.

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PEA: Medicine law finance all these different industries. We want to provide opportunities for them to share their expertise and be engaged with the Trojan family.

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PEA: And finally, we want volunteers to continue to have opportunities to lead an event or create an informal Meetup. So those are the goals with this ongoing original engagement model.

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PEA: But here’s what’s really important that we want to make sure everybody understands

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PEA: We there’s been there’s been some talk out there that we are discontinuing volunteerism in the regions and we want to emphasize here to everybody.

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PEA: That that is not the case. Volunteerism is key to everything we do in the Alumni Association from our efforts on campus and with our Alumni Association Board of Governors

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PEA: To all the programs and events and initiatives that we deploy, both in Southern California and throughout the world, none of these programs would happen without volunteerism. So volunteerism is is continuing to be our guiding light through our alumni relations programs.

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PEA: Another opportunity.

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PEA: That we’ve heard that people believe is going to go away, which again is not the case. We just want to make sure we’re clarifying here.

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PEA: We are not eliminating game watch parties, scend offs or day of service projects. People have said, Oh, you’re getting, you know, the clubs are going to disappear. So are all these programs. These traditions are hallmarks of the Trojan family.

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PEA: And finally, this model is not dismissing decades of hard work and dedication of our alumni volunteers, the next generations of trojans, and the USC Alumni Association look to build upon this legacy of leadership.

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PEA: Next slide.

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PEA: We know that many people on this call may have some questions about who does this apply to. So I want to again emphasize here because I think a lot of times, people may confuse some of the terminology we have here at USC. So again, we want to take this opportunity.

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PEA: To pause and to clarify this model applies to USC regional alumni clubs and chapters. It does not apply to Trojan clubs Trojan clubs, our athletic department.

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PEA: Organizations, they are administered by our friends and USC athletics.

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PEA: Our entire Alumni Relations team works very closely with our campus partners in athletics and across schools and units.

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PEA: But this change does not apply to Trojan clubs and we know that there’s been a lot of question about that. So we wanted to clarify that.

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PEA: This change does not apply to our women’s groups, for example, our Trojan league associates of the

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PEA: San Fernando Valley. Our Trojan League of Los Angeles or Trojan Guild of Orange County, all those women’s groups that are chartered by the Alumni Association, they are still chartered by the Alumni Association.

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Many of our campus partners in schools, for example, Marshall School of Business, Viterbi School of PEA: Engineering Annenberg School for Communication and journalism, Rossier school of education.

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PEA: Many of them have regional regionally based alumni groups those groups, as long as the school is continue to have a need for them and to work with them.

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PEA: Those groups will continue on this overhaul does not apply to them.

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PEA: And finally, we have 25 international clubs those clubs exist in countries throughout Asia throughout the Middle East and throughout Europe, and we actually have a

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PEA: Couple clubs and South America. Those clubs are not being dissolved those clubs that will continue on as chartered international alumni club.

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PEA: We can go to the next slide please.

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PEA: And now we would like to introduce this opportunity for an open forum.

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PEA: So, Danielle.

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PEA: And I come back to you. And if you’d like to provide any reminder here or I give us our next steps.

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Danielle Harvey Stinson (DHS): Absolutely. Thank you, Patrick. So again, if we could just share the presentation. One more time. I have a slide set up. I just to review how we would like to facilitate today’s open forum. Next slide please.

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DHS: Thank you. So, what we will do is ask that anyone who would like to make a comment out loud, please use the raise your hand feature on the zoom meeting today.

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DHS: We ask that you limit your comments or questions you one minute and we’ll have a timer on the screen so that everyone can be held accountable and this will allow for as many participants as possible to share their comments out loud.

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DHS: We will help to unmute and the speaker. Once the facilitator. That would be me calls on you. And then as you have already found you may

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DHS: Have any questions or comments that you have in the chat feature as well. And then finally, we also received

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DHS: A number of questions before the meeting. And we will also curate those questions. And again, be sure to address in here as many as we can. So if we will go ahead and get our timer set up.

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DHS: I will take a look at our participant list and great I have some raised hands. So I’ll go ahead and start with that, I’ll start with MD from Chicago, and I will unmute you. MD, go for it.

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MD: Thanks, Danielle. I just have two questions. The first one is, can you share what their regional breakdown of staffing is. And secondly,

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MD: The Chicago area club is wondering what will happen to the Kenneth Barton. The second Memorial endowment that was established for the Midwest regional scholarships. We haven’t heard a lot of specifics on how the scholarship programs will change as this moves forward.

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PEA: So Danielle, would you like me to take that? Yes, please. So we could stop the timer. Thank you, MD, for the questions and for staying within 30 seconds.

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PEA: So first of all, regarding let’s talk about the scholarship endowment.

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PEA: Any scholarship that was donated to the university for its stated purpose will absolutely move forward and to broaden that answer a little bit, MD.

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PEA: The regional scholarship accounts are all still moving forward and alumni will have opportunities to donate to those scholarships. So for example, if an alum donates to the Chicago scholarship account.

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PEA: That money will still go towards supporting us current USC students who hail from Chicago.

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PEA: And can you I’m sorry, can you please repeat your first question,

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MD: My first question.

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PEA: Was staffing

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MD: Yes, it was related to staffing

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PEA: Thank you will continue to have a staff liaison Faithe Clary is our current staff liaison for the Chicago region so that hasn’t changed. Thank you.

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MD: Thank you.

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PEA: Thank you.

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DHS: Okay, we have MG.

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DHS: Up next, I will unmute you. And Blaire will start our timer or get our timer setup queued up great and MG. You are unmuted. Go for it.

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MG: Hello, you can hear me okay

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DHS: Yes, we can.

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MG: Thank you. I lived in Los Angeles, a blog for several years to the New York club was active there, and also London club.

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MG: Right now I live north of downtown Silver Lake area. So I was wondering, under the new model, how would it work for

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MG: Alumni to be involved in events that would occur in their local area. So if you’re in New York, for instance, or a part of

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MG: Like in my area but you know something in the South Bay might be kind of far usually to go under the current older model, we would have events that would be closer to home.

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MG: Whether you know whatever the event was social event or volunteer type of event.

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MG: So how would it work. Now you know with traffic or, you know, that kind of thing.

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PEA: So thank you for the question, MG. if you go to our website.

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PEA: What you can do is you go to the website and you select the area. So we have it. We have a whole tab on our regional Facebook groups.

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PEA: Where you could select Los Angeles and we’re going to, we’re going to continue to offer events. If people want to do meetups that are in, you know, the Silver Lake neighborhood or they want to do an event or a meetup over

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PEA: In the South Bay or over on the west side those events are still going to happen. Those happen with or without clubs.

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PEA: So you just, again, it’s going to our website, find alumni near you.

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PEA: And then if you have questions, you could also contact the staff liaison in our office for Los Angeles and ask them how you could

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PEA: Perhaps, raise your hand and volunteer to lead an event. And if you choose to do that, we welcome your volunteerism and at the same time, you’re not going to be expected to have any extended volunteer duties beyond the scope of that event.

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MG: Okay, thank you.

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DHS: Thank you, MG. Thank you. Next up we have MT from Austin. I’m going to unmute you MT.

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MT: Yeah.

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DHS: I think we did it at the same time. Let me get this unmute. There you go. MT

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MT: Hi, um, I just want to put something out here. Just a thought. Because the one thing that I saw in the presentation was the idea that we’re not going to

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MT: We’re not going to throw away the work that all these communities have done, we’re going to build on them.

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MT: In what way are you going to build on them because literally everybody in this chat room hates this idea

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MT: Because they don’t know what’s going to happen if seeing their mailing lists told to be destroyed. They’ve seen a lot of like just kind of sudden moves and these communities.

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MT: Like, it’s all about building community for us, like that’s the only thing that matters is building the community and if these

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MT: These communities aren’t preserved. They’re going to still be around. They’re just not going to be around connected to you they’re going to disappear.

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MT: They’re going to go watch games privately. So what are you going to do to build off of the work that they have done.

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MT: Because right now it feels like you guys are just kind of like, All right, well, these existing we’re just going to take them for granted a little that’s how it feels.

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MT: I want to know that you have a plan. What is the specific plan to keep these communities active and to keep them healthy without someone on the ground to run it.

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PEA: Thank you. MT. So, for example, all the digital opportunities that are listed on the website. Again, have you I don’t know and I don’t know if you’ve taken the opportunity yet have had the opportunity

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MT: Can’t log on the website. It doesn’t work. I don’t have Facebook. I don’t have LinkedIn.

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MT: And I have a password that has like it’s, it is a cumbersome thing to log on to this website in a while.

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PEA: Actually, MT it doesn’t need a login or source. So you can go to our Alumni Association website, you do not need a Facebook page, you do not need an alumni association login

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PEA: You can go to our website under get involved, you can go to find alumni near you. You can raise your hand and volunteer to lead an event.

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PEA: For the time being, if you want to go if you want to check out the Facebook page. If you have Facebook, you can go there, if not within the next few months, we are actually

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PEA: launching a new online portal.

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PEA: Which is going to have a whole platform or alumni communities team can get together, we plan to communicate with all contactable alumni and all of our markets.

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PEA: The club list for Austin was only a fraction of how many alumni actually live in Austin, all of the list that you guys have been working off of for many years have been the result of

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PEA: Alumni over the years, who have opted into your list and for that we’re very appreciate it. But those lists, by and large, represent less than 10% of all alumni who actually live in your regions.

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PEA: So this is our opportunity to expand that we plan to use digital formats in communications we planned if anybody wants to volunteer, they could volunteer, we have a process by which

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JMH: Was that

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PEA: Sorry about that. So again, and we’re happy MT to have Faithe Clary who’s our staff liaison to Texas talk to you specifically

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PEA: But everything that you’re asking. We appreciate the questions and the clarification.

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PEA: those options are already on our website and again on our website. It’s ideal if you have an alumni login and it’s pretty simple to get your alumni login. If you don’t have it.

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PEA: But if you’re just an alum, for example, who hasn’t been involved and you want to find out what’s going in going on in Austin.

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PEA: Or San Francisco or any city in the United States even cities which didn’t previously have alumni clubs and chapters were making that opportunity more available now.

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PEA: Our next question again. I appreciate that MT put some thoughts out there. So people have just thoughts they want to share maybe with not questions are welcome, but so are just general thoughts and concerns.

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DHS: Okay, thank you, Patrick. And so, CW was next.

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DHS: So let me get

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DHS: Her unmuted.

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DHS: Hey,

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CW: What is going on. Hello. Can you hear me.

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PEA: Yes, we can.

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CW: Yeah, so, you know, I lived in Beijing. I also lived in Taiwan. I currently live in the New York City area. And when I heard about this idea. I thought it’s just a horrible idea.

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CW: And the reason why is because the way all of the alumni associations are the regional clubs are structured is that there really is a grassroots activist kind of

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CW: Model and everyone is really involved and engaged in the local community. And so every single alumni club has its own

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CW: Different culture its own vibe is really connected with that community and now

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CW: That there won’t be any board there won’t be any real input from the alumni, including this entire decision which I had to find out from a completely different source and not actually being mailed directly

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CW: from you all. And so what will happen is that you’re taking away all accountability.

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CW: From the local community and replacing it with yourself, who don’t really understand

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CW: The situation in New York or don’t understand the situation and for our don’t understand the situation in Chicago. And so how do you, how do you actually motivate people to actually do any of

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CW: The groundwork in New York. It’s very difficult to get a venue. So who’s going to go and talk to a bar, who’s going to go and talk to a conference room, who’s going to negotiate these things for us, who’s going to rally the community together, who’s going to care about

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DHS: CW. Hi.

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DHS: I’m sorry to jump in there. You’re past time and we definitely understand the nature of your call. And we get it. Thank you. The nature of your question, comment, and when it thank you for it. I want to give Patrick and opportunity just to share and

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DHS: Please forgive me for cutting you off. But if you want to add any additional thoughts in the chat feature that would help us a great deal. So, Patrick,

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PEA: Thank you. CW. Yes. Again, we can’t do any of the alumni engagement work that we do without our boots on the ground without our partners in the regions.

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PEA: Again, this new model does not in any way, shape, or form. Hopefully not discouraged volunteers and I will tell you.

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PEA: That Ashley Bonanno-Curley on our staff and she and our entire Alumni Relations regional team is convening a volunteer training session this Thursday.

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PEA: We have nearly 100 new volunteers signed up from regions throughout the United States. So CW. We absolutely still will have volunteers who are going to be partnering with us to help us execute these programs on the ground.

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PEA: It’s just that it’s not going to be done in a board of directors format in a region.

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PEA: But we’re absolutely working. We want to find an opportunity to make it work, so that it could work for the volunteers and work for the university but we certainly appreciate your concern and hope you’ll be involved going forward.

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DHS: Thank you. I’d like to call on IZ and forgive me if I have butchered that IZ, you are not on mute. So please go ahead and share your question.

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IZ: You got it pretty close. I commend you. It’s a tough.

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IZ: One it. Hey, thanks for taking the time to speak with all of us.

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IZ: Real quick, I’ve lived in New York, I’m in Austin right now of course from LA where I’m originally from and with USC, and I agree with everyone.

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IZ: There are unique cultures which I urge you to respect and help promote

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IZ: And to continue to encourage to thrive, because I think that’s a really cool thing about being outside of LA is not only meeting other USC alumni and kind of building that home away from home that family.

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IZ: In the city that you’re in, but also finding out about the city itself and the culture through that alumni network is really important.

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IZ: Some things I think people are frustrated with here that I’m sensing that I feel as well.

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IZ: Can you specifically explain how this will work like say for example, we do a game watch or we just want to meet up

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IZ: At a local bar, whatever it is, how are you engaging the volunteers locally. Like, it just doesn’t make sense to us, I think, I think you need to spell it out a little bit more clearly for everyone because I don’t get it.

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PEA: IZ that was perfectly timed. Thank you for your thoughts and for being right on time. And that’s a very good question. Again, if you go to the website page

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PEA: Alumni near you and you scroll to the bottom where it talks about getting involved in becoming a volunteer to leading an event.

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PEA: It’s all spelled out there, you fill out a simple woohoo form and then our staff gets back in touch with you right away to work with you.

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PEA: On the event that you’re trying to put together. I would be remiss though right now if I didn’t say that, due to COVID-19 and I just want to put this out there right now until further notice.

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PEA: The university will not support or authorize any in person events that are attached to the university’s name. So I just want to put that out there, not

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PEA: We’re, we’re all the stuff that we’re announcing today and launching

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PEA: We were going to do with or without COVID it so I want to be transparent about that. I just want to throw out that COVID caveat, so that when you guys find this information on the website and start making requests for events.

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PEA: It is highly likely that any in person event will not be approved until we have the lift off from public health officials regarding COVID so i just i know that wasn’t your exact question, but I felt it was really important for us to put it out there.

