New year brings new opportunities to stay connected, engaged and involved

Believe it or not, the first month of 2007 is already almost gone! Armed with a great staff, a new strategic plan (2006-2011) and the support of our new president, I am ready to bring your Alumni Association even closer to being the model Alumni Association by which all others are measured!

Over the past five years, we have won six nationally recognized awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Most recently, our senior alumni programs earned the Gold Medal for Alumni Relations Programs in the 2006 Circle of Excellence Awards. Even more exciting, we have been visited by countless peer institutions to observe our programs and services for benchmarking purposes. The new year brings many opportunities for us to reach out to you, and for you to reconnect with old friends and stay connected, engaged and involved with all things Lehigh.

Speaking of new presidents, your Alumni Association’s Clubs office is pleased to present a series of presidential receptions around the country for alumni to meet President Alice P. Gast in small group settings followed by Q&A sessions. From Feb. 6-8, Dr. Gast will be the distinguished guest on the Florida Swing, dining with alumni in the West Palm Beach, Vero Beach, Naples and Sarasota areas. From March 12-14, she travels to Los Angeles and San Francisco for the California Swing. There will be additional receptions in Washington, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Visit our Presidential Receptions Web page for more details as they become available.

I personally invite all of you to attend Dr. Gast’s official inauguration as Lehigh’s 13th president on Friday, April 13 in Stabler Arena. In her honor, there will also be an academic symposium on Thursday, April 12, and a Family Community Day on Saturday, April 14. Click here to read all about it. You will receive more detailed information via e-mail and the Alumni Association Web site as soon as it is available.

As many of you know, January is the month for our annual Career Networking Receptions across the country. This year, alumni and students connected in 10 cities and all the programs were a great success. I personally attended two of the events—San Francisco (hosted by Steve Toteda '89) and Los Angeles (hosted by Bill Sutman '83)—and both receptions were fabulous! Although I received no job offers, I was thrilled to spend the time with our West Coast alumni and meet several students who live in the area.

Thank you again Steve and Bill ... and to ALL of our hosts: Bob Brown '78 (Philadelphia); Mary Cottingham '90 (Princeton); Len Gray '74 (Chicago); Stuart Kritzer '67 (Denver); Charlie Lieb '70 and Bill Trotter '67 (Bethlehem); Mike Panagako '98 (Boston); Greg Palmer '04 (Washington, D.C.); and Brad Eric Scheler '74, '05P, '08P (NYC). We could not do these important events without your support!

As we move into February, do not think that our Career Services programming stops. Click here to sign up for our popular Web seminar series. The featured topics for February are Communication Tools and Networking Survival Strategies on Thursday, Feb. 15, and Behavioral-based Interviewing and Negotiating Salary on Thursday, Feb. 22.

For information about other services available through, visit our Alumni Career Solutions Web site.

Chris Marshall '88
Alumni Director