We have had one form of Internet presence or another since we published the July 1996 Oak Leaf on the web. We have a searchable Nu Alpha Phi Alumni Directory on our site. We have been communicating with our Alumni via global e-mails for quite some time. I have even made an effort to save my Nu Alpha Phi and Oak Leaf related e-mail since May 1996.

What has our move into cyberspace done for us? What has it done to us? Has it been a net-gain or net-drain? I suppose ten years is the traditional “age” we let pass before we look back and examine where we've been and how it has gone. But since all time scales in the “e” world have contracted, maybe eight years is actually late.

I will tell you that I think e has done a lot for us. I am still very proud of the fact that the Oak Leaf can be read online before the printed version can be duplicated and mailed out. The pressure will be on me this cycle, though, since I will be able to transfer the Oak Leaf to Pomona College Duplicating electronically for the first time.

Although the number of people who have requested this is small, I take it as a good sign that there are Alumni who would prefer we do not to waste paper or postage printing and mailing them their copy. They would be completely happy to read the entire thing online. I am sad that I haven't yet been able to support these requests yet (due to our reliance on Pomona College’s Alumni Database for generating mailing labels). Someday, perhaps, we will have this ability.

Our ability to e-mail a significant portion of our Alumni whenever there is a breaking story (the fire and loss of the cabin, for example) is a tremendous advance. In the past, the only way we could have contacted our people this swiftly would have been via a phone tree. The cost in work hours (let alone long distance charges) would have prohibited reaching out in all but the most urgent of situations.

While I didn't engineer the NAP Alumni Web Directory to keep track of usage (how I wish I had!), I do know that people find and use this tool to look up contact information for their brothers or sisters. People do notice when it, on rare occasions, goes offline for one reason or another.

I am sure that our electronic presence has prevented some Alumni from falling out of touch and guided others back in to touch.

E-mail has also enabled our Alumni Association, under the wise guidance of Alumni Association President, Don Smith '53 #384, to conduct our business from the lonely wilds of Twain Harte. Our other officers live in Alameda (me), Marina Del Rey (Jim Ach ‘63 #565), Los Angeles (Cruiser ‘98 #1139), Glendale (Eric Olson ‘62 #585), Altadena (Bob Nigbor ‘78 #794), Claremont (Chuck Carpenter ‘54 #389 and Lee Harlan ‘55 #147). It would be nearly impossible to conduct the necessary business matters if we had to meet face-to-face in order to conduct that business. Of course these days it is possible to arrange phone conferences, and in fact on more than one occasion we have done so. That said, most of our business doesn't require real-time communication. We can and do carry on nearly all of our business through e-mails.

The Internet, both web and e-mail, have truly enhanced the Fraternity experience for Alumni. We would struggle mightily without it.

And what has e done to us? E-mail is a different form of communication than letter writing (by hand, by typewriter, or even by computer). No thought is too small, too silly for e-mail. It is lightning quick and, for most people most of the time, as impermanent as a phone call. While I cannot claim to have done any sort of analysis, I know in my gut that a significant portion of e-mails published in the Oak Leaf are briefer reflections of minutiae (new e-mail address, new snail mail address, moved to Austin, drop in and say hi), than thoughtful missives chronicling post-college life.

This is, of course, not to say that some snail mail letters aren't as content-free or that some of our best letters in recent history have been sent electronically.

(By the way, I reject wholeheartedly the idea that electronically enabled, if not focused, Alumni are incapable of this sort of communication or worse, that they lack the depth of spirit to generate the soulful thoughts and emotions that drive it. Quite the contrary! Deep thoughts, biting sarcasm, laconic satire, and bittersweet melancholia are present in abundance. Oh and, yay, a healthy dose of thoughtfully considered hedonism still survives well past the college years, too. Where is this found? More on that later.)

And yet I can’t fight the feeling (nor contradict the occasional observation from those less enamored of e), that many of us fire off an e-mail with a new address, postal or electronic, a quick note about the town or state or university or relationship we’re now in, and a pithy witticism to close out the communique.

While I would never discourage Alumni from letting us know they’ve moved, gotten a new e-mail address, or have graduated or enrolled in a new program, I urge you, in the strongest way possible, to take the time to write to us about what is really going on in your life. What joy are you bathing in? Or what tragedy are you suffering? What challenge have you risen to or failed to meet? What risk paid off or bit you hard? Who have you recently seen and where? What did you most admire about your brother who just passed? Recount that oft told but well loved and hysterical tale of collegiate foolishness.

I dare you.

That should probably have been my closer, but there is something more to this I want to write about. It isn’t something about which I’m either happy or proud. But I think it is important.

I, and through my stewardship of this part of the Alumni “business” we, have not properly engaged the attention and participation of our younger Alumni (those most e if you'll grant me a sweeping and unempirically derived generalization). In fact, I have stood in the way of this at least as much as I have contributed to what electronic presence we do have.

There are places on the Internet (websites, e-mail lists, chat rooms, instant messaging parties) where Claremont Graduates (and not a few Nappies) hang out day-in, day-out. Here, in fact, they hang their laundry out. They do talk about their accomplishments, their trials, their parties, their losses, their failures, and their rebirths. Some contributions consist of a single e-mail. Other conversations develop over weeks and months and span dozens of e-mails. Sometimes someone will simply forward the latest news story. Other times a contributor will pour out an almost disturbingly frank, heartfelt description of pain or joy.

These places are, however, for all the reasons that make them what they are, not to be tread lightly should your sensibilities differ from the local inhabitants. Most of the ties that bind the community members together were forged offline well before the online community was created to protect and promote and propagate the relationships threatened by the wedge of geographic distribution that graduation inevitably hammers between departing seniors.

While I am a tolerated observer in these forums who occasionally contributes, I mostly just observe trying to keep my aging fingers on the pulse of those Alumni I once charitably called fivers in reference to their being five years, more or less, out of Pomona. These “original” fivers are now approaching their fifteenth reunion. The number of actual fivers I know has now significantly dwindled. How much do today’s actual fivers have in common with me, let alone “my” fivers?

I don't know.

I have been approached about trying to create or foster such a community that attended directly to our Alumni several times by several different people. Each time, I have loudly and perhaps too conservatively proclaimed my inability to envision an online NAP Alumni community that didn't either divide us up into too small communities sharing the same sensibilities (largely driven by age) or lump us all together where the communication would be either too stifled or too shockingly offensive to one collection of Alumni or another ... if not both at the same time.

Permit me a very short detour into the mundane. My available time to tend to things Nu Alpha Phi has dwindled significantly with the birth of my son, Casey (now two years old). It will do both me and NAP good if I can bestow any of my tasks on someone with greater lifting power.

So here is my challenge.

Take the website away from me. Take the NAP Alumni database away from me. Add or invent new components for our Alumni machine. While I won’t lay out any restrictions, I will suggest some guidelines.

Let whatever you contribute:

Above all, celebrate, honor, and unite Nu Alpha Phi.

Include specific plans five years into the future and long term goals that reach out at least ten years.

Incorporate sustainability into your plan (what if you had to quit supporting it, how easily could you give it to someone else?).

Be prepared to pitch it to the Alumni Officers who I hope will ultimately help guide these efforts forward.