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PEA: But I turned them going.

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IZ: Go ahead.

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IZ: Yeah, just to be

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IZ: Very, very clear.

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IZ: Okay. Say we sign up for the platform, assuming the websites working everything

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IZ: We requested volunteer. Yeah.

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IZ: Like, what happens if it’s a Wednesday and there’s a bunch of folks. There’s an event happening in Austin that’s separate from USC that like a concert that we all really want to promote other USC Trojans to go to together to have to like fill out a form and request.

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PEA: Sir,

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IZ: So explain that to us a little bit

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PEA: Go on the Facebook page and put it out there because

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PEA: We don’t. We certainly don’t want. We don’t want to preclude or stifle any engagement like that. But again, that you bring up a really good point, IZ. And I’d like to speak to

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PEA: This for a moment. Danielle, if you’ll allow me, please. If alumni want to get together and they want to go do something fun in their city.

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PEA: And you know you happen to have that common bond is Trojans, we absolutely support and celebrate that. What we want to get away from is having that become an official club event.

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PEA: That then requires a lot of staff attention and then requires all the risk management and risk mitigation that we used to have to invest in every time the club did something like that.

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PEA: So we encourage people to utilize not only the Facebook platform. Now, but then once we get our communities platform launched a little later on this calendar year. That’s what it’s there for. So that you could reach out to your fellow Trojans

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PEA: And if there’s something if there’s a pop up event that happens in your community. We encourage you to go for it, do it where the brand probably and go forward.

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PEA: I hope that helps. And again you and we’re happy to answer further questions. If you want to reach out to us, Danielle, back to you.

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DHS: Thank you. I want to give DW an opportunity to answer, DW. I’m going to unmute you and lower your name please ask your question.

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DW: Okay. Hi.

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DW: Hey, I noticed that a lot of

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DW: How you’re describing this was a reimagining and an overhaul and stuff. And I thought, well, okay, and it looks like a really well thought out plan, but

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DW: Why are we just finding out about this now with a July 1 deadline. That’s very contrary to how I think USC normally does things, at least in my experience. I’m wondering, Why the rush

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PEA: Thank you, DW, can you tell us where you’re from.

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DW: As well. I’m sorry I had Washington DC.

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PEA: Thank you. Okay. Yes. So we’ve actually been working on this program we’ve been working on this. As mentioned before, for a few years and my team started reaching out to all the regions back in April to let them know that change was coming. And this was not without a lot of critical thought

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PEA: That we put into this over many years. So we can put that out there for you now. And if you are caught off guard by the, by this change. We certainly apologize, but at the end of the day.

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PEA: And we could say this with 100% confidence. Most alumni in the regions were not involved with the clubs. So we hope that our efforts to reach out to them.

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PEA: Are going to hopefully

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PEA: Be more resonant with them because they’re being reached to by the university and we certainly want everyone who was involved in the clubs in the chapters from before.

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PEA: To remain involved with the university. This is not in any way meant to tell them that we don’t want them anymore, we just feel there’s a better way to deploy our efforts and resources.

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PEA: To get more alumni in all of our regions, including Southern California, and our major markets on the east coast and never everywhere in between involved.

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DHS: Okay, thank you, Patrick. I want to go ahead and give JC an opportunity. See a to in. I’m going to unmute you JC

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JC: And thank you.

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JC: Awesome. Um, so I guess, first off, thank you guys for holding this meeting.

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JC: And I can really say firsthand that the unilateral action years then nothing to endear the alumni of southern New Jersey and Philadelphia.

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JC: To the Alumni Association, and it’s really alien who love our groups to be completely honest. So I guess the question is

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JC: Why are the actual alumni community not engaged in this decision, and I’m talking about more than just one email with a nebulous promise of change coming

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JC: And the second half is, you know, we pull a thought and effort into the Day of service. How exactly are you going to choose something that’s really, you know,

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JC: Help close and dear to the communities in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, all the way from Los Angeles. Because I can tell you right now, the math engagement, you’re actually going to get from the folks out this direction is going to be microscopic compared to what it once was.

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PEA: Okay thank you JC. So first of all, Philadelphia, in terms of the Day of Service projects.

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PEA: Again, we can’t do a day of service project without the partnership of our volunteers. So we would work with volunteers. And so, I mean, to answer your question.

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PEA: Again, whether you have a club or not, we still expect to have volunteers and we hope that people will want to volunteer directly with the University

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PEA: In terms of we’ve been I worked very closely with CY, the last couple years, as did my staff in terms of asking how do we get more volunteers involved.

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PEA: And quite frankly, and how do we get charter signed and executed and maybe that’s not a specific Philadelphia issue, but this is by and large, the issue over 45 clubs, we spent more of our time.

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PEA: witnessing a lack of interest in people being involved in the way we were presenting the clubs. So what we’re trying to do is reposition all these great programs like game watches and Day of Service and send offs so that people can actually be involved.

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JC: We’re home. I guess my only follow up to that Patrick would be that there is no actual

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JC: You know, you can have hundreds of lists and people saying they’re willing to volunteer.

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JC: But you’re talking to the folks are actually on the ground there that dialed into this not the volunteers nebulously on the list, so I you know I really don’t know where exactly you’re trying to endear and win people over with this new model, but that’s all right. I understand.

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PEA: Okay, thank you.

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DHS: Thank You, JC I want to give SD an opportunity to share. I’m going to, you are unmuted. Please go SD.

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DHS: Oh, did we not unmute you. Hold on. One moment. SD, don’t start yet.

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DHS: Okay. SD. I think we’re both click. There you go. Now you’re unmuted, please ask your question.

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SD: Okay, so here’s my issue.

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SD: I am the local scholarship chair or was a local scholarship chair and I am also a past president. My name is SD. I’m from Dallas, Texas.

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SD: And some of you might have been have been to Texas for the USC Alabama game and our club put together an amazing event for that. And we were planning on doing an amazing event if we actually get the play this year.

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SD: Knows now because our club can’t play anymore because now we have leaving it up in the air. But really, my issue.

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SD: Is I’m scholarships, and that is, we had a very big problem with one or

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SD: Two of our scholarship winners from last year not receiving their scholarship funds from the financial aid office. It still has not been released.

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SD: And now we’re not even going to have a scholarship committee, we’re not going to have access to that money. How do we even know that these people are actually going to get any money.

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SD: And when you actually start going in on top of all of that.

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SD: Now that you’ve changed that structure, who’s responsible for it. How do we know that money is being awarded. How do people even apply for it because I can tell you for certain

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SD: That our numbers for applications tripled when we took the initiative to invite parents to ask their children to apply.

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SD: Not your organization doing that and I am really worried that our scholarship fund is going to disappear.

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SD: And those students will be getting any money. And who’s going to be responsible for it. Going forward, because that is not involved in your plan you have absolutely said nothing about the money.

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SD: And where the money is going and how it’s being accounted for. Now that you’ve taking it out of the out of the hands of the people who earned that money we created that money and have accounted for that money with our treasurer going forward.

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PEA: Thank you. SD. Actually I responded to ML’s email last night and copied you on my response to

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PEA: That but

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PEA: You didn’t reply.

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SD: To my further email about the two students

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PEA: I’ve never received that but I’m happy to take that offline since that specific

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PEA: Specific issue. But to answer the question, which I think that you’ve asked that generally applies to

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PEA: The just so everyone knows our clubs have 45 clubs raised a total of about $115,000 which is an average of about $3,000 a club some are higher some are lower

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PEA: So, for example, the $4,000 that Dallas has raised will absolutely go to support the for students who come from the Dallas, Fort Worth area.

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PEA: That is something that the university is accountable for we’re absolutely going to continue that and we’re working Danielle and I and our team work closely with the Office of Financial Aid.

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PEA: Who are responsible for dispersing the money and applying that to the students who are selected for the scholarships

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PEA: Our hope is that as we work with our partners and annual fund and across the institution, we’re going to be able to hopefully raise the same if not more money that can support local students from Dallas going forward. Thank you for your question. Danielle.

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DHS: Thank you. I just want to remind and kindly asked that we limit our questions and our comments to one minute. That includes you, Patrick and your responses so that we can

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DH: Know, as many as possible. I want to go ahead and call on TC and TC, if you can unmute yourself and then as your question or make your comment. We’d appreciate it. Thank you.

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TC: Hi everyone, I’m calling from Seattle, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m I was the president of the Seattle chapter for three years and have been supporting the club behind the scenes since. And so my comment really is.

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TC: I guess I’m a little naive because I I was excited to see a change in how we’re going to engage our

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TC: Alumni in the region in all the regions and this is because when I was ready to step down as President.

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TC: It was really hard to find someone who was passionate and able to to take the role until NC stepped up and he’s done a fabulous job. And so I really happy with that. I know 13 seconds.

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TC: But it’s going forward, how will the staff work with all of the local clubs to set up locally events that will serve the community.

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DHS: Okay, thank you, Patrick, do you want to answer them.

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PEA: Absolutely. Thank you, TC. I, you know, listen, I Danielle and and our entire team Ashley and Pasha.

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PEA: Christina Dominic and Tanya. We all we all understood that there may be some people who are not pleased with this change and we certainly want to respect that and address that. But we want to assure people going forward.

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PEA: Our intention here is to relieve our volunteers of quite honestly what we viewed as some of the burdens of having an alumni club.

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PEA: The burdens of having to fill out the paperwork. Every year the burdens of having to have your signature.

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PEA: On a lot of documents the burdens of having to comply with all the university requirements which protect

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PEA: The university’s name and likeness. So we really view this opportunity to move forward in a different format. When people have permission to use. For example, a logo.

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PEA: It really gets to be a lot of other authority and a lot of other

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PEA: There’s no other way we can describe it other than burden. So we’ve really tried to present an alumni engagement model.

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PEA: That meets people where they are. And again TC, I will refer people to our website to really thoroughly examine that.

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PEA: And to figure out how they want to be involved the signature programs that we have, whether it’s the scend offs, whether it’s game watches in the fall, whether it’s the Day of Service in the spring. Those are the events and programs.

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PEA: Just as a start. But we also have so many more ways that we want our alumni who didn’t have time to be involved with clubs.

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PEA: To really be able to engage with us. I went on a lot of listening towards the last few years, and asked alumni who I’ve met up why they weren’t involved.

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PEA: And the refrain was very common. The club’s do a great job of putting together social events.

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PEA: And doing game watches, but then we heard complaints about the football kickoff times over, which not even USC has control.

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PEA: Everybody ceded control of that. So we could we could even spend a whole conference call, just on

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PEA: The challenges in game watches, but we want all those opportunities to continue to be available, but to be really multifaceted and celebrate the academic achievements and all the other great things that USC does

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PEA: So I hope that by people go into the website. And again, reaching out to their staff liaison that we’re going to be able to offer programs that are going to be easier for people to volunteer for an easier for our overall participants to access

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DHS: Thank you, Patrick. And thank you, TC, for the question. Our next person on my list is SG.

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DHS: Sorry, can’t see your name SG.

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SG: Yes, I’m here. Can you hear me.

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DHS: Yes, we can.

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SG: Perfect. So I had a quick observation I used to be part of the chair of the Trojan junior auxiliary of Orange County and then that was absorbed and gone into the society of Trojan women.

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SG: And since that happened. I felt even less connected to university, the town again junior delivery, you know, was a close group of girls, we are doing events and I understand over time.

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SG: You know, the events got smaller people, you know, changing lifestyles with growing families but I found myself even less connected with the society Trojan women became very large

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SG: A very different dynamic group of people. It was more LA-based. So it’s hard to imagine that this is going to be bringing us closer together when I feel like it’s really breaking up all of our small local

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SG: clubs where we can really you know mean to and, you know, get to know each other more intimately rather than having a much larger collection of quote volunteers.

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PEA: Danielle, you were very instrumental in the transition of the town and gown junior auxiliary, would you like to speak to that.

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DHS: I thank you, Patrick on. So thank you, SG for that comment. I definitely was involved as a staff liaison to our women’s groups. And I will say that

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DHS: In the transition. Our motivation and impetus for the change was really based on the feedback, the request and what we were hearing from the newly graduated alumni who were coming out of USC.

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DHS: And I think that that same sentiment is being expressed here, not necessarily on this call, but definitely with our current students

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DHS: With our new grads with our recent graduates are young, alumni, they come to the USC Alumni Association and they say this is what we want. This is what we need. Here’s how we want to engage and so

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DHS: I just want to echo something that Patrick’s already shared we’re, you know, we’re not in the laboratory coming up with wild ideas to upset. Our alumni base.

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DHS: But we are hopefully being responsive to our growing population and our growing demographic and this is what we are hearing from them.

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DHS: And what they want and how they want to connect with their Trojan family. So just adding to the last thing that you said

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DHS: That I think is really important is that sense of community and connection and the you know the the closeness that you feel within your organization.

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DHS: I just want to again reiterate that we are not attempting as the staff to take over and to facilitate those connections.

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DHS: Those connections will still happen in your cities all around the world. So we need

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DHS: And want Trojans to get together in Austin. We want Trojans to get together, you know, in New Jersey and Philadelphia and wherever you find yourself.

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DHS: Watch the games together. Do your day of service projects together, do all of those things that you have love doing all of these years.

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DHS: It will just, again, not be a matter of having a club or, you know, this legal entity that you are responsible for managing and maintaining. So, um, thank you again SG for that comment.

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DHS: Oh, I was gonna mute myself but I’m still facilitating and moderating um I want to give another SK an opportunity to chat on my list. I had SK.

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DHS: Who sees SK. Are you still with us.

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DHS: You’ll need to unmute. There you go.

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SK: Thank you. I’m coming from Houston. Hey, everybody. Hey, Patrick.

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PEA: Hey, SK.

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SK: My question is kind of more focused on the future and rolling out this new model, kind of, what are you seeing as your measures.

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SK: To determine whether or not this model is successful, and then also kind of while we’re planning ahead. I know every couple of years. There’s a tweak and overhaul.

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SK: Often those things are very necessary to move things forward. So as you’re anticipating how this

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SK: Works in the future. What are some of those things that you’re thinking of in terms of longevity. Give it a good two years maybe reintroduce some new things. So if you can just speak to that, I would appreciate it.

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PEA: SK, Thank you for the question. And yeah, we had a chance to visit back in late February when we were down there with Dr Folt. And I remember the conversation that we had a dinner after the event.

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PEA: And what’s really important to us is to be able to measure how many alumni are actually engaged. So you know we want to be 100%

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PEA: Transparent in the next year. And how many alumni were engaged under the club model.

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PEA: And what we’re hoping to do is show that we can engage, at least as many in the first year, if not more. How many people

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PEA: Can we get to actually and what does engagement mean. And I think that’s a big question that

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PEA: For people like Danielle and I and our staff as Alumni Relations professionals and that’s a question that I talked to my colleagues at Duke and Stanford and Notre Dame and some public schools as well like Michigan Texas and UCLA.

