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Trustee Kay Salvino: “The Alumni Assoc is not in the business of getting students scholarships."

Mary QBA

Well-Known Member
Dec 4, 2014
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I don’t mean to harsh everyone’s Ohio State mellow, but there was an Alumni Association Alumni Council meeting last Friday that we need to report out on.

First up is the completely WTF!? statement by PSU Trustee Kay Salvino. She was on hand all day Thursday and Friday, and if you were special enough to be invited to the Alumni Association skybox at Beaver Stadium (price tag north of $60,000/year) you could see her there, too.

Kay made it a point on at least two occasions to emphatically state that the "The Alumni Association is not a scholarship entity” and “The Alumni Association is not in the business of getting students scholarships”. Which must be news to all the Penn State Alumni Chapters working their butts off to raise money for scholarships so that local kids can go to Penn State.

I’m very curious to hear anyone from the Alumni Association (or from whatever planet Kay is from) explain exactly what she was talking about. Last time I checked, PSAA supports several scholarships and is planning to support more. In fact, many members would point to this as the only redeeming quality the Alumni Association has.

Kay also reported about what it’s like to be on the Board of Trustees. “It’s cool!” She’s thinks it’s neat that she can sit in on committee meetings, and they let her represent the BOT at various places, and then there was something about engineers, and the color orange, and it was really neat that when they said "how many are from engineering?" and half the room stood up, and it was cool! The dinners are great, and there’s receptions, and … then our representative’s heads exploded so they couldn’t take any more notes. So much for the Alumni Association needing a seat on the BOT to promote the interests of the alumni.

This year we again attempted to give unused Alumni Council gratis football tickets to Penn State student-veterans. Deb Beidel collected them until an AA staffer stopped her (“tickets are not transferable!”), but she managed to smuggle a few out anyway.

Some bad news was announced, and since I haven’t seen it reported anywhere else I’ll help them out – membership is down by 7,500 members (see attached chart), almost all in the dues-paying category. Life memberships stayed stagnant, with only 134 sold so far this fiscal year.

In other news, Alumni Council is now at 99 members, which ranks it 136th out of 234 national legislatures, right between Botswana and Latvia (both of whom have all their seats elected). If you’re wondering how anything meaningful happens in a governing body of this size the answer is, it doesn’t. There were no votes taken and no deliberation of any kind, but CEO Paul Clifford did interview a fly fisherman for forty-five minutes. I’m not sure this is exactly what the IRS has in mind when they’re told Alumni Council is the governing body of the AA.

Our eleven alumni council representatives sat through an agenda that was designed to circumvent any meaningful discussion and featured a mind-numbing series of presentations that could have been emailed out before hand. Please join me in thanking them for laying out a lot of money for the privilege of going to this meeting and making an effort. Once again they were muffled, disrespected, and given no opportunity to make any meaningful contribution.

But they tried.
 
And here's the membership graph.
Oct2016-AC-meeting.jpg
 
I would love to hear kay's thoughts on why membership is down.

I'm not sure about Kay, but PSAA CEO Paul Clifford must have seen this coming last Spring. He's quoted in StateCollege.com ("Lunch with Mimi", emphasis mine):

Mimi: How do we get to 200,000 in the next few years?

Paul: That’s a great question. But let me first address the premise — is membership our most important metric? My argument to you would be that the Penn State Alumni Association is not a membership organization, that we’re an engagement organization. We should be measured by things other than the number of members we have supporting us.
 
I wonder what it would look like if they allowed Life Members to drop out?

