Alumni News

Give Advice, Get Advice
In the Spotlight

OH BOY: Col. Pierre "P.I." Boy '39, Ret., center, was one of eight alumni honored at this year's Alumni Association awards luncheon. Boy served UNH as a professor of military science, director of Alumni Affairs and a member of the Alumni Association board. Boy was presented with the Profile of Service award; other recipients included Lou D'Allesandro '60 and Polly Ashton Daniels '64. Alumni Meritorious Service awards were presented to Harriet Forkey '54, '67G, Joseph Murdoch '55G, Chandler Sanborn '55, Martha Foley Jackson '76, '96G and Elibet Moore Chase '81, '02G. The Young Alumnus/Alumna Award went to Amanda Wood '97. With Boy, above, is Mary Stuart Gile '71, general awards committee chair, left, and Susanne Fortier '71, '77G, AMSA committee chair.

What goes around comes around, according to the old saying, and it's probably never more true than when it comes to networking. The University Advising and Career Center has established an online database that allows both alumni and students to request advice and network with alumni mentors. Called the Career Mentor Network, it's an easy and quick way to volunteer to give advice in your career field and major and an equally straightforward way to search for a mentor yourself.

The network is not intended as an avenue for applying for a job but rather as a way to find out if a new career is right for you and to get advice on the best career moves to take. Conversations with mentors, often by e-mail, can provide realistic information about career options, employment conditions and job responsibilities. Mentors may be able to refer fellow alums and students to their contacts in the industry.

Unlike the newly launched UNH Pathways program, which is a year-long mentoring relationship, the Career Mentor Network is geared for relatively short-term communications. Volunteers can choose how they would like to be contacted, and how often.

In order to make signing up as a volunteer and searching for alumni mentors as easy as possible, the UNH Alumni Association has placed the password and instructions online at Wildcat World, the UNH alumni Web site. Visit www.alumni.unh.edu/career/careernet.html and follow the directions. If you are already registered, sign in first.

"We hope that hundreds, even thousands, of UNH alumni will volunteer as mentors and also take advantage of this service to get career advice," says Bethany Cooper '94, manager of employer relations and recruiting at UACC. Cooper encourages employers to contact her as well, to post jobs on the Alumni Jobline www.unh.edu/uacc/jobline.html, sign up for job fairs and on-campus interviews, or offer internships to current students. She can be contacted at (603) 862-2029 or bethany.cooper@unh.edu.

Carroll Winch '63 would like 2006 to be the year the Alumni Association dues program finally breaks the 10,000-member mark.

Though there are some 109,000 UNH alumni now scattered around the world, fewer than 10 percent are dues-paying members of the association. "I'd like to set a new benchmark," says Winch, the incoming president of the Alumni Association.

During his tenure, Winch would also like to create new alumni chapters while revitalizing current groups. "Some of the chapter members in California or Florida, for instance, may not have the opportunity to be on campus on a regular basis, but they have great pride and allegiance to their alma mater," he says.

In fact, Winch says it doesn't matter where alumni live: they can still get involved with boards and committees. "We have had board members from California and Florida," he says. "It isn't a matter of location, it's a matter of priority and commitment." He notes that board member Lynne Curtis Butcher '69 of San Francisco attends every board meeting, and schedules visits to friends during her trips East. "If alumni knew how much fun it is [to serve on boards], they wouldn't hesitate to volunteer," he says.

Winch should know. He and his wife, Barbara Mahan Winch '60, residents of Hooksett, N.H., have held football season tickets since 1968, but Winch has also been an alumni volunteer for years. The senior vice president of Cambridge Trust Co. in Exeter, N.H., Winch is serving his second three-year term on the board.

To get more alumni involved, Winch expects to increasingly rely on the Internet. Already this past year, the association switched to an online ballot to elect board members. "It was a much more economical and efficient way than sending out ballots to 10,000 people," says Winch, who noted paper ballots were available upon request. He would also like to see alumni using the Internet to look for jobs and to request career advice from fellow alumni (see "Give Advice, Get Advice," above).

Because of budget constraints, the Alumni Association will have to look for new sources of revenue to fund reunion activities for classes after 1968, which lack a class treasury. But what may be the most visible development during his tenure is the first sculpture of UNH's mascot, the wildcat, which is tentatively scheduled to be unveiled on campus at Homecoming 2006.

Winch says the privately funded bronze wildcat, soon to be commissioned, "will be a prominent sculpture and one we hope will provide a sense of pride to the university."

Winch has had that sense of pride ever since he was a member of the first graduating class of the Whittemore School of Business and Economics. "My predecessors have all said it's an honor and a privilege to serve as president," Winch says. "It's a year that will go by very fast."

For more information on the dues program, chapters, boards and career advice networks, visit http://alumni.unh.edu.