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PEA: All those names, but when we talk about what does it mean to measure alumni engagement. We talked about attending an event, perhaps volunteering your time.

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PEA: Perhaps opening emails and then of course. If you make a $10 donation to the scholarship account. So those are the metrics that right now we’re building for what the base was

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PEA: With the alumni clubs and we believe that those could have been stronger. Again, it’s not an indictment on the clubs. We think that the alumni club system.

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PEA: Kind of wore out its welcome. I know down in Houston. You guys worked so hard and could never seem to get more people interested in being involved with the club.

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PEA: But, boom, we come down there with Dr Folt and all of a sudden 300 people show up and then we sit there at dinner afterwards and say, oh,

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PEA: My goodness. Where did everybody come from our hope is to be able to crack that code and then share with all of you. And if we’ve discovered that there’s things we need to do to tweak it.

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PEA: To perhaps adjust it. Then we’re open to that because we have to be nimble.

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PEA: But as Danielle told me, and Danielle tells me all the time. Anytime you’re, you know, you’re running a business. You want to look at where your challenges are and how you can maximize the return on what resources you’re putting towards it.

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PEA: And that’s really what we’re looking to do here. And again, we can’t do that without the steadfast supportive volunteers and we’re hoping that the type of volunteerism, we ask people to do

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PEA: Brings them joy and brings them pleasure and fulfillment and it’s not a burden or doesn’t keep you awake at night wondering, are people going to show up to help you out with whatever venture planning.

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PEA: Danielle.

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DHS: Thank you so much and please. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. This is a name I recognize and I’m happy to call on WM.

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WM: hi there nice to see everyone here, formerly of the Austin club now with the Dallas club. I have two comments or two questions and comments. I’m going to speak fast.

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WM: First of all, I want to know how this will work.

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WM: For non USC alumni who were previously member of our clubs. We have a lot of people who were either just fans of the university or maybe took a couple years but didn’t actually complete their degree.

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WM: And I want to know how they’re going to be affected. Secondly, my comment, looking at how the USCAA has bungled the introduction of this program I really question your ability to pull off something at this event.

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WM: And it’s not an auspicious start having alienated all of your most active alumni leaders. Third, final question is for Patrick specifically

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WM: I and I know many others have written a letter to President Folt on this matter, and yet I received a response, not from her, but from you.

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WM: So I would like to hear you commit in front of everyone here that President Folt is receiving our emails and we’ll be able to review them and not simply have them siphoned off.

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PEA: Thank you. So the first question had to do with non alumni as before. If you’re a Trojan parent or you’re perhaps

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PEA: A former USC student who didn’t finish your degree at USC and either finished elsewhere or didn’t finish college

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PEA: There’s nothing in our new system that precludes non alumni from participating as in the old system.

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PEA: So there’s nothing that happens with them. Are they going to receive Alumni Association emails? No, they’re not our primary audience but will they have access to the website. Absolutely.

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PEA: Will they be able to log in as a non alum to the actual alumni only portal. No, they’re not. Our primary audience. So I’ll answer that question.

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PEA: The second we don’t view that this has been bungled we shared this information with our staff three weeks ago. Certainly respect that you feel otherwise. And so

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PEA: We can agree to disagree. There are important thing is for the most alumni who have never been a part of the clubs, they’re not going to know the difference.

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PEA: And that’s our concern is that we get as many people involved as possible and your last question regarding Dr. Folt. Yes. Dr Folt is reading all of these

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PEA: She reads them and then she has her staff respond. She has her staff respond to me. I told Dr Folt about this that what we were thinking last fall.

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PEA: She asked us to really make sure that we weighed all our options for everybody on the call. We’ve spoken with our Alumni Association Board of Governors

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PEA: We’ve been working with the board of trustees alumni Affairs Committee for the last three years on this.

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PEA: They understand why we’re doing it and we have their support.

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PEA: And then we actually had a meeting with Dr. Folt earlier this month before we actually went ahead with our June 3 call and she understands and she wanted to make sure everyone understands that she stands behind this. She supports it.

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PEA: But she also recognizes that this was something that was that was being examined by the university, long before she ever came to the University

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WM: So she understands. She should have been on this call.

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PEA: She understands. Thank you. WM, she understands that there are a lot of thought was put into it. She understands that some people might be displeased with the decision.

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PEA: But we have her support and she is. She and her staff are reading all of your questions and thank you for reaching out to her.

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DHS: Thank you, Patrick. I went to give KP an opportunity to ask this question.

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KP: Patrick, Danielle. Thanks for spending time with us.

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KP: When I moved out to Washington DC, the local club was extremely important for me for social and professional networking

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KP: I guess my question to you is, how do you imagine that

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KP: Do you believe that that local clubs will in fact continue to exist. They’ll be shadow clubs that will be formed you imagine that that’s a consequence of this, and I have a follow up to that.

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PEA: Sure. The first question is, if you want to thank you KP for the concept of a shadow club perhaps an unofficial gathering of USC alums.

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PEA: Absolutely those exist. Now, those have always existed. So I don’t imagine that they wouldn’t exist. I we don’t the Alumni Association or the university. Don’t want to stifle anybody’s ability to get together and to celebrate their Trojan common bonds together.

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KP: So that’s another concern of

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KP: Ours.

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KP: If that’s the case, why couldn’t they the current structure of local Clubs. Clubs exists alongside this new model that you’re proposing.

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PEA: That’s a very good question. KP and the and the short answer is that these clubs required the clubs are official extensions of the university. Again, they’re chartered they have to be in compliance for all the different risk.

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PEA: Mitigation we talked about earlier. And quite frankly, the university chose to spend its resources on engaging broader slots of alumni than trying to administer two different forms of alumni engagement in the regions.

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KP: Thank you.

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PEA: Danielle, you’re on mute.

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DHS: I’m muting myself. Sorry, I’m double tapping. I’d like to call on SK, please. SK, be sure to unmute yourself.

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SK: So first, I just want to know why you decide this to do this mid-year and not wait to the new year was very dismissive just volunteers who spent hours already planning for the new year and

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SK: You know you told us in April, but our work was already done in January, so that that’s not very helpful. And I know you were gonna say you we can

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SK: Continue to do these events, but I think most of us feel burned by this whole thing. And so I’m not sure that that we want to follow through with any of that.

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SK: Also, we were already doing some of these pop up kind of events where people could plan their own event, but I sit on the board of three different

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SK: Nonprofits and we always have people volunteer to do stuff and then they, you know, realize how much work it is going to be. And then they

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SK: fail to do so. So what happens if they don’t follow through and who who’s paying to pick up the slack on that.

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SK: And then lastly, I just, you know, part of what I sold me on USC was that it was a strong alumni network, network. And I feel like I’m not getting what I paid for in school with this happening because I don’t feel like we’re going to have a strong alumni without work with this.

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PEA: SK. Thank you. Where are you, where are you calling us from

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PEA: Oregon. Oh, okay. Thank you. So to address the first concern on this was the time of year. This is the end of the academic year. So I think that the way the schedule goes, I apologize if for some reason.

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PEA: It feels like the middle of the year, but because we’re on an academic and annual calendar. This is the time of year when we were announcing a change

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PEA: And I appreciate your acknowledgement. A moment ago that these that and I’m not sure, to which events or programs are specifically referring, but those events and programs. We were still a USC Alumni Association.

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PEA: Everyone who’s on this call, who’s a degreed alum every degree to Alum is a member of the Alumni Association. So if the events and programs that you were or were you putting those together for the university to promote USC or to promote your club.

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PEA: And that’s a really important distinction that we want to ask people to ask themselves here. If you’re volunteering for the University of Southern California because you’re a proud Trojan

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PEA: That’s terrific. If you’re volunteering only for the club. And now, because the club structure is going away and you don’t want to do it anymore. We’re really, really sorry that you’re stepping away.

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PEA: But then my staff will have to work to find people who want to volunteer for how we how we believe is the best way to deliver a volunteer engagement experience.

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PEA: And we’re happy to work with you directly in Oregon on that. If you choose to move forward with us, but we do appreciate your questions and your feedback.

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DHS: Thank you, Patrick. I want to give ES, an opportunity to ask a question or make a comment.

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ES: Yeah, I just unmuted myself. I’m not sure if I’m up there. But anyway, first off, thank you for having this discussion.

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ES: I myself am past president of the alumni club up here in Reno. We are known for holding this and off up at Lake Tahoe so

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ES: In particular, I’ve worked with you. Danielle and Patrick Danielle you’ve been great to work with on all kinds of things, but anyway.

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ES: With that said, I am very concerned about this change, obviously, anytime change occurs. It’s troubling. But we can make the best out of this. However, right now I do feel slighted. And I think a lot of people do.

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ES: I think maybe the best way is to take on the existing structure of the clubs and then have a transition period because a lot of people spend a lot of time working on the scend off.

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ES: Obviously COVID has changed that this year. But nonetheless, these are your boots on the ground. These are the people that are going to

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ES: Continue to be superstars in their communities. And that is an intangible that puts us on level with Ivy League alumni systems and other

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ES: Other groups that really make people want to go to USC. So, at any rate, I would like to know if there’s any way we can take the existing club structure and tie that into a transitional period.

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PEA: Thank you for the question. ES

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PEA: Let me approach that from a couple different angles. Instead of saying a hard no what I want to say is the reality is, is the best way to transition, what your club structure is

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PEA: For example, whether it’s you or whether it’s FB or, you know, whether it’s LS are all the great volunteers up there.

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PEA: If you choose, you know, if you’re, for example, the chair of the scend off even though again COVID notwithstanding, because that’s been a dynamic. We’ve all had to deal with them was unexpected.

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PEA: The best way to transition to this to this new way of doing business is that

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PEA: The volunteers remain involved with specific programs that they’ve championed in your region. So whether it’s a game watch party. And again, so many of these programs are in person. So it’s really hard to calibrate them.

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PEA: In an upcoming fall where we know everything is going to be markedly different because of the pandemic, but the best option for us moving forward is to keep these direct volunteer roles going in our new structure.

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PEA: We sought a lot of advice on whether to do a transition period. That was a very intense discussion that we had with several regional leaders, as well as the Board of Governors

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PEA: And at the end of the day we were strongly advised that if we’re going to make this change, we need to be very deliberate about it. So while we certainly didn’t don’t want anyone to feel that we’re dismissing them in their efforts.

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PEA: At the same time, we want to make sure that we are doing this so that the delivery of programs and opportunities is seamless to the audience.

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PEA: And so we’re really hoping that people will want to stay aboard and move forward in that way. But we really appreciate all the great work that Northern Nevada has done, you guys have been very

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PEA: very cooperative and very collaborative and we appreciate that during this transition. So thank you.

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DHS: Thank you. And thank you ES for your comments. JA you are next on the list.

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JA: Alright, can you hear me.

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DHS: Yes, we can go

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JA: Wonderful. So I am a member of the South Bay chapter and as a newer recent alumni. I think I, like T, may be a little stuck in the club in the crowds here had no idea.

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JA: Of this transition or kind of the remarks of this transition. So there seems to be a lot of backlash as a young alumni can say I support this measure because

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JA: It was pretty difficult to even find a group to originally be a part of. And then it felt very barriers were there, so

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JA: I’m in supportive this, but I do think Patrick. One of the things that are missing at this point is really an understanding of maybe other universities and this model and it being successful there.

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JA: Rather than necessarily just focusing on the past or what we’ve done. And so my question to you, I know that you mentioned other universities that you work alongside

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JA: But this model. I imagine was adopted by a specific university or various ones. Can you talk a little bit about that a bit more. And maybe how this was adopted in that way. I’m specifically defined for USC.

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PEA: Absolutely. Thank you for the question. JA, really appreciate it. First of all, I will say right out in front. No other university has done this.

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PEA: So when I invoked other names of our competitors, whether we talk about the big private schools with great athletic and research academic research or the public schools.

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PEA: I invoke their names and that were we’ve been very involved in our alumni community and how we work and figure out the best way to engage alumni, but no one has done this program.

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PEA: This is ours. This is something innovative that and I really do appreciate the question. Because we were actually asked this by the trustees as well. Who’s done this before. Who’s proven this

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PEA: And the answer is we’re looking to show that this can be the next great way of the world for every there’s 4000 colleges and universities in the United States.

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PEA: And all of us are facing very tall challenges with how we’re trying to adapt to this rapidly changing world with digital technology.

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PEA: With the fact that memberships across organizations, whether it’s universities alumni associations, whether it’s churches, whether it’s rotary clubs membership in the United States in organizations is declining.

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PEA: We are facing that in higher education.

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PEA: So my team and I have taken a very bold step in working with our alumni advisors, our top leaders to say how can we create a model that maximizes alumni engagement in this very rapidly changing world, which is now pretty soon going to be overtaken

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PEA: By digital natives by folks who grew up in the digital era. So thank you again. JA, no one’s ever tried this. We’re trying it, and we’re going to see how it works.

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PEA: And I don’t want to throw any of my counterparts under the bus, but I know a few of them are pretty intrigued by what we’re doing. And they’re like, wow, let us know how it turns out. They want to know.

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JA: Can I ask a follow up question based upon your response?

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PEA: Danielle, should we, yeah. Yeah, please. JA, what’s.

447
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JA: So no, and I appreciate this. I think USC is really kind of groundbreaking right and it’s what the institution is known for really leading the way. And I think that that’s great, but is there a defined

448
00:59:44.520 → 00:59:56.940
JA: At least from, you know, your department. Is there a defined set of time to say, okay we’re giving this five years. And if this doesn’t work. We’re going to move on and try something else or just currently not in the scope well

449
00:59:56.970 → 01:00:04.710
PEA: Thank you. And that’s a similar question with SK down in Houston asked a few moments ago about like what do you going to look at. And yes, I mean the thing is we’re going to look at your one year two, year three

450
01:00:04.950 → 01:00:17.130
PEA: And I would say that within five years if this ends up not being what we what we wanted it to be. Then we’re going to look at a way to modify it. Absolutely. I mean we my staff. We know that we’re taking a bold step here.

451
01:00:17.460 → 01:00:24.060
PEA: We’re taking a leap of faith, but it’s a very educated step as well. And one of the things that USC celebrates our people being innovative.

452
01:00:24.660 → 01:00:33.450
PEA: And people willing to make a change, because we believe that there’s something greater that we can achieve together. So the answer is yes. But listen, if in four or five years, which is

453
01:00:33.930 → 01:00:37.470
PEA: A reasonable amount of time. If we feel like this, if that we’re losing momentum.

454
01:00:37.920 → 01:00:46.140
PEA: If overall perhaps if a couple people step away and they want to step away and that’s unfortunate if we’re not finding people who are going to be coming in.