I know it would drop by at least 1
Penn State needs - or, at least, it could really use - an Association of Alumni

That said, this "thing" that is referred to as the "Penn State Alumni Association"........we'd all be better off if the whole deal was nuked into Kingdom Come
Every time I see that fat-ass monkey-f$ck Clifford the Bow-Tie-Wearing Big Red Dog.......or that bucket of slime and scum that goes by the name of Kevin Steele......I want to punch out a windshield


Clearly, most folks just don't realize how incredibly, indelibly, "un-salvageably" F'ed up this abortion is (if they did, NO ONE would be a member)
Thank you M-QBA for the report and enlightenment
 
I'm not sure about Kay, but PSAA CEO Paul Clifford must have seen this coming last Spring. He's quoted in StateCollege.com ("Lunch with Mimi", emphasis mine):

Mimi: How do we get to 200,000 in the next few years?

Paul: That’s a great question. But let me first address the premise — is membership our most important metric? My argument to you would be that the Penn State Alumni Association is not a membership organization, that we’re an engagement organization. We should be measured by things other than the number of members we have supporting us.

Excuse me Mimi, may I ask you a question? Are you going to finish your sandwich?
 
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I'm not sure about Kay, but PSAA CEO Paul Clifford must have seen this coming last Spring. He's quoted in StateCollege.com ("Lunch with Mimi", emphasis mine):

Mimi: How do we get to 200,000 in the next few years?

Paul: That’s a great question. But let me first address the premise — is membership our most important metric? My argument to you would be that the Penn State Alumni Association is not a membership organization, that we’re an engagement organization. We should be measured by things other than the number of members we have supporting us.

Thanks. I remember that interview. While I would agree that bowtie could have seen the handwriting on the wall, I do agree with him, regardless of the actual membership numbers, that the alumni association should act as an engagement organization. It's great that Penn State has been able to boast the largest dues-paying alumni association in the world, but they obviously should not hang their hat on that factoid. It's what they do, not simply how big they are.
 
I don’t mean to harsh everyone’s Ohio State mellow, but there was an Alumni Association Alumni Council

Our eleven alumni council representatives sat through an agenda that was designed to circumvent any meaningful discussion and featured a mind-numbing series of presentations that could have been emailed out before hand. Please join me in thanking them for laying out a lot of money for the privilege of going to this meeting and making an effort. Once again they were muffled, disrespected, and given no opportunity to make any meaningful contribution.

But they tried.

Thank you dear Mary for the intervention and the information regarding the convoluted affairs of the current Alumni Association and leadership, or lack of guidance.

Many years ago my wife bought me a lifetime membership into the AA for my birthday. We were young and had a young family, so it was a financial sacrifice at that time to be included into the lifetime membership. My wife very well understood the impact of The Pennsylvania State University had on the family and myself. I was so proud to be associated with a world class organization that represented our alumni and students.

Today, I am more proud than ever in my life to wear clothing that represents me as a Penn State University Alumni, but wear no clothing with the AA logo that distinguishes me as a member of the current Alumni association.

Hopefully Mary and her associates will eventually turn the Alum ship in the true direction.

Again, thank you Mary

Step
 
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I'm not sure about Kay, but PSAA CEO Paul Clifford must have seen this coming last Spring. He's quoted in StateCollege.com ("Lunch with Mimi", emphasis mine):

Mimi: How do we get to 200,000 in the next few years?

Paul: That’s a great question. But let me first address the premise — is membership our most important metric? My argument to you would be that the Penn State Alumni Association is not a membership organization, that we’re an engagement organization. We should be measured by things other than the number of members we have supporting us.

What the hell is an engagement organization?

I guess someone is doing something right for PSU to be where it is but... this looks fubar-ed all the way.
 
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I can't help but notice that it appears to have been balled up for trash. Was that you, or did you have to illicitly acquire from MR. Clifford's
Trash?

Ah, the report was provided to me by an elected Alumni Council representative who wanted to share it with the membership. It is not marked 'Secret' and does not contain any personnel or compensation information so I agreed. It then spent Saturday in my back pocket at tailgates. Good catch.
 
What the hell is an engagement organization?
.

