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Message: [QUOTE="UConnNick, post: 1352722, member: 1526"] The "Distribution Plan" now posted on the alumni website does not guarantee that the Alumni House will continue to be used for alumni purposes on campus. The plan essentially gives the university the right and sole option to decide to do anything with the building that they want, and to move any "alumni center" on campus to another building, perhaps the basement of the Student Union, or anywhere else they choose to put it. The plan also indicates that the 6 million in liquid assets can be used for a number of purposes. The key language used is "...including, but not limited to, ...", with a listing of intended uses for the money. That pretty much gives the university administration carte blanche to use the money to pay salaries of housekeeping personnel, or anything else they want to spend it on. This entire process has been handled very poorly by the university administration. You shouldn't deliberately alienate an alumni group that includes some of the largest individual donors to the university. Perhaps they're right about the efficiency and economies of scale that come with a consolidation of alumni relations and fundraising efforts, however the manner in which they have gone about making these changes has been dictatorial and totally non-transparent. The university administration notified the UCAA in mid-January that their funding from the university would be cut off on March 31, and they would also no longer be allowed the use of the school's logos or database of alumni names and addresses. No discussion or written plan for the transition was offered. Also, if the UCAA is deemed a failure for not engaging a larger number of alumni, the UCONN Foundation has failed equally in not generating the level of endowment worthy of an institution which is the top land grant university in New England and which ranks in the top 20 of public universities nationwide. Why they are suddenly deemed the savior of all things UCONN is beyond me. This matter should at the very least be held open for discussion. The university administration should be forced to put in writing some assurances that the money being turned over will be used for the purposes it was intended (scholarships, etc.), and under no circumstances should the Alumni House ever be converted to some other use, or worse, torn down to make room for some new construction. The bottom line here is we're looking at nothing but a power and money grab by Susan Herbst and the university administration. That's all this is about. She'll be gone from UCONN in a few more years. The rest of us will have to live with these decisions forever, whether positive or negative. For these reasons, I will vote NO on dissolution of the UCAA, and I urge all other members to do the same. [/QUOTE]

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