455
01:00:46.620 → 01:01:01.710
PEA: And we’re not, we find that our efforts are not resulting in growth. Then, absolutely. It’s, it’s our responsibility to then assess what we didn’t do, right, and perhaps look at a different model. So thank you again for both your question in your follow up, JA, thank you, Danielle.

456
01:01:01.860 → 01:01:10.440
DHS; Thank you. I actually want to transition and give our colleague Ashley Bonanno-Curly (ABC) an opportunity

457
01:01:10.440 → 01:01:10.680
DHS: To

458
01:01:10.740 → 01:01:24.240
DHS: Answer and facilitate some of the questions from our chat room. We have over well over 100 messages. So we went to take just a few of those. And then we will resume to answering questions from the raised hand so

459
01:01:24.270 → 01:01:27.270
PEA: Danielle. May I just answer one question that I saw come across

460
01:01:27.330 → 01:01:32.100
PEA: Because I actually saw it on some blogs and this is completely false. And I just want to take the moment

461
01:01:32.370 → 01:01:41.670
PEA: People are asking if the Black Alumni Association and Latino Alumni Association and the Asian Pacific Alumni Association and the Lambda LGBT Alumni Association are being disbanded.

462
01:01:42.030 → 01:01:52.290
PEA: They are not. Those are official multicultural staff supported alumni associations of the university, I saw this question early in the chat box, but I also saw some social media around it.

463
01:01:52.560 → 01:02:01.590
PEA: And I also spoke with my colleagues who work with me and Danielle on our team and that is not the case. So I actually, I didn’t know if you were going to address that one, but I wanted to make sure that that was out there.

464
01:02:03.600 → 01:02:09.720
DHS: Thanks, Patrick. And then everybody please, obviously, keep the chat going, I don’t claim to tell anyone that

465
01:02:10.170 → 01:02:16.950
DHS: But what I wanted to do was I kind of tried to find some folks who I think encompassed, a lot of the sentiment.

466
01:02:17.880 → 01:02:31.770
ABC: I think the first thing, Patrick, is a lot of folks have expressed their displeasure with not being consulted or not having the Alumni Association consult

467
01:02:32.580 → 01:02:42.540
ABC: Club leaders or folks who have participated in events in the past and kind of what was the thought process and doing that and why this isn’t up for a vote.

468
01:02:43.800 → 01:02:45.780
PEA: Thanks. Thank you. Ashley, first of all,

469
01:02:47.490 → 01:02:55.740
PEA: Let me start at the beginning. We’ve consulted in the I’ve been Danielle mentioned at the top of this call that she worked has worked in the Alumni Association for 16 years

470
01:02:56.460 → 01:03:02.220
PEA: Next week will be my 20th anniversary at USC and I’ve been a part of the Alumni Association department for 12 and a half years.

471
01:03:02.790 → 01:03:10.620
PEA: We have worked very closely with our regional clubs and chapters since I’ve been a part of the Alumni Association and as we’ve continued to identify

472
01:03:11.040 → 01:03:16.290
PEA: Deficits and gaps and again this is not in any way a comment on people’s performance.

473
01:03:17.070 → 01:03:25.800
PEA: But on the fact that there seems to be a lack of interest in what we’re offering. It’s not a lack of interest in the clubs, but it’s a lack of interest in having to

474
01:03:26.280 → 01:03:30.360
PEA: Come to board meetings on such a regular basis. I mean, again, I could go through a whole laundry list.

475
01:03:30.690 → 01:03:37.500
PEA: We have, we have worked with clubs on different ideas for engagement and quite frankly those ideas haven’t come to pass.

476
01:03:37.740 → 01:03:49.440
PEA: So, at the same time that we’re doing all this, we started an assessment four years ago under previous leadership in our advancement division and at the university. We’ve continued I went, I’ve been on an extensive listening tour for the last

477
01:03:50.010 → 01:04:00.030
PEA: I would say 36 months and this is a decision that we arrived at, Ashley, in terms of the question. And this is a really important question about why wasn’t there a vote.

478
01:04:00.750 → 01:04:12.570
PEA: The USC Alumni Association is a program of the University of Southern California. We have a membership have more than 437,000 as we mentioned at the top of this meeting, but this is not, this is not a

479
01:04:13.770 → 01:04:17.880
PEA: Self standing autonomous nonprofit organization where votes like this are taken.

480
01:04:18.510 → 01:04:25.980
PEA: This is a department of the University of Southern California and all of our alumni association members are graduates of USC.

481
01:04:26.370 → 01:04:35.580
PEA: And they’re entitled to be members of the Association. We want to hear their voice. We want to certainly get their input, but we don’t make programmatic and strategic decisions by vote.

482
01:04:35.850 → 01:04:43.950
PEA: The University doesn’t do that except for one board. And that’s the Board of Trustees, because that’s a fiduciary board of the university and I just want to give people a sense of how

483
01:04:44.190 → 01:04:49.440
PEA: We are governed. John Iino is on the call. John is the president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors

484
01:04:49.740 → 01:04:54.720
PEA: But the Board of Governors itself is a very important Advisory Board to the USC Alumni Association.

485
01:04:55.080 → 01:05:01.140
PEA: But it doesn’t have the fiduciary responsibility of making governing decisions. So just want to

486
01:05:01.590 → 01:05:05.730
PEA: Again, it’s a great question. But I just want to provide some operational insight into the fact

487
01:05:06.030 → 01:05:17.910
PEA: That our work is informed by volunteers and by the voices. We hear and by the advice we seek and the advice we receive, whether we like it or not, but we don’t put these things up for a vote.

488
01:05:19.260 → 01:05:21.630
PEA: Thank you. Ashley. Thanks for relaying that question.

489
01:05:21.690 → 01:05:29.340
ABC: And there is also I think another question that encompassed. A lot of what folks have been saying so.

490
01:05:29.970 → 01:05:39.630
ABC: This reads, I think the alumni volunteers on this call are aligned with the goals of what the Alumni Association is trying to do. We all want more alumni engaged list barriers to volunteerism.

491
01:05:40.020 → 01:05:48.030
ABC: My worries are that this alienates some of the most enthusiastic volunteers who can be powerful local evangelists and resources.

492
01:05:48.330 → 01:05:53.970
ABC: Sure. Those people can volunteer and plan things, but I don’t know if you will get the same participation as before.

493
01:05:54.270 → 01:06:00.450
ABC: The local boards give volunteers, a sense of empowerment and status that motivates them to continue to serve over the years.

494
01:06:00.750 → 01:06:08.610
ABC: It gives them opportunities to work as a team and build important volunteering skills boards developed friendships that last well beyond the time together.

495
01:06:08.940 → 01:06:18.600
ABC: There still is an opportunity for all of us to step up and organize and get all the things I mentioned above, but I think the local board format provides an important level of on the ground leadership.

496
01:06:19.410 → 01:06:27.390
ABC: And that was a comment, and I’m not sure there were a lot of questions kind of surrounding that Patrick about boots on the ground, how boards were able to

497
01:06:27.690 → 01:06:40.350
ABC: Really get volunteers to make sure that they follow through on projects. And I think a lot of the voice commentary shared that as well. So if you could speak, maybe more to that. I think that would be helpful for books.

498
01:06:40.560 → 01:06:45.240
PEA: Very much so. Thank you. Ashley for summarizing that. Those are some really great points. First of all,

499
01:06:45.870 → 01:06:56.850
PEA: Again building community is really important to us and we absolutely want alumni to feel like they’re empowered. If you are, for example, leading the alumni Day of SCervice you’re a leader.

500
01:06:57.210 → 01:07:01.770
PEA: If you’re an alum. If you’re an alum, who wants to chair the game. Watch. You’re an alum, who wants to

501
01:07:02.190 → 01:07:06.600
PEA: Help with the scend off, you’re an alum, who wants to help organize an event or support an initiative.

502
01:07:06.840 → 01:07:12.930
PEA: We’ve you all alumni who want to step up and lead as leaders. We don’t necessarily believe that you need to have the title as president.

503
01:07:13.200 → 01:07:20.400
PEA: As president, and while we do want to empower people and we want to build community at the same time, we have a responsibility, back to the university.

504
01:07:21.030 → 01:07:31.920
PEA: So, Ashley. I don’t know if that specifically answers the question. I know that it was more of an overall body of comments and I think there’s a lot of really rich content in that commentary. But I will say,

505
01:07:32.220 → 01:07:37.800
PEA: That our intention is to continue to build community. We want people to feel like they’re empowered.

506
01:07:38.100 → 01:07:42.810
PEA: That they’re part of the university and that they’re volunteering to promote the brand to promote

507
01:07:43.050 → 01:07:52.500
PEA: The spirit of the university to whether it’s to cheer on the football team, or to celebrate the successes of the university or to voice their concerns when there’s an issue that the university is dealing with because

508
01:07:52.740 → 01:08:01.770
PEA: Again, having alumni helping us is really important. But when we continue to go out there and we continue to go to cities and we bring the university president

509
01:08:02.190 → 01:08:10.110
PEA: And we have 400 people in a room and very, very, very few people there are involved with the club. We talked to the club leaders say how can we get all these people involved.

510
01:08:10.560 → 01:08:20.640
PEA: We have not been able, as the alumni association with the collaboration of our clubs, we have not been able to crack that code for many, many, many years. So we’re trying something different.

511
01:08:22.800 → 01:08:35.130
ABC: Okay, I will move on to. Here are some questions. I think there are about five here. So maybe I’ll read two and then go through the other three so

512
01:08:35.970 → 01:08:48.660
ABC: A few things that people have echoed what they aren’t hearing is what is what the model exactly is and how decentralized alumni group plans to hold local volunteers accountable.

513
01:08:49.950 → 01:08:56.760
PEA: Thank you. So I’m going to answer the first part and have Danielle answer the second part in terms of what the and a lot of people are asking what the program is

514
01:08:57.030 → 01:09:01.020
PEA: Again, we encourage you, please go to the website, please go to get involved.

515
01:09:01.500 → 01:09:11.460
PEA: And all that information is right there. It’s the existing programs of the university. There’s five things that are listed at the top there. And those are kind of the signature programs that we’ve all come to know and love. Those would be

516
01:09:11.940 → 01:09:19.350
PEA: The scend off the game watches the Day of Service. Those are projects that are ongoing Danielle, would you please speak to the volunteerism.

517
01:09:20.880 → 01:09:27.840
DHS: Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Patrick. So with the hallmarks that we’ve been talking about the scend off the

518
01:09:28.560 → 01:09:41.370
DHS: The Day of Service projects. Each of those programs as you know happen every year at the same time. And so when a volunteer raises their hand and says, I want to lead that

519
01:09:41.790 → 01:09:54.300
DHS: Program in my area. We will then follow up and provide orientation as well as the expectations as and the resources that that volunteer would need

520
01:09:54.810 → 01:10:05.610
DHS: To produce those programs. So we are definitely again looking for all of our volunteers who have enjoyed these programs over the years to continue doing them.

521
01:10:05.940 → 01:10:16.440
DHS: And then be able to do them with an even broader reach. So I hope that answers the question. And if I missed a part of that. Please forgive me, and I can always try again.

522
01:10:16.920 → 01:10:17.490
ABC: Danielle

523
01:10:17.520 → 01:10:18.930
ABC: Danielle actually what can

524
01:10:18.960 → 01:10:27.750
ABC: What I think would be helpful for everybody here is to kind of talk about this specific. So I see a lot of questions coming into the chat about

525
01:10:28.110 → 01:10:46.050
ABC: What do resources look like in this new model. How can someone raised their hand. You know, a lot of the clubs market how who’s gonna do all of those things that the club clubs or chapters were doing originally. Thank you.

526
01:10:46.170 → 01:10:54.360
DHS: Thank you for the clarification. So the resources that we have largely are the marketing and promotional resources.

527
01:10:54.840 → 01:11:06.420
DHS: The Alumni Association is able to email hundreds of thousands of alumni who are not necessarily a part of all of the club list serves put together.

528
01:11:06.780 → 01:11:12.840
DHS: And so when we do a big program like Day of SCervice. We’re not just sending them to people who are a part of the club.

529
01:11:13.110 → 01:11:24.180
DHS: When we market those global events were emailing our entire database. And that’s how we are able to find in here from alumni who haven’t been able

530
01:11:24.870 → 01:11:36.090
DHS: Or sometimes willing to connect in the past. So by again opening that that net as wide as we can. We’ll be able to find and engage folks that we haven’t

531
01:11:36.720 → 01:11:45.450
DHS: Before the other interesting and exciting part of this is we won’t be beholden to only where clubs exist.

532
01:11:45.810 → 01:11:53.430
DHS: So, there had been times over the last few years where we’ve heard from people in I an Ohio where we don’t have a club right now.

533
01:11:54.120 → 01:12:04.560
DHS: Or Nebraska, Tennessee. Those are all you know thriving communities and growing communities and the alumni have reached out to us and said, hey, we want to do something.

534
01:12:05.220 → 01:12:14.130
DHS: You know, do we need to start a club. I can’t find a club here. And so what we’ve been telling him is you don’t have to start a club to engage you can actually

535
01:12:14.340 → 01:12:21.630
DHS: Do a day of service project we’re just a month away. We can help you get ready and promote to everybody that we know within this region.

536
01:12:21.870 → 01:12:35.070
DHS: Or we want to get together and watch the USC UCLA game, by all means let us know where it’ll be we’ll add it to our website and again we can promote broadly and widely. So that’s just one of the key ways and

537
01:12:35.550 → 01:12:39.300
DHS: Again, as we all know, part of it is changing all of our lives.

538
01:12:39.960 → 01:12:48.150
DHS: But when we do some of our more in person events, the ones that we all look forward to, you know, T shirts for Day of SCervice or

539
01:12:48.420 → 01:13:02.310
DHS: Again marketing for the game. Watch parties for scend off so you know we typically send a what we call our spirit boxes will hopefully be able to get back to all of those, you know, things that we do in love, but in the meantime.

540
01:13:03.480 → 01:13:09.120
DHS: Excuse me, you know, will continue to develop the resources and get them out to you all. So,

541
01:13:10.200 → 01:13:12.180
DHS: Hope that better answers the question.

542
01:13:12.660 → 01:13:24.630
PEA: Ashley, I want to, I want to pipe in here because John Iino (JI) who’s the President of our Alumni Association Board of Governors is on the call and he noticed that in the chat that people were asking to hear from the Board of Governors leadership. So John, welcome.

543
01:13:25.530 → 01:13:38.490
JI: Thank you, Patrick, and thank you everyone. Also on the call. We have Joy Albritten (JA) who was our board secretary officer this year for the Board of Governors and was also the president of the LA club before

544
01:13:39.570 → 01:13:45.390
JI: To get from the board’s perspective is, this is a discussion we’ve been having for well over two years.

545
01:13:46.050 → 01:13:54.840
JI: So I certainly can appreciate that so many of you. If this is your first time you know hearing about it, you know, have a lot of questions and concerns.