Apparently, it is an organization that:


- Collects $$$$ from its members
- Excludes those members from having any voice in the governance or management of the organization
- Then advocates ONLY for things that are incongruent with the members' interests

- And hires a bunch of do-nothing monkey-spunk tool bags, at salaries that would blow your Fing mind, to protect and maintain that modus operandi.
 
What the hell is an engagement organization?

I guess someone is doing something right for PSU to be where it is but... this looks fubar-ed all the way.

More like someone was doing something right....

To be fair, however, all membership organizations are having a tougher time keeping members. Younger folks see no reason to join as they fill up their social activities with things like Facebook and Next Door. They "engage" on line (which they tend to think is "free"). We had a 15% drop in membership in our civic association last year, for example. Of course, they still expect services....

And I've heard the buzzword "engagement" in our civic meetings too. I'm not sure exactly what it means or how to get there.
 
Ah, the report was provided to me by an elected Alumni Council representative who wanted to share it with the membership. It is not marked 'Secret' and does not contain any personnel or compensation information so I agreed. It then spent Saturday in my back pocket at tailgates. Good catch.
So, we had a meeting of those leading the largest Dues paying AA in the nation. We brought 99 people to state college do be wined , dined and entertained by football. Yet we have the first decline in membership in what appears to be 14 years, and this topic is only discussed by a small subset of said organization's board.

Nice governance. I am so thrilled to donate $0.02 in 2015.

Surprisingly, I was not solicited for another gift in 2016.
 
What the hell is an engagement organization?

I guess someone is doing something right for PSU to be where it is but... this looks fubar-ed all the way.

It's an organization with no constructive purpose, so it does nothing but talk (engage) to (with) its members, incessantly.
 
I'm not sure about Kay, but PSAA CEO Paul Clifford must have seen this coming last Spring. He's quoted in StateCollege.com ("Lunch with Mimi", emphasis mine):

Mimi: How do we get to 200,000 in the next few years?

Paul: That’s a great question. But let me first address the premise — is membership our most important metric? My argument to you would be that the Penn State Alumni Association is not a membership organization, that we’re an engagement organization. We should be measured by things other than the number of members we have supporting us.

Paul, you missed the point. Membership is the primary metric. Engaged Alumni is next. Scholarship money is and should be the primary goal.
 
Penn State needs - or, at least, it could really use - an Association of Alumni

That said, this "thing" that is referred to as the "Penn State Alumni Association"........we'd all be better off if the whole deal was nuked into Kingdom Come
Every time I see that fat-ass monkey-f$ck Clifford the Bow-Tie-Wearing Big Red Dog.......or that bucket of slime and scum that goes by the name of Kevin Steele......I want to punch out a windshield


Clearly, most folks just don't realize how incredibly, indelibly, "un-salvageably" F'ed up this abortion is (if they did, NO ONE would be a member)
Thank you M-QBA for the report and enlightenment

Sadly, this is dead balls accurate.
 
Apparently, it is an organization that:


- Collects $$$$ from its members
- Excludes those members from having any voice in the governance or management of the organization
- Then advocates ONLY for things that are incongruent with the members' interests

- And hires a bunch of do-nothing monkey-spunk tool bags, at salaries that would blow your Fing mind, to protect and maintain that modus operandi.

Don't forget nonprofit. Gotta protect the orgs interests.
 
I don’t mean to harsh everyone’s Ohio State mellow, but there was an Alumni Association Alumni Council meeting last Friday that we need to report out on.

First up is the completely WTF!? statement by PSU Trustee Kay Salvino. She was on hand all day Thursday and Friday, and if you were special enough to be invited to the Alumni Association skybox at Beaver Stadium (price tag north of $60,000/year) you could see her there, too.

Kay made it a point on at least two occasions to emphatically state that the "The Alumni Association is not a scholarship entity” and “The Alumni Association is not in the business of getting students scholarships”. Which must be news to all the Penn State Alumni Chapters working their butts off to raise money for scholarships so that local kids can go to Penn State.

