The Board of Fellows met several times throughout this year’s busy alumni week, and the word that resounded from the meetings was connectivity, according to the president of the Board of Fellows.
“(We) have a keen interest in expanding the capabilities of the university and the student experience,” said Jeffrey Holden, vice chair of the executive committee of the Board of Fellows.
The connectivity of the board goes beyond outreach and meetings during the week it is on campus; it holds monthly web meetings and teleconferences, according to Holden.
This week’s focus, however, was on the students. The board held meetings for students in NU’s different schools to provide “assistance to the whole process of building towards a career, (as well as) coaching,” Holden said.
An example of such coaching was the dinner for business and finance majors held on Oct. 4.
“The main thing to take away from these meetings is that there is an immense need for networking if you want to make it in (this) career field,” said Matt Hornick, a 20-year-old double major in accounting and business management from Wilkes-Barre, Pa. “The dinner itself was aimed for people like myself who are looking for an accounting degree.”
To connect all incoming freshmen, the book Three Cups of Tea was required reading.
Written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, the book follows the story of Mortenson’s mission to build schools in rural Afghanistan, and “underscores and emphasizes the Norwich principles of leadership and citizenship,” Holden said.
The board held an open forum and discussed the book with students, and asked for opinions and thoughts, as well as added some of its own.
This is the first year that multiple schools were included in the program, which “started in the school of business management about three years ago, but we decided to go campus wide in collaboration with admissions,” Holden said.
The board also recognized three of its peers and volunteers at the Medallion Ceremony on Wednesday evening. The medallion is awarded to members of the board who go above and beyond their duties of the board.
COL Tim Donovan USA (ret) class of 1962, Gary Confessore and Jason Segal were this year’s three Medallion recipients.