| ALUMNI RESOURCES |

HBS Alumni Association Board of Directors: President's Report

As HBS graduates, our contacts with each other and with the School are among the strongest and most enduring assets of our Harvard Business School education. Alumni connectedness is a vital mutual concern for the School and the Alumni Association. Dean Clark has urged us to view HBS as a home base, the center of a network that provides rich opportunities for professional and intellectual growth. For me, that network has also been important because of the lasting friendships it has fostered and the doors it has opened for meaningful personal growth.

Communication within such a large alumni community - there are over 64,000 graduates of the School's MBA and executive education programs all over the world - is a significant challenge. Every two months, in addition to the most impressive Class Notes section of any alumni publication, the HBS Bulletin also publishes in-formation about new and ongoing HBS initiatives, faculty research, and alumni profiles. Many of you have noticed the magazine's new "Alumni Resources" section, which offers specific information on a wide variety of alumni activities designed to strengthen the alumni connection:

Club Meetings

Global Alumni Conferences

Reunions

Local Club Contacts

Special-Interest Alumni Groups

Alumni Career Services - a source of career information and job listings, as well as a source of candidates for positions in your company

Executive Education Programs

HBS Publishing's Alumni Plus Program

HBS Alumni Events

HBS Fund Activities

Contacts with Professors

This list considers many of the more traditional methods of interaction. I'd also like to highlight some recent developments in an area that has been growing significantly in the last few years at HBS: the HBS Electronic Network. Two years ago, the School formally established a relationship with America Online (AOL) that allowed alumni to have faster access to HBS and other alumni through an online alumni directory, alumni bulletin boards, HBS message centers, special-interest chat groups, calendars of alumni events, an on-campus directory of faculty and staff, club events and contacts, and the Bulletin and Class Notes.

Tremendous progress has been made since that first venture into online services. Much of the School has now moved to an Internet-based system with direct access to the World Wide Web. Be sure to take advantage of all the exciting information available on the School's new home page, which can be accessed at: . As part of the new technology initiative, every HBS graduate with a current e-mail address will soon be assigned a permanent, lifelong HBS e-mail address. This will serve as a pointer for incoming mail to be sent to your current e-mail address. Plans call for this service to be up and running in the first quarter of 1997.

As you can see, the possibilities for networking and staying connected are con- tinually expanding. I hope you will take advantage of them! Don't hesitate to e-mail me any suggestions you might have to expand our networking capabilities. I can be reached at: corconnect@aol.com.

I'd also like to remind you to mark your calendar for this spring's Global Alumni Conference in Hong Kong. Registration information is available at http://www.hbsahk.org/97conf/97conf.html.

-Cathy Connett, November 1996

25th Annual African-American Student Union Career/Alumni Conference

25th Annual AASU Conference to Celebrate History and Promise "Our Silver Past and Golden Future" will be the theme of this year's 25th annual African-American Student Union (AASU) Career/Alumni Conference, to be held in Boston January 30 through February 2 at the Marriott, Copley Place. The conference will feature management seminars and panel discussions on information technology, the nonprofit sector, prominent African-American women business leaders, venture capital, and the music industry, as well as a "town meeting," an awards ceremony recognizing the accomplishments of outstanding African-American HBS graduates, and a distinguished roster of speakers, including Earl G. Graves, Sr., founder and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine.

Dennis F. Hightower (MBA '74), former president of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications, now a senior lecturer at HBS, is serving as this year's alumni conference chair. "As the AASU reaches a critical milestone in its evolution, the January meeting offers a forum for reflection, introspection, and a discussion of the future," notes Hightower. "The Silver Anniversary conference provides a timely opportunity to explore the challenges and opportunities of operating as general managers in the emerging global marketplace and to examine the continuing obstacles we face as a group in gaining access to capital for startup endeavors. "The AASU annual career conferences are probably the largest gatherings of African-American MBAs from any graduate school of business," Hightower continues. "The networking potential is enormous. What's more, in the 25 years since the first such weekend, an entire generation of black business professionals has pursued diverse public, private, and entrepreneurial opportunities and now represents a tremendous resource to the next generation of leaders."

Conference chair Sara Crutchfield (HBS '97) views the conference as a "homecoming" for African-American graduates and a chance to strengthen bonds between students and alumni. "One of the AASU's current priorities is to pay more attention to our history and acknowledge HBS graduates who have paved the way for us," she notes. "This event will serve as a catalyst for an ongoing dialogue between current and former members of the AASU." The celebration will include a revitalized Distinguished Alumni awards program to recognize professional and community achievement. This year's recipients will be honored at a gala dinner held on Saturday night during the conference.

For registration information and a detailed conference agenda, please visit the AASU Web site: http://wasat.hbs.edu/aasu or contact registration managers Tonia Gladney at (617) 491-9175 or Anthia Christian at (617) 876-0743.

Save the Dates!

Upcoming HBS Global Alumni Conference
Greater China: Myth, Reality, and Opportunity," Hong Kong, April 5 - 8, 1997

25th Annual African-American Student Union Career/Alumni Conference
January 30 - February 2, 1997 - http://wasat.hbs.edu/aasu

Other HBS Alumni Events (all held at HBS)
Winter Meeting of the HBS Alumni Board, January 17 - 18, 1997