546
01:13:55.620 → 01:14:05.490
JI: But literally, for the last two years we’ve been in discussions with the Alumni Association staff about how this is all going to work and the importance and in the, in the, you know,

547
01:14:06.060 → 01:14:17.040
JI: The what’s really we’re trying to get to here. And ultimately, you know, the responses that we always got back or that and I’ve come to understand is that

548
01:14:17.520 → 01:14:24.480
JI: What does it mean for your activities in your region. What does it mean to you personally doesn’t mean you’re going to get to go to game watch

549
01:14:24.840 → 01:14:32.760
JI: That hasn’t changed. Is it mean you’re going to get to, you know, do an activity is I mean to do the some of the signature events like they have service. There’s the port, send us

550
01:14:33.090 → 01:14:44.310
JI: How about just doing a regional thing like a food fest or, you know, some of the other hallmark things in all the regions and the answer is that’s not going to change. So

551
01:14:45.120 → 01:14:50.010
JI: And then I heard the comments like, well, we have the fellowship, we really will miss the fellowship of the group.

552
01:14:50.760 → 01:14:56.460
JI: But that won’t change either by making sure that you’re connecting with all the people you can get together.

553
01:14:56.820 → 01:15:08.610
JI: Just like you would in times past the one thing that certainly resonated with us is that if you look in some of the regions, you have a very small percentage of alumni that are participating in club events.

554
01:15:08.880 → 01:15:18.600
JI: Is because yes the alumni that are participating enjoy those activities. But there’s other alumni who aren’t engaging in I don’t have exact percentage maybe Patrick does.

555
01:15:18.870 → 01:15:30.390
JI: But, you know, certainly some cities, less than or some regions, less than 10% or less the online are engaged. So how can we find opportunities for those alumni to get more engaged and

556
01:15:30.780 → 01:15:41.370
JI: In their region. So there’s certainly going to be alumni regional events, just like before. That’s just the way that people are going to be

557
01:15:42.180 → 01:15:50.790
JI: You know, engaging is that there’s more opportunities and other example that I have and I want to make sure that Joy has an opportunity to speak from her own personal perspective.

558
01:15:52.140 → 01:15:59.850
JI: Is that, for example, I think Danielle might have hit on this and I have a friend that it was moved from LA to Memphis, Tennessee.

559
01:16:00.450 → 01:16:11.640
JI: And she really wanted to engage with alumni and you know I investigated for her and I was told there’s no club in Memphis, so there’s no opportunities for her.

560
01:16:12.120 → 01:16:17.970
JI: And that was really disappointing for her. And so it’s like. Now, if we can find other opportunities for someone like that to get engaged by

561
01:16:18.660 → 01:16:28.050
JI: Engaging and other things like be close and not because it’s not a charter, just because there’s not a charted club doesn’t mean that she can’t go find other alumni in Memphis.

562
01:16:28.290 → 01:16:41.730
JI: Organize a a day of service organize that again watch or whatever they want to do it just feels that you know we can do that. I guess before I don’t want to turn off their Joy, BUT I KNOW PATRICK HAD A question for you as well.

563
01:16:43.170 → 01:16:43.920
JI: Join us

564
01:16:44.640 → 01:16:47.400
JA: Hi everybody, I’m Joy Albritten

565
01:16:47.760 → 01:16:58.920
JA: Former president of the West Alumni club of LA cities. I want to thank everybody for having for coming to this town hall. I know I’m coming from a club myself, you know, when I

566
01:16:59.400 → 01:17:08.070
JA: First hearing this, it’s kind of heartbreaking and shocking and I empathize with all of you, but I think need to kind of take a step back and

567
01:17:08.430 → 01:17:16.800
JA: You know, think about what can we do for the advancement of the university. And also, how can we get more alumni engaged.

568
01:17:17.340 → 01:17:26.370
JA: I think that, you know, in my experience, there are a lot of people that I’ve met throughout the years. I didn’t even know about the club till you reached out to them and you know with the

569
01:17:26.760 → 01:17:44.340
JA: University behind all of us, they can market, the events to more people. They can, you know, do a lot of the work that was hard. I mean, it’s definitely difficult when you have some people like a small group of people doing all these works.

570
01:17:45.810 → 01:17:54.810
JA: And there is definitely burnout. There’s definitely turnover and it’s hard to keep going. I heard some people talk about challenges of succession.

571
01:17:55.230 → 01:18:04.230
JA: So these are all things that you know the Alumni Association has been listening to all of us for years. I know when I was there, I was talking to them about different things and

572
01:18:04.650 → 01:18:08.670
JA: And it seems like they’ve been working on this for several years and we’re trying to

573
01:18:09.360 → 01:18:19.260
JA: Make something better for all of us. Our university is going through a lot of changes our world is going through a lot of changes and hopefully this will be successful and getting

574
01:18:19.680 → 01:18:29.100
JA: Alumni together. And one of the reasons why I got involved in the club was because I went to SC on scholarships, and I thought, this is a great way to help raise money, but I think that

575
01:18:29.760 → 01:18:38.460
JA: Maybe Patrick and Danielle can talk about the benefits of how this will even increase the capacity for scholarships in the region’s

576
01:18:39.780 → 01:18:45.150
PEA: Joy. Thank you for your comments. I you know I would like to talk about that I’m seeing a lot of people think that this is

577
01:18:45.630 → 01:18:53.250
PEA: That this is an ask or that we’re just moving after money here. So I would like to talk about scholarships as a way that clubs can support, but

578
01:18:53.520 → 01:19:02.520
PEA: Again, our primary goal and joy and john thank you both for your comments, our primary goal again is the mission of the Alumni Association, which is to engage all on my lifelong and worldwide.

579
01:19:02.760 → 01:19:12.210
PEA: And the second part of our mission is to promote a cultural philanthropy among the Trojan family. So not only do we want to advance the university reputation wise and with engagement, but yes.

580
01:19:12.720 → 01:19:15.300
PEA: The one of the reasons us us so great is because

581
01:19:15.630 → 01:19:27.030
PEA: We’re, you know, we’re a Trojan family that has stood on the shoulders of generations before us. So the past alumni had given and they’ve been very generous so that current students can then become great alumni and the cycle moves forward.

582
01:19:27.270 → 01:19:31.380
PEA: So in terms of scholarship philanthropy. That’s definitely a conversation that

583
01:19:31.710 → 01:19:41.730
PEA: We would like to have. But I think for the interest of this call, perhaps, that can be a follow up call with deploying an opportunity to fundraise to keep the scholarship programs and all the region’s going strong.

584
01:19:42.300 → 01:19:46.590
PEA: So thank you again Joy. Danielle, or we’re going to go back to Ashley for more questions.

585
01:19:47.220 → 01:19:56.940
DHS: And we’re actually going to toss it to Faithe Clary (FC). Faithe, if you’re ready. I know you have been curating our questions that have come through email, and there have been some really

586
01:19:57.270 → 01:20:06.270
DHS: Good ones. And I think ones that need to be said out loud. So if you can be sure to unmute yourself and then share some of those questions and comments for us. Thank you.

587
01:20:08.910 → 01:20:09.930
FC: Thank you Danielle.

588
01:20:12.870 → 01:20:15.510
FC: So I have a question from

589
01:20:18.270 → 01:20:19.440
FC: LB.

590
01:20:20.520 → 01:20:21.540
FC: And the question. Oh, yeah.

59
1:20:23.430 → 01:20:23.850
FC: Gives me

592
01:20:24.240 → 01:20:25.320
FC: Model huh

593
01:20:25.530 → 01:20:41.070
FC: Yes, it’s regarding funding for events with the new model will you USC. A then provide funding for events that clubs. Traditionally. Traditionally, have to fund themselves like the ticket sales or clubs on operating funds.

594
01:20:43.980 → 01:20:45.090
FC: Is that the whole question.

595
01:20:47.310 → 01:20:50.670
FC: I know. If so, how does that work.

596
01:20:53.580 → 01:20:54.600
FC: Is that the full question.

597
01:20:54.690 → 01:21:07.500
PEA: Yes, thank you. Thank you for asking the question, if so, what you do, again, it’s all on the website. When you go to the forum at the bottom that talks about leading an event. You could put in a request and it depends on the nature of the event.

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01:21:08.040 → 01:21:15.630
PEA: And to be transparent. If a bunch of alumni. Want to get together to go watch, and again we’re going to assume post-COVID here right that we’re all allowed to hang out in person again.

599
01:21:15.990 → 01:21:23.850
PEA: If a bunch of alums want to go to the US Open In New York, or they want to go to a dodger game here in LA or a Cubs game in Chicago or White Sox don’t want to offend anybody

600
01:21:24.780 → 01:21:30.240
PEA: The university is not going to provide funding for something like that, quite honestly, if the club wants to get together and there’s

601
01:21:30.630 → 01:21:40.410
PEA: For example, a university speaker coming to town or there’s something that’s very content driven that might have local alumni who are leaders who are going to be promoting something great about the university. That’s a type of

602
01:21:40.830 → 01:21:50.340
PEA: Event that the Alumni Association will consider funding. So what you do LB and for everyone who’s curious, is you fill out the form online and then within two to three business days.

603
01:21:50.580 → 01:21:58.740
PEA: One of our staff members gets back to you and discusses what the scope of the event is and we would agree on what the parameters and goals of the event are and if it’s in alignment with

604
01:21:59.490 → 01:22:08.520
PEA: Pushing the university forward and promoting USC, then yes, but I do want to be. But again, if a bunch of alumni. Want to get together to do something fun and recreational

605
01:22:08.790 → 01:22:18.930
PEA: Those events. We encourage you to go ahead and do just by through your social networks, if it’s something that has some content and some teeth to it, then those are absolutely things that we want to discuss with you.

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01:22:21.900 → 01:22:22.770
PEA: Faithe, back to you.

607
01:22:23.220 → 01:22:34.380
FC: The next question is the new model seems to cater to California based alumni and alumni who work in a handful of big in California industries.

608
01:22:34.770 → 01:22:45.450
FC: For folks living abroad abroad or outside of California local alumni clubs have filled a critical gap and responding to real specific needs and interest in alumni.

609
01:22:45.960 → 01:23:02.820
FC: If regional engagement will lead to will be led by staff liaison going forward. Can you be more specific about the scope and the scale of the support for the staff liaison, that would be provided to the alumni in their assigned regions. And that question is from LF.

610
01:23:03.840 → 01:23:12.420
PEA: Oh no, thank you. So nothing is changing about our staff being assigned to tend to the regions. So, for example, Faithe you

611
01:23:12.990 → 01:23:17.880
PEA: Call you out as an example. You work with our alumni in many areas, including Texas. Correct.

612
01:23:18.120 → 01:23:23.130
PEA: So right now, instead of Faithe, working with the club to execute and event she will work with the volunteers.

613
01:23:23.370 → 01:23:29.820
PEA: Who have raised their hands to be responsible for the event, whether it’s a scend off, whether it’s a game watch or again.

614
01:23:30.120 → 01:23:40.470
PEA: One of these years, hopefully, very soon. We’re fortunate to be able to come back on the ground and put out events like Weekender events, our staff will work directly with the volunteers in those respective regions.

615
01:23:41.190 → 01:23:48.360
PEA: That you mentioned abroad is not part of this conversation because the international alumni clubs or not being transitioned.

616
01:23:48.720 → 01:24:00.540
PEA: But for domestics we’ve absolutely kept in mind, again, more than half of our alumni live or half of our alums live outside of Los Angeles in Orange County and even if you then move beyond the state of California.

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01:24:01.290 → 01:24:17.490
PEA: In California, it’s about 30% of our alumni live outside the state of California. That’s still a huge that’s a significant portion of our alumni population. So the whole design of this regional overhaul was to really pay close attention to those key.

618
01:24:17.640 → 01:24:27.300
PEA: Not only to not only to the key markets like when I say key markets. I’m talking about areas like San Francisco in California or New York or Washington DC or Seattle or our

619
01:24:27.750 → 01:24:39.630
PEA: Clubs down or regions down in Texas, but also to pay attention to areas like John Iino mentioned that, for example, we could have a community of alums that might be a small community in Memphis or in Detroit or in Orlando.

620
01:24:39.930 → 01:24:48.360
PEA: Or we used to have a club in St. Louis, that couldn’t sustain itself because there weren’t enough people interested in volunteering for the club, but we know that we still have interest in St. Louis.

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01:24:48.600 → 01:25:04.470
PEA: And putting together. Scend offs and doing various alumni relations activities. So that might be a long winded answer and I apologize for saying that it’s really important for us to make sure that that we have our staff tending to the needs of the regions inside and outside California

622
01:25:06.840 → 01:25:15.960
DHS: Thank you, Patrick have we’re coming up on time Faithe was there one more question that you wanted to share before we go back to those who have raised their hands.

623
01:25:16.470 → 01:25:23.010
FC: Yes, I have one from CL. The question is can parents of alums participate

624
01:25:24.300 → 01:25:28.920
FC: So, could there be a box for parents alumni on the website.

625
01:25:30.270 → 01:25:32.490
PEA: CL Thank you. Thank you for the question.

626
01:25:32.670 → 01:25:38.910
PEA: So again, non alums. And again, I hate to start a phrasing someone by describing them as what they’re not

627
01:25:39.510 → 01:25:52.740
PEA: So non-alums, whether you’re a parent who didn’t go to USC, or you’re just a Trojan fan. They are welcome to participate in our events and programs, they’re welcome to join our Facebook pages, they’re welcome to be part of the community.

628
01:25:53.550 → 01:25:55.440
PEA: But in terms of checking a box, those

629
01:25:55.830 → 01:26:03.720
PEA: Those constituents that they’re engaged with the university. Eventually, there will be an opportunity for them to be part of the whole new platform that’s being built out by the University

630
01:26:03.930 → 01:26:14.490
PEA: But for the time being, those parents of alums and parents of current students and those parents themselves maybe didn’t graduate from USC. They’re absolutely still welcome to be a part of everything we do in terms of

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01:26:15.120 → 01:26:25.680
PEA: In terms of attending events and even if they want to volunteer we’re absolutely going to work with them, but we just aren’t gonna have a box for them to check at this point online until that part of the system is built out by the rest of the university.

632
01:26:27.150 → 01:26:33.450
DHS: Thank you, Patrick. And thank you, Faithe and Ashley, for helping to get to everyone on the call and help us facilitate

633
01:26:34.110 → 01:26:48.630
DHS: Because it is getting very close to five o’clock, what I propose that we do now is put our timer back up and we will allow for as many people to make any final comments.

634
01:26:49.380 → 01:27:01.560
DHS: As possible. And then if you have a question, please put your question in the chat box. So again, so that everyone can have their voice heard and their comments you know put out there.

635
01:27:02.250 → 01:27:07.530
DHS: For all here. I’m going to call on you as soon as possible, and we’ll just keep rewinding the clock.

