Fund raisers at the five-campus University of Massachusetts system have run into a bit of an obstacle in their quest to compile a master list of all alumni: The Alumni Association of the flagship Amherst campus doesn’t want to turn over its records.
The 11-member executive committee of the association recently voted unanimously to defy a request for the information, saying it wanted to protect its members’ privacy, The Boston Globe reported. “It’s the opinion of the alumni association that we own the database of alumni,” Sean LeBlanc, a vice president of the association, told the newspaper. “There are a lot of privacy issues that come into play, and it’s our responsibility to protect our members. We take this very seriously.”
The Amherst campus has been pressing to improve its fund raising, but even so, it lags behind its peers. Nonetheless, it raises far more than the other campuses in the system. —Goldie Blumenstyk
