More Travel, New Discounts Coming for You
The UT National Alumni Association gets alumni together for Homecoming, pep rallies, and chapter meetings—you knew that, right? Do you know what else we do? We do some pretty neat stuff, and we’re adding new services all the time. For example, we’re:
- Offering more tours for young alumni and other special groups. This year, we’re increasing our tour offerings from 16 to 25 and adding specialty trips hosted by faculty members, as well as trips that are planned and priced with young graduates in mind.
- Giving you more help with job searches. Soon you will be able to post resumes online with UT Career Services.
- Expanding your away-game football travel opportunities, in cooperation with the Athletics Department.
- Offering new discounted rates on auto, home, medical, and dental insurance, beginning in January 2008.
- Giving you new discounts on rental cars, hotels, and cell phones. These will be available early next year.
UTNAA President Debbie Ingram says the association is constantly looking for better ways to serve alumni. “The role of the alumni association is to connect alumni to the university and to each other. We do that very well—last year more than 96,000 people attended UT alumni chapter meetings and other activities.
“But as we look at the future, we’ve asked ourselves What can we provide to offer added value to UT alumni? More opportunities to connect with old friends and with UT keep our alumni community vibrant and effective.
“UT alumni have power in numbers,” Ingram says, power that enables the university to negotiate good deals for its graduates. “We’re excited about new initiatives to benefit our alumni.”
Introducing Your UTNAA Officers
Meet the 2007-2008 officers of the UT National Alumni Association.
- President, Debbie Ingram, Ooltewah. She is a 1984 graduate of UT Chattanooga and earned a Ed.D. in 1994 from UT Knoxville. She is a physical therapist and the academic coordinator of clinical education at UTC.
- President-elect, Ford Little, Knoxville. He is an attorney with Woolf, McClane, Bright, Allen & Carpenter. He’s a 1986 graduate of the accounting program at UT Knoxville and earned a law degree at Vanderbilt.
- Vice president, Dan Brown, Brentwood. Brown is president of Two Point Inc. in Nashville. He earned a B.S. in business (Knoxville ’66) and added an MBA from Middle Tennessee State University in 1984.
- Treasurer, Nannette Baker, St. Louis. Baker is a judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals. She’s a communications graduate (Knoxville ’78) and also earned a law degree from Saint Louis University.
- National chair of annual giving, Debbie Diddle, Knoxville. Diddle (Knoxville ’72), who was last year’s UTNAA president, is a CPA.
Stuart Heads UTNAA
A familiar face has returned to head the UT National Alumni Association. Lofton Stuart, who joined the alumni staff in 1972, is the new UTNAA executive director and assistant to the president.
For the past 4 years, Stuart (Knoxville ’71) was the executive assistant to the UT president, working with John Petersen and, before him, Joe Johnson. “I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the overall mission and scope of the university, and now I plan to take some of that knowledge and use it for more effective alumni involvement,” Stuart says.
Stuart has overall responsibility for UTNAA and the system-wide office of alumni affairs and annual giving. He works closely with Henry Nemcik, vice-president for alumni and development. Stuart also says he is excited to “return to an office where I have spent almost thirty years of my career with the university.” He said he will work with the alumni association to develop a strategic plan patterned after and complementary to the recently developed UT system strategic plan.
Dave Roberts (Knoxville ’65) headed the alumni association until last year when he stepped down. Kerry Witcher (Knoxville ’81) has been the interim executive director.
Work Underway on New Alumni Directory
Work has begun on the 2008 University of Tennessee Alumni Directory that, when published next year, will be the most complete and up-to-date listing of the more than 300,000 alumni worldwide from all campuses of UT.
The directory will be the second UTNAA has produced in partnership with Harris Connect Inc., the leading alumni directory publisher. Questionnaires have been sent by e-mail and surface mail to all alumni to verify or update their information. The directory will be sorted into easy-to-use sections, and to make networking with other alumni easy, we will include residence and business information, as well as e-mail addresses.
If you haven’t already done so, please take a few moments to verify that we have complete and accurate information for you. The 2008 UT Alumni Directory promises to be a comprehensive reference bound into a classic library-quality volume. Don’t miss your opportunity to be a part of it.