I’m very curious to hear anyone from the Alumni Association (or from whatever planet Kay is from) explain exactly what she was talking about. Last time I checked, PSAA supports several scholarships and is planning to support more. In fact, many members would point to this as the only redeeming quality the Alumni Association has.

Kay also reported about what it’s like to be on the Board of Trustees. “It’s cool!” She’s thinks it’s neat that she can sit in on committee meetings, and they let her represent the BOT at various places, and then there was something about engineers, and the color orange, and it was really neat that when they said "how many are from engineering?" and half the room stood up, and it was cool! The dinners are great, and there’s receptions, and … then our representative’s heads exploded so they couldn’t take any more notes. So much for the Alumni Association needing a seat on the BOT to promote the interests of the alumni.

This year we again attempted to give unused Alumni Council gratis football tickets to Penn State student-veterans. Deb Beidel collected them until an AA staffer stopped her (“tickets are not transferable!”), but she managed to smuggle a few out anyway.

Some bad news was announced, and since I haven’t seen it reported anywhere else I’ll help them out – membership is down by 7,500 members (see attached chart), almost all in the dues-paying category. Life memberships stayed stagnant, with only 134 sold so far this fiscal year.

In other news, Alumni Council is now at 99 members, which ranks it 136th out of 234 national legislatures, right between Botswana and Latvia (both of whom have all their seats elected). If you’re wondering how anything meaningful happens in a governing body of this size the answer is, it doesn’t. There were no votes taken and no deliberation of any kind, but CEO Paul Clifford did interview a fly fisherman for forty-five minutes. I’m not sure this is exactly what the IRS has in mind when they’re told Alumni Council is the governing body of the AA.

Our eleven alumni council representatives sat through an agenda that was designed to circumvent any meaningful discussion and featured a mind-numbing series of presentations that could have been emailed out before hand. Please join me in thanking them for laying out a lot of money for the privilege of going to this meeting and making an effort. Once again they were muffled, disrespected, and given no opportunity to make any meaningful contribution.

But they tried.

As an elected member of the Alumni Council of PSAA, I do not agree with the position on scholarships attributed to Kay above. I am only one of 99 people on that council. If you add in my recently elected colleagues who were endorsed by PSAAforAll, we total less than 20 of the people on that council and I would venture a guess that perhaps they would not agree with the position attributed to Kay either. Perhaps some of the other members of Alumni Council may not agree either, if they don't, I hope they chime in on this.

In any case, the vast majority of local chapters of the Alumni Association (which are independent 501c3 entities from the PSAA itself), do a fantastic job of raising scholarship funds to support students. In most if not all cases, those chapters also have a voting member on Alumni Council, so I would encourage members of those local chapters who work so hard to raise those funds to let their representative on Alumni Council know their opinion on the subject.

In general, you can see my opinion (and many of the other PSAAforAll-endorsed candidates) on the governance of the PSAA and its need for reform by the 6 resolutions brought to a floor vote (and defeated) at the Oct 2015 meeting of the Alumni Council (http://psaaforall.org/2015/10/proposed-amendments-and-resolution-to-psaa-by-laws/).
 
Paul, you missed the point. Membership is the primary metric. Engaged Alumni is next. Scholarship money is and should be the primary goal.

I agree - you would think this is common sense, but I guess not. Or I'm too dumb to understand.
To me, the group's mission and purpose and activities need to reach the targeted audience's 'hearts and minds' to drive membership AND drive engagement, which drives a more consistent stream of dues which can and should be used to provide (some quantity of) scholarships and other 'engagement' projects that spur future PSU alum to become members and pay it all forward.

The AA should be looking (and listening!) for ways to ensure it perpetuates itself via quality, not just via the fact that PSU graduates a whole lot of people each year and many will blindly pay dues to the AA. That initial excitement wears away, especially when the young grads realize that the AA isn't listening to them. I don't see how membership and engagement are separated by more than about a half-step. Do they really think that the majority of dues-paying alumni will bristle at the thought of providing some scholarship money to deserving students?! What are the other projects and events that are more compelling? (Well..... we're waiting....!!)

