Alumni Association announces recent accomplishments

Alumni Association announces recent accomplishments (3/21/2005)

The Alumni Involvement Index measures the number of events and programs per year in which an individual alumnus is involved. In the last calendar year, 51,647 Ball State Alumni were measurably involved with the BSUAA, an increase of 5.2%. This involvement represents 37.7% of our alumni.
The BSUAA hosted 158 on-campus events (35,242 alumni in attendance), 92 off-campus events (3,640 alumni in attendance) for a total of 250 events (38,882 alumni in attendance).
The BSUAA staff continues to work closely with the ten Colleges and Departments that have established alumni constituent groups to engage their alumni and to provide academic and social connections.
Working toward meeting budgetary needs, the Alumni Association completed a successful year of production of the Ball State Alumnus Magazine with its newer format, fewer pages, and new stock weight. It was circulated bi-monthly to 122,626 alumni households representing 136,867 alumni.
Sharpening cost savings more, the Association successfully used alternative methods, such as e-mail, to publicize events and program announcements.
- Four thousand five hundred requests were made from alumni and friends to the BSUAA general e-mail address: alumni1@bsu.edu.
- One hundred ninety-eight push e-mails announcing events and programs were sent to 631,500 alumni.
- Thirty thousand ninety-four alumni received the monthly BSUAA e-newsletter News from the Cardinal's Nest in December.
- Alumni e-mail addresses have increased to 31,989.
Additional technology usage:
- There was a monthly average of 103,790 hits to the BSUAA web site.
- The Alumni Registry has grown to approximately 12,417 alumni.
- The Career Alumni Network has 300 volunteer consultants online and 754 users.
In 2004, 136 alumni received individual visits as part of the I-alumni relations initiative.
The Alumni Association Legacy Scholarship was initiated in 1983 to financially assist alumni children and grandchildren with tuition. Since that time, 614 students have received Legacy Scholarships totaling $775,400.
In Fall 2004 the BSUAA hosted football pre-game rallies for the five home football games. In all, 1,689 alumni and friends attended the rallies.
Alumni can acquire a photo ID from the Alumni Association for various discounts at area merchants and to obtain library privileges and, for a fee, recreation privileges. Currently there are 3,375 CARDs (Cardinal Alumni Retail Discount) in circulation and 1,211 Recreation Cards.
A significant number of alumni have taken advantage of the opportunity to have Cardinal Pride License Plates. The BSUAA issued 4,220 plates in 2004.
Alumni are recognized each year (56 in 2004) by the BSUAA through award programs such as Coach-of-the-Year, Distinguished Alumnus, Graduate of the Last Decade (G.O.L.D.), and Benny Awards.
Many annual events, such as the NREM Internship Day and the FCS Internship Day, continued to be successful. The seventh annual FCS Internship Day had a total attendance of 358 including 310 students and 23 alumni presenters. The NREM Internship Day was the most successful yet with 128 students in attendance and 30 vendors, of which 17 had at least one alumnus representing them.