636
01:27:08.040 → 01:27:15.660
DHS: I believe we we’ve answered a lot of questions and I feel there still a lot more questions. But again, in order for us to

637
01:27:16.170 → 01:27:24.600
DHS: Hear from as many people as possible. We will go ahead and do a little shotgun here. So, Patrick, I’m gonna mute you to keep you from

638
01:27:25.080 → 01:27:36.720D
DHS: Jumping in there because I know sometimes it’s you want to answer and we appreciate it. And so we’ll go ahead and get the clock started. Thank you. And let me go to our participants.

639
01:27:37.740 → 01:27:45.570
DHS: Okay. And next up we have BP. I’m going to unmute you. BP and you may go

640
01:27:46.320 → 01:27:53.790
BP: Hi everyone, my name is BP. I’m a recent alumni and I was recently a board member for the Orange County Alumni Association chapter

641
01:27:54.930 → 01:28:01.950
BP: So you guys are really proposing this new alumni portal as a core part of the new overhaul instead of the active regional clubs.

642
01:28:02.340 → 01:28:07.290
BP: But it requires thousands of existing alumni to manually opt in and sign up for the platform.

643
01:28:07.530 → 01:28:18.900
BP: If I want to find other alumni in my industry. I just use LinkedIn, which already has thousands of active users and is the industry standard. So how do we expect this new platform to grow and be an effective and valuable resources.

644
01:28:19.920 → 01:28:26.490
BP: And how do you expect people to check the calendar once in a while on this new website and for full transparency, who is

645
01:28:26.910 → 01:28:37.020
BP: Who is contracted to build this new platform and app also as a follow up as a young alumni. A lot of my peers are no longer on Facebook. So what is your reasoning behind limiting marketing to Facebook.

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01:28:38.100 → 01:28:38.430
BP: Okay.

647
01:28:38.670 → 01:28:52.890
DHS: Thank you. BP as described, go ahead and put your actual questions in the chat box and thank you for your comment. I’m going to move on to CW, you should be able to unmute yourself.

648
01:28:53.370 → 01:28:54.630
CW: Hi, can you hear me.

649
01:28:54.720 → 01:28:56.070
DHS: Yes, we can go for it.

650
01:28:56.400 → 01:29:05.460
CW: Yeah. So during this entire presentation, you talked a lot about increasing active alumni engagement, however, USC has one of the

651
01:29:05.880 → 01:29:21.270
CW: Most active engagement alumni clubs in the entire world. I don’t think there’s any other university that has achieved the level of alumni engagement that we have. So why exactly are we making this shift and then why can’t the

652
01:29:21.750 → 01:29:35.670
CW: University just support the existing alumni clubs and given that everyone on this call is very unhappy about this situation. No one talked to us this town hall is kind of been done in secret, so

653
01:29:36.360 → 01:29:47.550
CW: How do you expect to engage the alumni who are upset and you obviously don’t really care about what we think are how we feel about the transition at all.

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01:29:48.870 → 01:30:00.300
DHS: Thank you for your comments. CW. And please again. Go ahead and put them into the comment box. Next I want to call on LM. If you’re still with us. I will unmute you.

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01:30:01.350 → 01:30:01.920
DHS: LM

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01:30:02.040 → 01:30:07.800
LM: Hi. Yeah. Thank you. My name is LM, and I’m part of the alumni club in DC was active in it.

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01:30:08.430 → 01:30:21.300
LM: Earlier on moving here and I really am concerned that you are not fully listening to the groups on this call, as far as constructive criticism and ways that we can really make this better, since it seems as though

658
01:30:21.750 → 01:30:27.000
LM: This decision has been made, and we must move forward. So keeping that in mind. I’m really

659
01:30:27.390 → 01:30:41.430
LM: Concerned about those regions outside of the LA area that have a little bit more niche markets like us here in DC. So I want to hear how you are actively going to engage on the ground and kind of understand why.

660
01:30:41.970 → 01:30:51.780
LM: We couldn’t have use the existing structures that the club’s already had volunteers. Why couldn’t we use that volunteer basis to then move forward and to

661
01:30:52.320 → 01:31:02.850
LM: To catapult off of that to then build our volunteerism, I hear you say you know you want to dissolve the regional groups to increase participation. I just really don’t see how that’s possible.

662
01:31:04.410 → 01:31:09.960
DHS: Thank you LM for your comment and your question please definitely add it to

663
01:31:10.500 → 01:31:28.830
DHS: The chat box and you may also email me afterwards, if necessary, we do hear you. And I just want to express that on a personal level, I want to go ahead and return to our list, and I have AS who’s next. And I apologize if I messed that up.

664
01:31:29.250 → 01:31:44.010
AS: No worries. Can you hear me yeah I’m calling in from Gilbert, Arizona. I went to a or excuse me, USC from Hawaii. And the thing that really got me.

665
01:31:45.180 → 01:31:58.680
AS: Was that USC had just an amazing Trojan family alumni work network. And I just feel that the alumni are the veins of this family. And if you cut the veins off which seemingly

666
01:31:59.310 → 01:32:06.480
AS: You’re doing it just seems to me that you know it just kind of creates this crevice and in in our family. I have twins that are going to be coming

667
01:32:06.780 → 01:32:24.300
AS: In the fall, I write to them about our wonderful Trojan network. I graduated in 1987 so I’m kind of coming full circle almost 40 years later. And this really hurts. I think you just need to know that. I know. Change is hard for a lot of people, but this

668
01:32:25.350 → 01:32:36.120
AS: Is I don’t know what the impetus was for it with the driving force was for it. And if there’s any way to speed maybe done in phases or something like that. But anyway, that’s my thing.

669
01:32:36.990 → 01:32:44.370
DHS: Thank you AS for your comments. Next up we have EB show from San Diego.

670
01:32:48.000 → 01:32:49.230
DHS: And add be sure to. Okay.

671
01:32:50.250 → 01:32:54.390
EB: unmute um yeah I kind of agree with that. Absolutely on that.

672
01:32:55.290 → 01:33:04.200
EB: Like, Patrick. I mean, nobody here disagrees that with you guys dedication to the Alumni Association and the school and everything.

673
01:33:04.620 → 01:33:13.110
EB: But it’s just the way that it’s coming across that we weren’t like warned about. I mean, you’re saying it was in the works for years and it’s just like bam, out of nowhere.

674
01:33:14.730 → 01:33:17.730
EB: And you know, we all share the same goal and

675
01:33:18.870 → 01:33:27.240
EB: The rollout just it was bungled the proof is like in people being upset and I just want to ask people right now. Give me a one. If you’re upset on this.

676
01:33:27.660 → 01:33:34.140
EB: Like so we can see. I mean, if you look at the chat box, you’re going to see like everybody is coming across saying that they’re upset.

677
01:33:34.620 → 01:33:47.970
EB: Even the people that were for this are upset with the way that was handled. So I think, you know, Danielle I shared the email with the earlier. I think everything I sent an email still applies. And I’m really on the fence of, like,

678
01:33:48.990 → 01:33:56.010
EB: Whether I want to continue to like help out with this and I’ve been doing this for eight years as president and social media.

679
01:33:57.150 → 01:34:08.070
EB: And I, I’m looking at my chat session with all the rest of my club members down here in San Diego, and we’re all like sad and melancholy right now we just, I don’t get it.

680
01:34:09.300 → 01:34:21.690
EB: Thank you and for your comments. And for your email earlier. I want to go ahead and move over to NF and again I apologize if I butchered that

681
01:34:23.280 → 01:34:33.270
NF: And no problem. I am, yeah, I just want to speak to you know I’m down in Austin. And I do have friends through the call to I absolutely love, but I also have friends from USC who are not participating in the club.

682
01:34:34.140 → 01:34:36.270
NF: Head of gold market operations at Google.

683
01:34:36.840 → 01:34:50.820
NF: Her husband who’s a CEO his best friend who’s a CEO and the reason they’re not participating is not because they’re not aware of the club’s existence. It’s because they have graduated past it and making it an official club is not going to drive their participation.

684
01:34:52.500 → 01:35:02.970
NF: So I just want to put that out there as a comment on that. This will, and I really hope it works. I do hope this works, and we do a lot of free events so we can keep a lot of things going, but

685
01:35:04.590 → 01:35:11.610
NF: It. Yeah. The other thing is, you know, just being an Austin, we have like six sports teams visit here last year with tennis.

686
01:35:11.910 → 01:35:21.030
NF: We’d rowing. We have national championships for swimming with national championships for track. We didn’t find out about any of that from the university. We actually had to go through UT for that. So it’s just

687
01:35:21.630 → 01:35:28.530
NF: I’m really concerned being in a mid major market that we’re going to be completely overlooked, just like we were at the President’s tour, and we’re going to lose a lot of ground here.

688
01:35:30.000 → 01:35:39.270
DHS: Thank you, NF for both of your sentiments. I want to. Next go to LF.

689
01:35:42.090 → 01:35:47.850
LF: Thanks, Danielle. I just wanted to build on top of what LM said earlier, I’m in the DC area.

690
01:35:48.180 → 01:35:57.390
LF: And we do have a niche industry out here and the current platform. I’ve taken a look at everything that’s been put out recently the current platform really doesn’t

691
01:35:58.050 → 01:36:08.760
LF: capture that in fact there’s a lot of industries that are neglected entirely and I signed up to mentor, but I’ve all the requests. I’ve gotten from people who aren’t in my industry where I can’t be helpful. So

692
01:36:09.180 → 01:36:17.280
LF: At the end, this is a gap that regional clubs were able to fill. I want to understand better how when it comes to industries the outreach will improve going forward.

693
01:36:18.810 → 01:36:21.750
Thank you. LF. Next JB.

694
01:36:24.540 → 01:36:29.070
JB: Hi, I’m calling in from the other Orange County in Orlando, Florida.

695
01:36:30.270 → 01:36:31.110
JB: I haven’t been to

696
01:36:31.830 → 01:36:45.030
JB: SC events since we beat UCLA 50 to zip in 2011 at the Coliseum. I’ve been out in Florida for about eight years now. I haven’t really been associated or done anything with these with USC sense there’s no club here.

697
01:36:45.630 → 01:36:52.290
JB: I will say, though, the, the common I heard at the top of the call about this being unique my undergrad, which is in New York State.

698
01:36:52.740 → 01:37:00.330
JB: Rolled out a similar program this about six to eight years ago when I was on the board of that association. It had mixed results.

699
01:37:00.900 → 01:37:10.290
JB: It’s called Hobart College. If you haven’t heard of it. You might want to reach out to their staff and see what have been some of the pros and cons of engaging in a regional model.

700
01:37:10.740 → 01:37:15.000
JB: It’s decrease the number of events, it’s decreased. Some of the alumni involvement.

701
01:37:15.510 → 01:37:26.190
JB: Unless there’s certain tours are things kind of going through different parts of the country. Our alumni base is much smaller than se, but it’s a similar model than what you guys are talking about. And there’s been mixed results.

702
01:37:28.290 → 01:37:38.850
DHS: Thank you, JB for that it will definitely look it up so appreciate the reference. I went to give that DK and opportunity. I will unmute you DK

703
01:37:40.170 → 01:37:40.800
DK: Thank you.

704
01:37:41.100 → 01:37:46.950
DK: Yes, yes. My question involves the Trojan Marching Band Alumni Association.

705
01:37:48.120 → 01:37:55.050
DK: Which we formed recently and it’s supposed to be part of the USCAA

706
01:37:56.340 → 01:38:00.960
DK: How does it connect with the USCAA now.

707
01:38:02.400 → 01:38:11.370
DK: How is it going to affect the TMB and will the funds that are raised our group stay with the TMB, or will they be swept up by the USCAA

708
01:38:13.290 → 01:38:20.490
DHS: You know what, I will take it even though I’m going against us left me time that I’m now using up

709
01:38:21.180 → 01:38:34.110
DHS: The Trojan marching band Alumni Association is managed by the Trojan marching band department, we do not as the Alumni Association have purview over them and the money they are raising for a Trojan

710
01:38:34.620 → 01:38:44.670
DHS: For the Trojan marching band will stay with them. Patrick made a comment earlier we respect the donors wishes. So if the owner says give my money to the band. That’s where the money will go so

711
01:38:45.210 → 01:38:57.300
DHS; Thank you for letting me jump in there and answer that one quickly yes. DF is next on the list, and I am going to unmute you and DF, please ask your question.

712
01:38:58.290 → 01:39:05.940
DF: Hi, I’m DF. I’m in Seattle. I’m one of the first Alumni Association events. I did, I think, was the first one was an informal happy hour.

713
01:39:06.390 → 01:39:19.410
DF: And that was a great opportunity to meet people without the distraction, the football game confused under the new model how informal meetups, so to speak, like happy hours or the volleyball team is playing in town. Let’s get, let’s all

714
01:39:19.770 → 01:39:25.860
DF: Go buy tickets together like the alumni paying for their own tickets nuts. I don’t understand on how in the new model.

715
01:39:27.510 → 01:39:41.490
DF: Those things will happen. And if you move to a city that doesn’t have a formerly chartered group how like the Memphis example, how are you going to meet other alumni in your area to connect. That’s what I’m confused about.

716
01:39:42.690 → 01:39:52.320
DHS: Thank you DF. Yes, please be sure that is in the chat and we’ll follow up afterwards. Thank you, MK. I will unmute you. MK.

717
01:39:53.280 → 01:40:01.710
MK: Oh, hi. Hi, I’m MK. I live in New York. I was getting much here last couple years, um,

718
01:40:02.160 → 01:40:10.560
MK: And so we’ve always struggled with turnover in New York, very young, very transient club and I feel like this could definitely go either way.

719
01:40:11.070 → 01:40:22.230
MK: I’m in helping deal with that. Like it was always a struggle to hang on to institutional memory. So like having someone who’s dedicated to the club to be useful for that, but I feel like also it

720
01:40:22.860 → 01:40:31.440
MK: That’s like a lot of memory for her to have sorted. So kind of ended up with a grace here where we’re not putting on any events. If that liaison could maybe like

721
01:40:31.980 → 01:40:37.530
MK: Talk to you know the senior advisory club and people, and like, because there’s stuff like, you know,

722
01:40:38.100 → 01:40:42.960
MK: I don’t know, people volunteering for getting watches are going to know if you have a bar, which have a deal with this bar.

723
01:40:43.410 → 01:40:54.270
MK: And because we just go to them, they get caught, they make us T shirts like there’s all this stuff that we like have organized over the years that I know is useful to carry on.

724
01:40:55.830 → 01:40:56.220
MK: Yes.

725
01:40:56.250 → 01:41:08.400
DHS: Thank you, MK definitely great points and will definitely follow up on exactly those excuse me, I want to give LS. If you’re still on the call.