I've been a lifetime member for 30 years or more and probably have never felt more disengaged from the AA than I am now. I was very active in a local AA Chapter for many years, and our primary goal each year was to raise funds to put toward our scholarship fund and to grow it so that we could help more and more PSU students over time. And the Chapter membership bought into that and took great pride in it. That chapter still does.
But what do I know? Far less than Kay, apparently.
And thank you MaryQBA for keeping us informed. It's important to have that communication link to be able to peek behind the iron curtain now and then.
 
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If it were possible to end my life membership without dying, I would. I inquired a few years back and was told that, at my request, they would discontinue all mailings and other communications with me, but that they would still count me as a life member. I dropped the matter, but I no longer have a desire to be counted among those whose numbers give legitimacy to imperious leaders like Kay Salvino.
 
As an elected member of the Alumni Council of PSAA, I do not agree with the position on scholarships attributed to Kay above. I am only one of 99 people on that council. If you add in my recently elected colleagues who were endorsed by PSAAforAll, we total less than 20 of the people on that council and I would venture a guess that perhaps they would not agree with the position attributed to Kay either. Perhaps some of the other members of Alumni Council may not agree either, if they don't, I hope they chime in on this.

In any case, the vast majority of local chapters of the Alumni Association (which are independent 501c3 entities from the PSAA itself), do a fantastic job of raising scholarship funds to support students. In most if not all cases, those chapters also have a voting member on Alumni Council, so I would encourage members of those local chapters who work so hard to raise those funds to let their representative on Alumni Council know their opinion on the subject.

In general, you can see my opinion (and many of the other PSAAforAll-endorsed candidates) on the governance of the PSAA and its need for reform by the 6 resolutions brought to a floor vote (and defeated) at the Oct 2015 meeting of the Alumni Council (http://psaaforall.org/2015/10/proposed-amendments-and-resolution-to-psaa-by-laws/).

Leads me to ask the obvious question... What are your plans to do something about Kay's statements? Does not seem like much meaningful discussion happens in meetings other than fluff. That membership drop should of been 1 of the first things discussed or the first item in "new board business" to discuss and address.
 
If it were possible to end my life membership without dying, I would. I inquired a few years back and was told that, at my request, they would discontinue all mailings and other communications with me, but that they would still count me as a life member. I dropped the matter, but I no longer have a desire to be counted among those whose numbers give legitimacy to imperious leaders like Kay Salvino.
See that is the problem .... there are many unhappy SO CALLED MEMBERS OF PSAA who are totally UNHAPPY with the organization as it stands now and I have heard from
Many they tried to end their memberships. WHY IS THIS SAD FACT NOT BEING ADDRESSED AND THE PSAA OS JUST REACHING OUT TO GET YOUNG ALUMNI INTO THE FOLD .? WE ARE..... in a very sad STATE OF LEADERSHIP!
 
See that is the problem .... there are many unhappy SO CALLED MEMBERS OF PSAA who are totally UNHAPPY with the organization as it stands now and I have heard from
Many they tried to end their memberships. WHY IS THIS SAD FACT NOT BEING ADDRESSED AND THE PSAA OS JUST REACHING OUT TO GET YOUNG ALUMNI INTO THE FOLD .? WE ARE..... in a very sad STATE OF LEADERSHIP!
They have a long term strategy- let the current alumni die, subvert the younger ones.

You have to admit, it appears to be working.
 
The Alumni Council has 99 members so it's obviously not a management or policy body. Anyone joining the Alumni Association thinking it will give you a voice in the University's governance or management is naive. The AA exists to cultivate friends of the University who will become donors. All other references to the function of AA are window dressing.
 
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