PHOTOS: JOHN CAIRNS
Insights into the Alumni Board
the Rhodes Trust, the Oxford Foundry, the Law Faculty, University Sport, Physics and Maths, and Saïd Business School. Sunday morning dawned with a fun run for alumni and friends, and a session for interested students and their parents hosted by Undergraduate and Graduate Admissions. Alumni also enjoyed a gala dinner at the Ferry Building, punctuated by a beautiful choral performance by the Queen’s College choir, who are currently on tour in America. Enthusiasm remained very high in spite of a deluge of rain in a city known for its temperamental weather. The last word should be given to an alumnus: ‘My wife and I, newlyweds when I was up at Oxford in the early 1970s, very much enjoyed attending the recent gathering in San Francisco. It gave us a chance to connect with friends—old and new—to receive fascinating updates from leading university researchers, and gave us the impetus to explore ways we can give back to my college and the University, which gave us such an incredible and transformative experience in our young lives.’ Ralph Smith (Corpus Christi, 1973).
Oxford’s alumni community is comprised of over 300,000 alumni living in 90 different countries. Colleges, departments and the central Alumni Office all provide unique and compelling reasons for alumni to stay connected. One of the most important sources of input into what makes the alumni community tick is the Alumni Board. Oxford’s Alumni Board is made up of 24 individuals – 16 drawn from the wider alumni community and eight from the wider University and they are all dedicated to keeping the community a thriving and robust one. The Board meets three times a year and serves to support and advise on the University’s alumni relations strategy. Amanda Pullinger (Brasenose) is Chief Executive Officer at 100 Women in Finance, and has been on the Board since 2016. She describes her reasons for serving on the Board: ‘Oxford has played such an important role in my life, giving me opportunities that I would never have had. As a result, I wanted to give back to the University and saw joining the Alumni Board as one way to do so. ‘Having lived in the USA for almost thirty years, I also felt it was important for American-based
alumni to be able to contribute to the strategic development of alumni initiatives. I particularly enjoy interacting with alumni and faculty members from different colleges and different disciplines. Working with such a dedicated and intelligent group of people has been very worthwhile, and as you can imagine the debates on all sorts of topics are very vigorous and dynamic. It’s also been an opportunity to get to know the inner workings of the University and to offer up views on how Oxford can continue to be the first class university it has always been.’ The Board engages in a wide range of topics during its meetings. Currently, it’s helping to build a better understanding of the alumni lifecycle which in turn we believe will assist the University in shaping a meaningful and relevant relationship with its alumni over a lifetime. For more information on the Board and its membership, visit www.alumni.ox.ac.uk/oxforduniversity-alumni-board
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