726
01:41:09.660 → 01:41:11.460
DHS: If you could unmute yourself.

727
01:41:13.410 → 01:41:13.890
LS: Yeah, I’m

728
01:41:14.040 → 01:41:15.420
DHS: Here. Okay, great.

729
01:41:16.380 → 01:41:23.100
LS: I’m LS. I am a double Trojan I have been the social events planning chair and also for the last four years.

730
01:41:23.790 → 01:41:33.060
LS: I’ve been the scend off chair for two years and I just first want to acknowledge your response of a fellow classmates come and question earlier.

731
01:41:33.960 → 01:41:42.120
LS: When you said, with all due respect that while we played a lot of events here in Austin, only a fraction of the alumni were involved. I’d like it to be noted that that

732
01:41:42.390 → 01:41:47.100
LS: Was extremely dismissive. Much like how I think a lot of this is felt too many of us.

733
01:41:47.610 → 01:42:00.150
LS: It ignores the growth that we have achieved ignores the lack of resources by which we’ve done this. And to be honest, I would like to know if the entire goal of your group this whole time was to get this vast

734
01:42:01.140 → 01:42:06.780
LS: Group of alumni out there involved is not involved, how can we didn’t have you working with us.

735
01:42:07.140 → 01:42:18.060
LS: Through your email list. Why wasn’t there any assistance to the local pledge say hey, there were actually 10,000 other members out there. And here’s their emails and here’s how to reach them because that’s our goal.

736
01:42:19.980 → 01:42:26.430
DHS: Thank you, LS, for those comments and definitely hear you loud and clear. And we’ll follow up as well.

737
01:42:28.590 → 01:42:29.790
DHS: KP.

738
01:42:31.140 → 01:42:36.840
DHS: I will unmute you. KP and please pose your question or comment.

739
01:42:37.530 → 01:42:48.930
KP: Hi. I think my husband and I are both USC alumni and we’re a military family. So we live in a pretty remote areas around the US. So I’m actually pretty hopeful about the promise of

740
01:42:49.350 → 01:42:52.560
KP: Greater involvement for those areas with that regional clubs.

741
01:42:53.280 → 01:42:58.800
KP: That being said, I’m just throughout this call. I’ve been trying to poke around this online portal.

742
01:42:59.130 → 01:43:11.970
KP: And I’m getting a message that you know there’s a new credential that you should have received via email and kind of like a lot of hoops to jump through it’s asking for my eight digit alumni number which I hadn’t looked at in probably 10 years

743
01:43:13.110 → 01:43:23.760
KP: So my one comment. We just maybe be like send out an easy 123 how to have how to get into this new portal, I’m

744
01:43:24.630 → 01:43:35.040
KP: I’m hopeful that it does great as you guys are saying, but it is so far as someone who is like trying to get on board of that it’s it’s proven difficult. So just, that’s my two cents on that.

745
01:43:36.240 → 01:43:43.290
DHS: Thank you, KP, I do appreciate the feedback and will definitely follow up. It is important because we are driving people to it.

746
01:43:43.710 → 01:44:04.140
DHS: I want to go ahead now we have just a few more comments and then again questions, please, please, please put them in the chat so that we can be sure to address as much as we can IZ if you’re still here. Please unmute. Thank you. And there you go.

747
01:44:04.860 → 01:44:15.420
IZ: Oh, thank you. Again, just want to say thanks to Danielle and everyone else with the Alumni Association thanks to John Iino having a response earlier. We really do appreciate it.

748
01:44:16.110 → 01:44:29.010
IZ: I know this isn’t easy to hear this level of frustration and frankly, anger, but that’s the reality that we’re all feeling right now. And at the end of the day, we’re all here both employees of the university.

749
01:44:29.730 → 01:44:39.840
IZ: volunteers that are serving on the board and then the volunteers all across the country in the world on this call. We all want our alumni association and our alumni network to continue to grow.

750
01:44:40.050 → 01:44:48.480
IZ: And be useful for everyone involved, we’re all on the same team here, but it doesn’t feel like we’re being included and

751
01:44:48.810 → 01:44:59.670
IZ: We want to be able to be helpful. So one way that we are doing that is we’re coordinating on this call, actually I’ve collected over five pages of emails. Everyone has contributed that to our Google Doc.

752
01:45:00.060 → 01:45:10.800
IZ: Can you please send us the recording of this webinar and I can share that email list of if you don’t have those emails. Now, because we’d really love to have a recording of these comments. Thank you.

753
01:45:12.210 → 01:45:16.560
DHS: Thank you. And we do have, you know, everyone who registered for the call. So we’ll be able to

754
01:45:16.560 → 01:45:23.820
DHS: Communicate afterwards and do plan to do so, and then we will definitely look at the transcript in the video.

755
01:45:24.300 → 01:45:29.520
IZ: Can you send us the video transcript, please. We really want to have this call for our purposes as well.

756
01:45:30.420 → 01:45:31.380
DHS: Ask Patrick

757
01:45:34.830 → 01:45:41.490
PEA: Sorry, I had to unmute myself IZ Yeah, we’ll send you a transcript and we’ll review the video as well, but will definitely send you a non redacted transcript.

758
01:45:42.870 → 01:45:49.440
IZ: Okay. I mean, recording would be great. And we’ve consented to this recording all here. So I think would be fair if you would send that recording to us to

759
01:45:50.040 → 01:45:50.340
PEA: Got it.

760
01:45:50.370 → 01:45:51.090
PEA: Thank you, IZ.

761
01:45:51.360 → 01:45:57.120
DHS: Thank you. Yes. SD, please unmute and

762
01:45:59.820 → 01:46:01.530
SD: Say hi, I’m

763
01:46:03.450 → 01:46:09.300
SD: So sorry. I have another class. So I’ve been listening as I’ve been driving

764
01:46:09.840 → 01:46:20.880
SD: And I just wanted to say that as a member of the USC alumni here in Dallas. And as someone who tried to start the alumni club in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

765
01:46:21.330 → 01:46:27.990
SD: And discovered that it was very difficult because you do not actually connect people

766
01:46:28.800 → 01:46:37.800
SD: Through your, your emails and your website, all the people that participate here in Dallas were emails and contacts that we made personally

767
01:46:38.250 → 01:46:48.570
SD: And we invited to get to our events. They were not people who found us through the university. They were not people who went to the university’s website.

768
01:46:48.810 → 01:46:59.610
SD: And then came to look for us. They were ones that we found. And we cultivated and by taking by assuming that because you have all these email addresses.

769
01:47:00.060 → 01:47:07.710
SD: Of all the alumni that that’s going to be translate into more people is not the case.

770
01:47:08.190 → 01:47:22.530
SD: The people who are participating participate because of an individual personal invitation because someone personally said come be with us, not because they got an email, and I’m sure all of us with coven

771
01:47:22.830 → 01:47:34.440
SD: Who are staying at home and feeling absolutely segregated for the last few months are absolutely on board with this, you feel better when you communicate with people.

772
01:47:34.800 → 01:47:54.390
SD: face to face with personal invitations not was some email you get in your inbox and maybe you respond to. Or maybe you don’t. And I really feel like by taking that connection away from people who have been working years to cultivate those relationships you are

773
01:47:59.730 → 01:48:03.360
DHS: And SD you, , I think you hit mute.

774
01:48:04.980 → 01:48:05.730
DHS: You’re freezing

775
01:48:06.630 → 01:48:08.550
DHS: Sorry. Okay, it’s

776
01:48:09.480 → 01:48:12.660
DHS: A Yeah. You’re a little over time. SD as well so

777
01:48:13.350 → 01:48:13.590
DHS: Yeah.

778
01:48:14.310 → 01:48:15.870
SD: I think I got my point across.

779
01:48:16.080 → 01:48:37.080
DHS: Thank you. Thank you. SD. We have time for just the three hands that are currently up. So I want to give SD, SF and then BB and opportunity to share. Again, I do ask that you keep your questions. Your comments to one minute. So we’ll start with SD

780
01:48:38.340 → 01:48:43.740
SD: Hi, I’m the president of USC alumni club of Washington, DC, and I’ve had a chance to talk to many people about this.

781
01:48:44.190 → 01:48:50.280
SD: When we joined the USC family we joined with the promise of a Trojan family that was lifelong and worldwide.

782
01:48:50.610 → 01:48:57.150
SD: And this fundamentally feels like to so many of us it’s undercutting it we here on this call are the people who will stay on a weeknight

783
01:48:57.870 → 01:49:05.880
SD: For an hour and a half to talk about the alumni club because we care about it and we want it to proceed and we’re wondering why this is being undercut so dramatically.

784
01:49:06.090 → 01:49:15.690
SD: So my question is really for John and for Jaime and for Joy and for all the other leaders who claim to represent us and the Board of Governors, how many people need to stand up.

785
01:49:15.930 → 01:49:28.350
SD: And how many people need to say that this is wrong that we oppose this for you to change your mind, it is clear that we are passionate that this is the wrong move and despite which we are being dismissed.

786
01:49:28.620 → 01:49:42.600
SD: Over and over and over again in this call. So I’m asking you please open your ears and listen to us. We want to work with you. We want to make this happen. We want USC to succeed and to fight on but this is a preposterous way to do it.

787
01:49:45.180 → 01:49:52.650
DHS: Thank you, SD and I know I promised, SD. SF and BB to go but Patrick, did you want to make one quick comment.

788
01:49:53.730 → 01:49:54.630
DHS: Before we continue,

789
01:49:54.930 → 01:50:03.900
PEA: Thank you. I actually have Jaime Lee is on the call. Jaime Lee, as you guys as we mentioned at the top of the call is the chair. The co Chair of the

790
01:50:04.470 → 01:50:14.940
PEA: USC Board of Trustees alumni affairs and university Development Committee. She’s also a past president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors, Jaime Lee (JL). Are you there. Right.

791
01:50:15.120 → 01:50:15.930
JL: Yeah. Can you hear me.

792
01:50:16.320 → 01:50:17.400
PEA: Yes. Hi Jaime. Thank you.

793
01:50:19.290 → 01:50:25.110
JL: I’m well. I’m happy to comment on this. And I know that change is incredibly difficult. I know that it’s very, very hard, especially when you’ve

794
01:50:25.770 → 01:50:34.770
JL: given so much Cardinal and gold blood sweat and tears to an organization for so long that modifications to it are extremely hard and we hear

795
01:50:35.220 → 01:50:48.660
JL: The call we hear the frustration. I’m extremely heartened by the passion that has come out on this call the fact that people have been on here for two hours really shows the dedication of all of you who are volunteering for USC.

796
01:50:49.950 → 01:50:56.820
JL: I don’t think that there’s anything that we can continue to say that will change your mind, all of a sudden, that this is a good idea accepted bear it out.

797
01:50:57.150 → 01:51:04.170
JL: In practice, this is something that has been studied thought about, you know, spitball holes poked at it.

798
01:51:04.650 → 01:51:13.410
JL: All the way up to the level of the Board of Trustees as Patrick mentioned over the last couple years. And to the extent that anyone might think that this is a

799
01:51:14.160 → 01:51:24.420
JL: Group that is far removed from the experience of the average Trojan across the country who is far away from campus after many years after graduation.

800
01:51:24.720 → 01:51:39.750
JL: All I can say is that I started my volunteer career at USC alumni club of West Los Angeles, which no longer exists anymore, due to the petering out of the volunteers, as we all started to get married and have kids and join different organizations that suit our needs.

801
01:51:40.080 → 01:51:41.940
JL: I found that USC was really able to

802
01:51:41.940 → 01:51:51.960
JL: Provide that pathway for every next step throughout my volunteer career. So from that club to joining the USC Asian Pacific Alumni Association to joining the board of governors.

803
01:51:52.320 → 01:51:59.340
JL: Where I was for seven years. Eventually been president. And now as a board on the board of trustees and serving as Co Chair of the

804
01:51:59.790 → 01:52:05.970
JL: Alumni Affairs Committee and development. And so really what I want to say is that for me.

805
01:52:06.510 → 01:52:11.790
JL: Over the last 11 years of being alum of the last of the seven years before that of being a student

806
01:52:12.150 → 01:52:15.840
JL: Each of these time periods in life is finite, my time on the board of trustees.

807
01:52:16.170 → 01:52:24.120
JL: is finite. The only thing that I do know is that my commitment and my passion and my volunteerism for USC will be absolutely lifelong and worldwide.

808
01:52:24.480 → 01:52:32.820
JL: In any form that I can come to get it and I sincerely hope and encourage everyone who shares my passion that you will continue to be involved.

809
01:52:33.120 → 01:52:44.700
JL: And not let the taking away of a title or the frustration or sadness or heartbreak. You might feel right now stand in the way of serving the greater good of the Trojan family. So thank you guys all for being here today and

810
01:52:45.180 → 01:52:56.370
JL: Looking forward to reviewing the recording and all the questions that continue to come in and assure you that we are in constant discussions, not only with the committee, but also in President full on all of these issues as they roll out

811
01:52:58.290 → 01:53:17.430
DHS: Thank you so much. Jaime for that and thank you for your time today to join us to show your commitment to this very important endeavor. I now do want to make good on my promise and give SF an opportunity to speak and SF. It looks like you’re already off mute. So please go ahead

812
01:53:17.730 → 01:53:23.010
SF: Thank you. Yes, I’m in Phoenix member of the board here multiple times, scend off host and chair.

813
01:53:24.090 → 01:53:30.930
SF: We all share the goal of having engagement and we don’t doubt that that is your, your goal and mission is to increase that

814
01:53:31.980 → 01:53:37.650
SF: And I heard that there was a lot of listening throughout the alumni family around alumni around the world.

815
01:53:38.460 → 01:53:50.490
SF: What I’d like to ask is how much conversation and listening was done with members specifically of the regional clubs to see how the members of the regional clubs felt about this before it was rolled out

816
01:53:51.000 → 01:54:02.970
SF: And because I was not aware of any like to know if there was some I wasn’t aware of. And I wonder if this decision was made with the consideration of the degree of frustration and disappointment.

817
01:54:04.170 → 01:54:10.830
SF: And obsessiveness that people in the regional clubs have was this anticipated and considered in this decision.

818
01:54:11.970 → 01:54:12.420
SF: Yes.

819
01:54:12.450 → 01:54:15.870
PEA: Thank you. Hey I Danielle I may actually answer that. Okay.

820
01:54:16.440 → 01:54:20.220
PEA Because I know that we’d have just one more question. I want to respond to Mr F. Thank you.

821
01:54:20.940 → 01:54:30.090
PEA: I personally went on a listening tour around the country for the last I mentioned of literally the last 36 months and I engaged all kinds of people and never in

822
01:54:30.330 → 01:54:39.630
PEA: My purpose was different and going around. I was actually going to work on another university initiative but I called on the club presidents in each of the cities, including Phoenix and I did get together with KL

823
01:54:39.840 → 01:54:42.510
PEA: Just to talk about the general interest and challenges.

