The Office of Alumni Relations plans to release an updated alumni directory in December that will provide new services to alumni, including an online directory, a broadcast e-mail service and an electronic commerce service, according to Vice President for Alumni Relations David Spalding. Some alumni have criticized the office's selection of Harris Connect the new company hired to oversee production of the directory citing concerns that e-mails about the directory were misleading about its cost.
The availability of the online directory and services which will be open to all undergraduate, graduate and professional school alumni and will include the contact information for 70,000 alumni worldwide comes after candidates in recent Association of Alumni and Board of Trustee elections contended they were disadvantaged by their access to partial mailing lists that only included up to 30,000 Dartmouth alumni.
Profiles in the directory include "a preferred mailing and e-mail address for most alumni of the undergraduate, graduate and professional schools," according to the Office of Alumni Relations website. Alumni can opt out of having their name and information included in the directory, Spalding said.
Alumni may also voluntarily submit photos and biographical notes for the 2011 directory, he said. The directory will be sold in hardbound, softbound and CD formats although an online version that contains all of the same information will be available online for no cost.
The alumni office publishes a new alumni director every five years, Spalding said, but this is the first year the office will publish the directory through Harris Connect.
Three years ago, the office made the decision to make Harris Connect the new publisher of the 2011 directory because of its "very strong suite of online products," such as the online directory, broadcast e-mail services and electronic commerce services, according to Spalding.
The career advisory services, which will be available online, are also free and available to all alumni, Spalding said. Approximately 20,000 alumni can be contacted through the career advisory network, he estimated.
"From the alumni office's standpoint, the College gets a lot of good information while providing a valuable service to its alumni," Spalding said.
In early April, Harris Connect sent e-mail requests urging alumni to contact company representatives and verify their contact information so that it could be included in the directory, according to the Office of Alumni Relations' website. The e-mail, which was obtained by The Dartmouth, made no mention of the cost of the print directory, and several alumni were "surprised" when they were asked to buy an $80 copy at the end of the call, according to April Lehrman '03, Th '05.
"There has been nothing like this before, where you call a number and they try to sell you something in the end," Lehrman said.
When she called to verify her information, Lehrman said representatives from Harris Connect already had her education information, as well as other basic information. She said she was taken aback that there was no online method to submit her updated contact information to the directory, something she said people from her generation would find more useful.
Lehrman also questioned the usefulness of having a printed directory, and criticized the way Harris Connect representatives notified her of the cost only after she had provided her personal information.
"I can only see an older generation of graduates wanting something like this, because my friends and I have stayed in contact after graduation primarily through Facebook, which is free," Lehrman said.
Lehrman decided to contact Spalding to inform him of the "misleading" nature of his initial e-mail announcing the production of the directory, she said. In his response, Spalding agreed to make the fact that printed copies of the directory are not free "clearer in future communications."
Other alumni said they were not surprised to hear that they have to buy the print version of the directory.
Hector Canales '95 said he sees the directory as an effective way to remain in contact with College alumni, though he said he prefers to use his primary e-mail account to communicate with his classmates rather than the account provided by the College.
"I think that both the directory and the Internet are effective ways to communicate," Canales said. "The compiled information in the directory could provide many potential benefits to a lot of different people, and I am glad that they are giving people an option between a book and a website."
The last alumni directory, which was published five years ago, sold approximately 6,000 copies, making directory sales one of the largest purchase services offered to Dartmouth alumni, Spalding said. In the three to four weeks since the Office of Alumni Relations has offered copies of "Dartmouth Alumni Today: 2011," 7,500 alumni have updated their contact information and 3,000 alumni have purchased the book, Spalding said.
Canales said that he did not expect the directory to be free, especially because of the production costs involved in making it. As long as alumni voluntarily gave their information, the Office of Alumni Relations should be able to use it in their directory, he said.
"Any means of keeping the College community together and keeping alumni in contact is a good idea," Canales said.
