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Message: [QUOTE="Carl S. Ey, post: 1354808, member: 6325"] Article posted in the Journal Inquirer today, below my signature. It sums up the concerns that many have in regard to dissolution. BTW, dissolution isn't inevitable pending your vote. Vote NO to dissolution. Carl S. Ey UCONN 1988 By Mike Savino Journal Inquirer | 0 comments The University of Connecticut is putting on the full-court press in urging Alumni Association members to approve a dissolution plan. Basketball player Donny Marshall and former television anchor Pat Sheehan, both alumni, circulated letters last week in support of the plan to dissolve the association and have the UConn Foundation assume its responsibilities and manage its assets. Dissolution ballots went out to Alumni Association members June 15 and the last day to vote is June 29. But members continue to raise concerns that the formal plan doesn’t provide enough protection for the association or its assets, in particular the Alumni Center, which is valued at roughly $3 million and is on UConn’s main campus in Storrs. “That’s the thing about this vote, there’s so many open questions,” said Daniel Blume, who served as Alumni Association president from 1972 to 1974. Under the dissolution agreement, UConn would acknowledge the importance of a facility for alumni programs and make “good faith assurances” to maintain the Alumni Center for that purpose. But UConn also would be able to determine when “it is no longer in the best interest of the university and its alumni to continue to use the Alumni Center for such purposes.” A UConn spokesman Friday deferred comment to the UConn Foundation. Foundation Media Director Jack Kramer said the foundation and the school plan to use the center for its current purpose, and the Alumni Association’s board is creating a fund to ensure maintenance continues. “There are no plans to change the operation or use of the alumni house,” Kramer said. “The Husky Heritage Museum will stay in the alumni house as well.” Efforts to contact Alumni Association President Lori Riiska were unsuccessful Friday, but she circulated a letter urging support for the dissolution. She said in the letter that the UConn Foundation already has assumed some of the association’s core functions, and expressed confidence that alumni will be served well under the new arrangement. “In spirit of one Husky nation, your Board of Directors urges you to vote ‘yes,’” she wrote. “Together we can all continue to strengthen the bonds between our alumni, our great university, and its students, as we are all Huskies forever,” she wrote. Marshall and Sheehan both also wrote letters that were circulated and posted on the Internet last week. Marshall played for the men’s basketball team before joining the National Basketball Association in 1995, and played for eight years in the NBA and other professional leagues, including one season in Greece. Sheehan spent nearly 20 years as a television news anchor, working for WFSB-TV3, WTNH-TV8, and WTIC-TV61, before becoming a financial adviser. He also founded and remains chairman of the Connecticut Public Affairs Network, which manages the CT-N network. For some alumni, though, the support is just another sign of the university’s desire to push out the Alumni Association. “It really does resemble a knock-down political campaign,” said Blume, who was one of 14 past presidents to sign a letter this month urging UConn to wait on the vote. The presidents and some alumni said they want a dissolution plan to provide more protection for the Alumni Association’s center and its investment fund of slightly more than $6 million, and a stronger assurance that the association will continue to have some level of independence under the UConn Foundation. Blume said the pushback from alumni is “no turf war,” and many are trying to make sure their concerns are addressed before a vote. Even many of the alumni urging a “no” vote acknowledge a dissolution is inevitable after the university took away the association’s funding and its ability to use UConn’s logo. UConn’s Board of Trustees in March approved to eliminate the funding, and the Alumni Association’s Board of Directors subsequently voted 6-3 to move forward with dissolution. The directors had previously been moving toward a membership model as a way to better reach the university’s alumni. [/QUOTE]

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