824
01:54:42.990 → 01:54:50.400
PEA: And while I didn’t tell her that we were considering this because at the time that I met her three years ago this was not on the table. So I’m going to be, you know, I’m being forthright with that.

825
01:54:51.210 → 01:54:59.820
PEA: The common theme that I kept hearing was. And again, that my colleagues as well who work with our, you know, our regional leaders kept hearing where things regarding

826
01:55:00.450 → 01:55:06.300
PEA: Where things regarding what the club has interested and what the concern the club most but honestly

827
01:55:06.840 → 01:55:12.090
PEA: More things that you know we talk about these things as a Trojan family, the kickoff times over which we have no control.

828
01:55:12.360 → 01:55:16.440
PEA: You know what I mean, things like that. Things about. I know there’s frustration with the PAC 12 network. And we’ve

829
01:55:16.650 → 01:55:25.980
PEA: Done our very best to articulate our concerns to our friends in the athletic department and to the PAC 12 and administration, but this is these decisions were made with a lot of

830
01:55:26.640 → 01:55:33.660
PEA: With a lot of consideration and thought, and we did not expect that it was just going to be a perfectly smooth sailing ships and Mr. F.

831
01:55:33.990 → 01:55:44.700
PEA: We. I mean, we certainly knew that people were going to be upset with the change we didn’t, we didn’t. We weren’t doing this to cause upset. We were really doing it because, again, one of the things that USC really prides itself on

832
01:55:44.970 → 01:55:54.570
PEA: Is leading with change and leading with bold new ideas and we really believe that this is the way that we’re going to push the Alumni Association and our university forward.

833
01:55:55.620 → 01:56:06.720
PEA: I again, we’re happy to engage in some direct conversation about how we move forward with engagement in the valley of the sun and in every other community because there are unique characteristics to each city that we certainly want to celebrate

834
01:56:07.920 → 01:56:13.830
Sf: So were the original clubs consulted about this idea and a communication specifically regarding this idea

835
01:56:14.160 → 01:56:15.630
PEA: Specific to this. No, they were not

836
01:56:17.220 → 01:56:18.510
KM: Okay. Wow. Thank you.

837
01:56:19.890 → 01:56:24.210
DHS: I want to give BB an opportunity to speak.

838
01:56:25.710 → 01:56:35.91
BB Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. BB here in Los Angeles. So there was a lot of talk about risk mitigation and light of liability mitigation.

839
01:56:36.360 → 01:56:46.560
BB: And I think it’s no surprise to anyone on this call that that USC has been in the news, whether it’s varsity blues are, you know, renaming VKC in light of current events.

840
01:56:47.610 → 01:56:52.170
BB: It sounds like. And it wasn’t really fleshed out in the comments that were made, but

841
01:56:52.650 → 01:56:59.820
BB: My guess would be that part of the decision here was to bring some of the decision making authority back to campus.

842
01:57:00.210 → 01:57:04.890
BB: And to have oversight over some of the events that were being put on the local clubs.

843
01:57:05.190 → 01:57:14.610
BB: And if that’s what you guys are trying to do. I mean, that’s the you guys need to be honest and upfront to your alumni that you want further oversight of their activities and you want to

844
01:57:14.970 → 01:57:18.540
BB: Make sure that it’s consistent with whatever culture, you’re trying to build on campus.

845
01:57:18.810 → 01:57:33.330
BB: But you know that, you know, I think it’s important that you you’d be honest about that objective and also realize that that might conflict with whatever the you know the culture in the world market is it’s not going to match up with what’s going on campus at any time.

846
01:57:34.770 → 01:57:53.670
DHS: Thank you. Please BT has his hand up. But before we go to you, BT, JD has had his hand. His physical hand up for quite a while. So JD I cannot find you on my screen. So if you can unmute yourself and then share your comment.

847
01:57:54.270 → 01:57:54.540
DHS: There you

848
01:57:55.560 → 01:58:03.210
JD: Are hi I first off, I didn’t want to thank Patrick and Ashley for listening to my concerns over the past week. I know we disagree with them.

849
01:58:03.690 → 01:58:12.540
JD: On a lot of issues, but they did write me back. They did talk on a phone call and I was looking forward to this opportunity to

850
01:58:13.080 → 01:58:24.180
JD: Discuss what we have to say, and I’m just quite frankly a bit disappointed. I think there’s a middle ground to be had here, but they can have more control. We can have more of a hybrid model that allows more new alumni.

851
01:58:24.810 → 01:58:32.490
JD: Opportunities and locations but also allows us to keep we keep what we have, because my question is how we consistently throw events.

852
01:58:33.540 → 01:58:37.740
JD: The Alumni club, my friendships, I’m back to being more comfortable made me

853
01:58:39.840 → 01:58:44.550
JD: Just. Welcome to this community that I live in LA, my whole life. And I feel like we’re losing this

854
01:58:44.970 → 01:58:50.700
JD: And the only answer that I get so far as to go rogue. A lot of things are co wrote real events. We don’t care.

855
01:58:50.850 → 01:59:00.300
JD: Go rogue and going rogues, not the answer. We need engagement. We need people to be invested, even if it’s only three to five people this three to five people who are engaged can help.

856
01:59:00.630 → 01:59:09.000
JD: The system that you want to establish and I feel like there’s really a middle ground here. I mean, you’re a Bruin for four years and you’re Trojan for life for a reason.

857
01:59:09.450 → 01:59:21.630
JD: And my coworker list of the USC alumni club. I’ve done many places around the world and I were USC backpack or USC had fight on and I have wonderful conversations with people and I just can’t help but think

858
01:59:22.020 → 01:59:27.870
JD: That we need to move towards the future. But we can’t forget the past and how we got there. And this whole

859
01:59:28.560 → 01:59:35.010
JD: Thing to sort of blows past that blows past that a bit. So I’m like I’m disappointed in two years.

860
01:59:35.250 → 01:59:41.760
JD: Really like two years, you guys. And the thing about this and and discuss this. I mean, it’s hybrid model could have been discussed in the last two years, we kind of work.

861
01:59:42.750 → 01:59:53.940
JD: So it’s just really, really disappointing that we’re getting this on the last minute. And I think more from the board of directors from President Folt and from the Board of Trustees, because we’ve had a lot of

862
01:59:54.990 → 01:59:59.550
JD: Scandals in the last couple years with USC that have made it really hard and the butt of jokes.

863
02:00:01.260 → 02:00:02.520
JD: About and

864
02:00:04.080 → 02:00:10.590
JD: And it’s well like this is our identity and I feel like something’s been stripped away here but

865
02:00:11.880 → 02:00:16.260
JD: I guess the decisions made, and we’ll see what happens within the next two years. And thank you for the opportunity to speak.

866
02:00:16.980 → 02:00:26.640
DHS: Thank you, JD for your comments. Our final comment is from BT and then we will turn it back over to Patrick for some next steps.

867
02:00:27.720 → 02:00:32.550
DHS: That we hope that you all take us on. So BT, go ahead and unmute yourself.

868
02:00:35.040 → 02:00:36.840
DHS: And there you are. Yes.

869
02:00:37.410 → 02:00:40.860
BT: Good evening, I’m ready to go out and celebrate my birthday.

870
02:00:41.340 → 02:00:42.780
DHS: So very

871
02:00:43.290 → 02:00:56.040
BT: You. So I want to first say that working with Pasha at the at the leadership conference last year and getting answers right away was really helpful was the it was the

872
02:00:56.610 → 02:01:03.000
BT: Best time I had in terms of being able to engage with the Alumni Association or Los Angeles however

873
02:01:03.390 → 02:01:10.770
BT: Ever since you had gotten rid of this Harris system and said that the Salesforce system is coming. Things went downhill from there.

874
02:01:11.190 → 02:01:20.010
BT: Not, not because that’s the reason why we did not have the engagement because we didn’t have access to new alumni and updated alumni.

875
02:01:20.640 → 02:01:31.020
BT:: contacts and that is the reason I run the game. Watch parties and we have, we used in the first few with them, we would have up to 100 or more people, but the team.

876
02:01:32.010 → 02:01:39.690
BT: performance level turn people off. And so they didn’t come and and sounds just goes especially different because

877
02:01:40.170 → 02:01:48.930
BT: A lot more engagement involved the younger people. However, after a year or two. A lot of them moved on to different parts of the country or the Bay Area.

878
02:01:49.860 → 02:01:58.500
BT: The problem is with this is, is, is how are you going to connect the volunteers to work together who live in the same area and to work with the venues and to

879
02:01:58.980 → 02:02:09.120
BT: Because game watches were opportunity to for me to introduce new people to the club to introduce to what the university was doing to make announcements to give out swag.

880
02:02:09.660 → 02:02:24.180
BT: And to enter, enter into call a bar. This is the USC alumni meetup space for for game watches and and I would meet a lot of different people and young people.

881
02:02:25.440 → 02:02:30.840
BT: Older alumni people who were coming from different parts of the of the of the state visiting

882
02:02:31.200 → 02:02:43.080
BT: But under this new system. It looks like it’s going to be very difficult to do that. And I don’t think I needed approval or go to a training on how to run a game. Watch, considering that when the team was doing really well. The same down

883
02:02:43.560 → 02:02:53.400
BT: I got up to 200 plus people at a game watch that through working with other people in the club to promote the events on different on different social media.

884
02:02:53.730 → 02:03:03.630
BT: And I think it looks like you’re just taking it away and closing it feels like you’re punishing the club that got organization volunteer organization of the year.

885
02:03:04.380 → 02:03:17.730
BT: Two years ago, and now you’re telling us it’s not worth it. That’s what you’re telling us, I think it would be great if you besides you wanting to clean the program space that you also rearrange how you

886
02:03:18.510 → 02:03:29.700
BT: Engage with it with the alumni in different regions because there’s been issues with that as well. And I’m hoping you undertake this to heart and understand

887
02:03:30.060 → 02:03:40.050
BT: That that we love the university. That’s why we’re involved with the clubs and we want to involve more people, but we also. We also have needed your help. If you had done this.

888
02:03:40.980 → 02:03:54.870
BT: This zoom meeting a few months ago and asked us for feedback. Maybe we could. You could have refine this or done a better job of communicating what you’re doing. Thank you for your time and I wish you luck.

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02:03:55.770 → 02:04:06.210
DHS: Thank you. BT and again. Happy birthday, I want to go ahead and turn our presentation back over to the slides, we just have a couple of follow up.

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DHS: Questions sorry comments and I do want to share that all of the questions that are in the chat.

891
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DHS: Will be addressed will synthesize what we can to, again, collect as many thoughts and group as many questions together so that we can answer them. So without further ado, Patrick, if you would go ahead and take us away.

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PEA: Sure. Thank you. If we could advance to the next slide please.

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PEA: Thank you. So again, we know many of you on the call have been exploring around the website.

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PEA: So where we used to have the regional club page on our website. It’s now alumni near you. It’s under the get involved tab. So we encourage you to please go there.

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PEA: And again comments and suggestions for how if for some reason this isn’t as intuitive, or if you feel like there’s something that’s glaringly missing, please send us your comments right away because we want to make sure that we’re as user friendly as possible. We can go to the next slide.

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02:05:02.190 → 02:05:07.050
PEA: Thank you. So we asked you in this process. If you could please bookmark this site and again

897
02:05:07.890 → 02:05:17.250
PEA: We have now posted Facebook groups. Many of the current existing alumni Facebook club Facebook groups and pages of stone that migrated over but we’re looking to continue to build this

898
02:05:17.490 → 02:05:24.780
PEA: And we just asked again that in consideration of the COVID 19 pandemic until we get further direction from the university regarding any

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PEA: In person program event or gathering, which is happening under an official USC or USC Alumni Association banner.

900
02:05:32.970 → 02:05:40.590
PEA: proverbially that we do need to, we do need to halt any in person meetups until further notice. We’re working very closely with the University

901
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PEA: In terms of when it’s going to be safe, assuming that everything is going forward football games being scheduled and people want to do game watch us. We asked again.

902
02:05:49.770 → 02:05:58.410
PEA: Will provide some suggestions for how you could conduct a virtual game. Watch. Although I’m sure people would already want to know how to do it, but any in person gathering still

903
02:05:58.980 → 02:06:06.180
PEA: We are still subject to the university’s rules on the COVID pandemic, whether or not you’re in Southern California. We can go to the next slide.

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PEA: In the interest of everybody’s time again under the same get involved tab on our website. There are many ways to be involved.

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PEA: Again, we’ve talked about many of these sharing your expertise hosting service project leading an event or even joining a committee, there’s many opportunities that are listed on our website.

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PEA: So we asked you to go there and also this this morning we had posted our monthly events digest, which has a call for volunteerism there as well. So you could find more information. If you can also bookmark this page.

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02:06:35.370 → 02:06:49.020
PEA: Let’s go to the next slide. With that, again, I want to reiterate, first of all, our gratitude for everybody’s time. Second of all, yes, we will be sending out a transcript copy of this entire meeting. It is

908
02:06:49.770 → 02:06:55.320
PEA: About two hours at close to two hours and 15 minutes. So once again, we’re grateful for everybody’s call to echo

909
02:06:56.070 → 02:07:03.540
PEA: The comments of Jaime Lee and John Iino and Danielle and then all of you. We’re grateful for your passion, we understand that change is difficult.

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PEA: We are committed to making the very best Alumni Relations program work for the university. We are constantly going to be assessing

911
02:07:11.280 → 02:07:19.470
PEA: Our work. We want to see where we are achieving where we have areas that we need to improve on so that we, at the end of the day can deliver the very best opportunity.

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02:07:19.710 → 02:07:27.570
PEA: To engage meaningfully as many alumni and as many volunteers as possible. So we thank you for working with our to continue to work with our team.

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PEA: As soon as we can resume being on the road, we’ve promised to be back. We want to stay in touch with everybody. And again, if you have any. I think a lot of you have my email. It’s, it’s on the website Danielle’s email. Our whole team.

914
02:07:39.150 → 02:07:45.600
PEA: Ashley Pasha Christina Tanya Dominic Faithe. We’re all on there. And please reach out to us and continue

915
02:07:46.470 → 02:07:57.450
PEA: To work with the university to push us forward and anything we can do to answer your questions. We definitely want to do that. Hopefully with the summary that we’re going to send out to everybody. The summary of all the questions that have come in.

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02:07:57.660 → 02:08:05.460
PEA: Hopefully the questions will be answered there, but please continue to engage and let us know your thoughts and we’re moving forward. So thank you again.

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PEA: We are now going to sign off and we wish you all continued safety and wellness.

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PEA: Please continue to take care of during these very difficult times. And as the university puts out more announcements about the upcoming academic year will be sure to keep everybody posted as well. Thank you again and good evening.

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02:08:22.710 → 02:08:23.670
PEA: Thank you fight on