Alumni Council Meeting at Camp Cate

Alumni Council Minutes

Camp Cate Meeting

June 7, 2008

Present: , Maurice Blanks '83, Colin Browne '95, Lisa Browne Stanson '92, Robert Burnett '73, Geoffrey Coe '58, Jim Crutcher '48, Malcolm Donald '58, Walter Douglas '73, William Ham '88, Jamie Hunter '73, Mimi and Nelson Jones '48, Bruce King '85, Richard Langerman '73, Randolph Lee '73, Robert Mazzetti '83, Casey McCann '97, Pete Pallette '58, John Ratterree '73, David Sandberg '73, Joe Terbell '58, K.C. Walsh '73 Librarian and Archivsit Emerita Betty Woodworth, Director of Development Meg Bradley, leadership and Planned Giving Director Terry Eagle, Development Assistant Kate Merritt, Director of Admissions Charlotte Brownlee '85, Director of Cate Fund and Reunion Giving Grayson Bryant '95, Associate Alumni Director Jana Miller, and Headmaster Ben Williams

Welcome from Director of Development/Alumni Council Secretary Meg Bradley

At 10:00am, Meg Bradley opened the meeting by welcoming all present and going over the agenda. She then called for a vote to ratify the 2008-2009 slate of officers for their three year term as follows:

Election of Executive Committee for 2008-2009

President: Lisa Browne Stanson '92 –1^st year

Vice President: Casey McCann '97 – 1^st year

Past President: Bruce King '85 – 1^st year

Secretary: Meg Bradley, Director of Development

She then thanked Bruce King '85, the outgoing president, for his excellent leadership. While he was in office, the Alumni Council has increased communication to alumni, the alumni website was completely redesigned, and the career networking committee became a very active part of Alumni Council. In addition, giving by alumni has steadily increased along with much stronger alumni programming.

Director of Admissions Charlotte Brownlee '85

Right now Cate has 265 student enrolled with an even 50/50 split between girls and boys. Cate received 452 admission applications which was a 13% increase from the previous year; 317 of those applications were freshmen applications. This year's pool of applicants was more diverse from the past, both geographically and ethnically. This year, 28% of student received some financial aid, with a total of $2.4 million awarded. We are seeing the demand for financial aid increasing, but overall, Cate tuition is still on the low end of the national boarding schools average.

Charlotte then fielded questions. When asked if Cate had any sort of study abroad program, Charlotte explained that Cate is now a member of an international organization for schools called Round Square. Round Square is an organization that encourages students to be global citizens, and as a part of that, offers opportunities for students to study abroad at another member schools. In fact, this year Cate hosted a student from South Africa, and sent a delegation of students and faculty members to Peru.

An alumni council member asked if Cate had any plans to get bigger or smaller or have more day students. Charlotte responded that Cate is very happy with the size right now, although there may be plans in the future to build a new dorm so that we can reduce the number of students in some of the larger dorms. Cate is also happy with the amount of day students (around 45), and maintaining an excellent residential program is a top priority.

When asked what Cate's weaknesses in attracting potential students are, Charlotte responded that the biggest challenge is getting kids here to see Cate—93% of the students that visit Cate apply, and 65% of applicants who are offered a spot at Cate accept it (a high percentage nationally). The biggest challenge to the admissions office is finding a way to demonstrate as much as possible about the school in a four hour initial visit. Being a small school, Cate can't offer all the amenities of a larger school. Cate is undergoing a year-long process to revamp admissions materials, and make the website more appealing to potential applicants.

Director of Cate Fund and Reunion Giving Grayson Bryant '95

Grayson welcomed everyone once again and reinstituted that the Alumni Council is here to serve the alumni. Right now, the Alumni Council is focusing on major cities were alumni are living (San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City), but we are also trying to spread out to the smaller areas were alumni are as well. Last year we had an Alumni Council event in Phoenix, and next year there will be an event in Colorado. The Alumni Council is here to keep you connected with the school and with your class. If anyone has any innovative ideas about ways to get alumni together, make sure to let us know!

Everyone who attended Cate for one year is a member of the Alumni Council. The annual Camp Cate meeting is a time to get information and ideas from the alumni body for planning. Overall, the Alumni Council is an informal group, and the direction of the group tends to follow the passions of its leaders.

The Alumni Council is made up of five committees: Activities chaired by various activity chairs and Associate Alumni Director Jana Miller, Technology chaired by Peter King '80, Career Networking chaired by Grayson Bryant '95 and hopefully one other interested alumnus, Alumni Affairs chaired by Grayson Bryant '95 and incoming president Lisa Browne Stanson '92, and Mission and Purpose chaired by John Caldwell '59. We would like to see some alumni step in and take ownership of these committees. So if you (or you think a classmate) would like to take part, please let someone on the executive committee know! Some of the committees, like the Technology Committee, are very active. The Technology Committee meets regularly to analyze new technology and advise the school on how technology can best benefit the school, and, of course, how to implement that technology.

Grayson passed out index cards and asked the attending Alumni Council members to write down their top three to five ideas about how to celebrate Cate's Centennial—what would your ideal reunion look like.

