Carolina Alumni Review - May/June 2012

YOURS AT CAROLINA

Your Membership Matters

Since the formation of the GAA in May 1843, your alumni association has served all of Carolina’s living alumni — now numbering nearly 285,000. We maintain detailed records on all of our alumni. Our class and affinity group reunions and Homecoming welcome all alumni. Our local Carolina Clubs provide programs for all alumni.

The George Watts Hill Alumni Center is open to all alumni.

Since the late 19th century, the GAA has invited Carolina alumni to become dues-paying members, and GAA members enjoy a growing menu of member benefits and services. Similar to alumni associations at the universities of Michigan, California, Virginia and others, the GAA is self-governed, and members elect the GAA’s Board of Directors.

Among our most valued member benefits
is this magazine, which this fall will celebrate its 100th
anniversary. GAA publications and communications have
earned recognition each year since 1996 and have received
41 awards over those years from the Council for the
Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. The
Carolina Alumni Review has long been vital to the GAA’s
achieving its mission of informing and involving Carolina
alumni with each other and with our University.

Increasingly, GAA members are discovering the value they can receive from our online alumni directory. Not only can you easily locate classmates and friends, you also are able to search based on class year, geographical location and occupational codes — making the online directory particularly useful for professional networking among alumni. You also can check on the membership status of other alumni, allowing you to encourage anyone you discover who isn’t presently a GAA member to join and to remind alumni that they can easily join online.

GAA programs have earned recognition from CASE each year since 1998 and also have received 41 awards over those years. Our popular alumni travel program just celebrated its 40th anniversary and remains exclusively for GAA members. Camp Blue Heaven, our family camp exclusively for GAA members, regularly has a long waiting list. Access to the more than 7,000 members of our Alumni Advisor Network is limited to GAA members, as is membership in The Carolina Club, the on-campus dining club in the alumni center for alumni, faculty, staff and friends of Carolina.

GAA members can take pride in the programs that member
dues make possible. Since 1983, the Tar Heel Network has
worked effectively to preserve the value of all Carolina diplo-
mas through legislative advocacy. The GAA delivers a rich
inventory of programs for currently enrolled Carolina students,
and local clubs, the Black Alumni Reunion and GAA gifts
provide needed scholarships for enrolled undergraduates. The
GAA also sponsors the Clef Hangers and Loreleis, the senior
class marshals and the Order of the Bell Tower.