Volume 75
Number 3

The Classes

"Thanks for the memories"
A message from AEA Executive Director Bob Carpenter

Sixth Alumni University

Class of ’34 endows scholarship

Japan Emory Alumni Assocation

Anthony Ephirim-Donkor ’88T-’94Phd

Mary Cobb Bugg Callahan ’77G

Raleigh H. Watson ’61D and Henry B. Patterson ’61D

William C. Warren IV ’79M-’82PEDS


"We Teach Possibilities"

Ghost Stories

In Hog Heaven

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for the memories

A message from the Executive Director of the Association of Emory Alumni

Editor's Note | Bob Carpenter, executive director of the Association of Emory Alumni (AEA) since 1995, has resigned to join the staff of Alumni Holidays International, a Chicago-based provider of travel services to alumni associations. • Carpenter joined the AEA in 1989 as associate director and served as senior associate director and interim executive director before being named executive director. • “In the past five years, the number of alumni programs and participants in those programs have more than doubled, we’ve launched the Alumni Career Network, the participants in our Alumni Travel Program have tripled, and we’ve broken ground on the Miller-Ward Alumni House,” Carpenter said. • Senior Associate Director Gerald B. Lowrey will serve as interim executive director of the AEA, and Director of Regional Programs Allison Dykes will serve as interim executive director for AEA programming.


Bob Carpenter and his daughter, Jessie

Thanksgiving is still many weeks away, but I feel grateful to Emory University today. Since this is the last time I will write this column, I want to share with you some of the many reasons why my ten years at Emory make me thankful for my good fortune.

I’m grateful to have met Emory alumni of every living generation and to have made friends with many of them. To see the history of this institution reflected in their lives has made for fascinating work.

I’m grateful for a beautiful campus on which to work and to President Bill Chace for instituting a master plan to insure that beauty for future students to enjoy.

I’m grateful for a dry Alumni Weekend in 1998 (my first!).

I’m grateful for the arrival of the freshman class in the fall and for the looks on their faces as they move into the dorms.

I’m grateful for a renovated Cox Hall and look forward to the day when there are actually bells in the bell tower.

I’m grateful for a faculty that genuinely cares for their students’ education and doesn’t view them as an impediment to published research.

I’m grateful to the dental school and library school alumni who remain loyal to Emory even though those two schools are no longer in existence.

I’m grateful to my colleagues in the administration and on the staff. They are good people doing great work. I wonder if other universities attract such wonderful people or if Emory is just lucky.

I’m grateful for the new coat of paint on the Haygood-Hopkins gate and the tulips surrounding it every spring.

I’m grateful for the Depot, the bridge spanning Dr. W. B. Baker’s Woods, and any of the other vestiges of the Atlanta campus’ early days.

I’m grateful for Oxford and the special, almost sacred, place it holds in the hearts of its graduates.

I’m grateful for the Quadrangle, especially on Commencement morning.

I’m grateful for the staff of the Association of Emory Alumni, past and present. They have become my extended family.

I’m grateful for all the alumni leaders I have had the honor to know and work with—the board members who dutifully attend meetings no matter how hectic their schedules, the folks who are always there to meet us and make us feel welcome when we’re far away from Atlanta, and the wonderful volunteers we turn to again and again who always give the same answer, “Sure, I’ll be glad to help.”

I’m grateful for Dean of Alumni Jake Ward and Vice President Bill Fox, who, between the two of them, have generated more goodwill for this institution than any twenty others.

I’m grateful that there has been a growing recognition within the Emory community that we can only attain our lofty goals with the support and engagement of our alumni body. There are many more places set at the table now for alumni, and that is good for this university.

I’m grateful to have been here to see that happen.

Bob Carpenter
Executive Director
Association of Emory Alumni Emory University

 

 

©1999 Emory University