Incoming President Lisa Browne Stanson '92

Lisa Browne Stanson '92 led a discussion about the Centennial. She emphasized that the ideal goal for the Centennial Celebration in 2010 is to get every Cate alumni here. How do we make this event appeal to alumni? The following were suggestions from the floor:

• Make sure there is lots of "archival stuff" available to look at (yearbooks, memory books, etc.) to get memories flowing that the alumni can share with one another.
• Get lots of former teachers here. If they aren't available, have pictures of them and stories about them.
• Make it known to alumni beforehand which teachers will be here.
• Bring someone in to speak, thus continuing the learning experience (example: David McCullough), it doesn't necessarily need to be a Cate-related person.
• Have the reunion while Cate is in session, or at least have current students and faculty available to talk to alumni about what Cate is like now. Everyone seemed very interested in learning about what Cate is like now.
• Screen a video of highlights from the past year or even show a video of a current class session.
• In the past there was an arts panel that seemed to be very successful.
• Having events on the Mesa is very important.
• Seeing classes above and below our own is very exciting.

Outgoing President Bruce King '85

You should all know that the current Board of Trustees is simply amazing. They are very committed to being connected to the school. At each meeting there are presentations from current students that help the board to keep in touch.

Headmaster Ben Williams

As Cate approaches its Centennial Celebration, we've been thinking a lot about the school—where we were, where we are, and where we will be. Cate had an incredible year, and graduated a very strong class of seniors. The senior class was very close to the faculty and many members of the class were great leaders for the community. In the last assembly of the year, which seniors aren't required to attend, they all showed up anyway. This class didn't seem to develop Senioritis like other classes that we have seen in the past. Overall, they helped us have a phenomenal year at Cate.

Senior parents were remarkable as well. They were incredibly involved and supportive of the School. Many of you know that we invite senior parents to donate to a class fund rather than the Cate Fund during their student's senior year. This year, the Class of 2008 parents decided that they wanted to fund a Distinguished Teaching Chair --$1.3 million. They all stepped up and they were able to achieve this remarkable goal!

At Cate, we've found that our students are wonderful extemporaneous speakers, but they need more opportunities to speak publicly. So, we started holding "Tuesday Talks" in the chapel on Tuesday mornings, during the assembly time slot, to give students an opportunity to develop their speaking skills. Members of the Cate community can speak about whatever they want, and it is often a time of reflection about our experiences at Cate. In the beginning, it was mostly faculty who spoke, but so many of this year's seniors wanted to speak, that we didn't have enough Tuesdays!

This year, the students who worked on El Bat created El Bat Online, which was revealed at the Fall Parents Weekend. A few students started "Blue Crew", a group of students who support Cate athletics. The Blue Crew dons face paint, put on their Blue Crew t-shirts, and cheers on our teams at Cate sporting event. We had very strong athletes this year, and many of our teams were ranked highly in CIF. Cate's football team, which has been around for a mere three years, went to the CIF semifinals last fall.

What makes Cate such a remarkable school is its students and faculty. Sadly, we have a lot of extraordinary faculty who are retiring. In May, we held a celebration for Gaby Edwards, an educator who has defined Cate for many years, as she finished her last year as a faculty member. As these teachers retire, it is extremely important that we find incredible people to fill their shoes. We do not hire brand new teachers, which is ultimately good for the school. We devote a lot of resources to the search for faculty—and can search several years for that perfect fit.

Every two years we do a survey of students and parents. What we've found recently is that we need to improve the balancing act of work and play. We've learned that with Cate's rigorous schedule, students seem to do fine as long as they never have to miss a class for an extracurricular activity and as long as they never get sick. To combat this, we have a Time Committee that will be making a recommendation on an improved schedule. We also have a Research and Development Committee that meets to consider new "out of the box" ideas to consider for Cate. We are also preparing for our WASC survey that will be able to tell what we're doing and what we might do to improve as a school.

The main challenge the School currently faces are the financial limiting factors. The cost of running an institution like Cate is continuously going up, and we are trying to shoulder more and more of that so that we do not have to pass those costs onto families. While technology is an amazing teaching device, it is also extremely expensive. Every three to four years we have to completely reinvest as the technology becomes antiquated. In the past ten years, due to the demands of providing great resources to our students, we've added several new faculty positions. With that, comes faculty housing. As Carpinteria becomes more and more prohibitively expensive, Cate has to shoulder more and more of the housing costs.

Ben then fielded questions from the Alumni Council. One alumnus told how he was at a reception earlier this year and heard from several recent alumni that they felt they were not encouraged to apply to the highest schools possible. Ben responded that it is a balancing act to give as much information to the students as possible, but present the realities. We survey all alumni, and we've found that more often than naught, the students do find good collegiate matches.

Ben was asked if Cate currently has any sort of mentoring program. He explained that Cate has several groups that facilitate upperclassmen helping younger students—Math Lab, Foreign Language Lab, and Writing Lab, for instance. Furthermore, we have a Big Brother/Big Sister program that pairs seniors with freshmen to help the freshmen learn the ropes.

When asked what was in Cate's future, Ben responded that the demand for what Cate has to offer is not decreasing, but we must become more strategic with our recruitment. We need to make Cate more appealing to prospective students, and we'd like to focus on improving our webpage to do this. As Charlotte discussed, 97% of potential applicants who visit Cate apply here, so making kids want to visit after visiting our website is of utmost importance. We do see that as Santa Barbara becomes more and more expensive, we're seeing fewer families. That means that potentially, we may see fewer day students. We're also facing issues with technology on campus—utilizing it as an educational tool, but maintaining those face-to-face personal relationships. Cate's curriculum is also evolving to reflect the global perspective. We are adding more classes and adding organizations like RoundSquare to emphasize this perspective. Ben thanked everyone for attending.

At 11:50am, the meeting was adjourned.