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Editorial

Thoughts on the Extension Alumni Family

Dean John F. Adams

When the first Harvard Extension Alumni Association Banquet was held in 1968, approximately one-quarter of the graduates and their guests turned up. The Extension School alumni body numbered just 300 then, and a high proportion of the group lived in Greater Boston.

Now that our alumni ranks are nearly 20 times that number, gathering one-quarter of them in any location would be impossible--there isn't a facility at the University that could accommodate even 10 percent of our graduates and guests under one roof. Moreover, our graduates have scattered to the four corners of the world; in the Personal and Professional News at the back of this issue, we record the happenings of our alumni(ae) in Sweden, Great Britain, and Australia, to cite just three examples, as well as from alumni(ae) in most of the 50 states.

The growth and internationalization of the Harvard Extension alumni family was brought home most forcefully by a letter we received shortly after the publication of last year's Alumni Bulletin. The writer, in the Netherlands, had read the issue at the Extension School's Web site and was deeply interested in contacting one of the graduates mentioned because she bore the same unusual surname as his wife.

The name was so unusual, the letter continued, that his genealogical research had concluded that it was carried only by a small number of individuals in a single Belgian village (and, obviously, by the descendants of those bearing that name who had migrated to other parts of the world), and, seeking to add others to the "family tree," the letter writer asked for the Alumni Bulletin's help in contacting the graduate.

As it turned out, the name was the surname of our graduate's ex-husband, and hence our alumna didn't have any direct stake in the genealogical research project. But her son, who also carried the surname, had a physical disability, and he was quite interested in following through on the genealogical issue since he wished to learn if genetics was a factor. When last heard from, the son and the genealogical researcher in the Netherlands (both non-alumni) were happily e-mailing each other and uncovering family connections hitherto unknown, thanks to the Alumni Bulletin.

Not all of the communications to the Extension School's Alumni Office have such a dramatic outcome, of course. Most of the time we hear from graduates who report changes of address (we process nearly 600 of these a year), or from graduates who call, write, or e-mail with bits of news that we weave into the "Personal and Professional News."

As the alumni(ae) ranks increase, as this Alumni Bulletin is consulted by more and more nongraduates at our Web site, and as our graduates study and work wherever their intellectual interests and talents take them--the "Extension alumni family" encompasses so much more than was ever envisioned in 1968, when graduates, led by Edgar Grossman, ABE '66, thought it time that our school had an alumni association of its own.

The growth and progress of the Harvard Extension School itself over the past 30 years, paralleling that of the Alumni Association, stands as testimony to the stirring observations of poet Seamus Heaney who, a decade ago, for Harvard's 350th birthday, in "Villanelle for an Anniversary," penned the lines: "Begin again where frosts and tests were hard./Find yourself or founder. Here. Imagine/A spirit moves. John Harvard walks the yard./The books stand open and the gates unbarred."

Of all the Harvard schools, we of the Extension School family are the greatest beneficiaries of the books being open and the gates being unbarred. Here at the University, thousands of Extension School graduates have prepared for new and exciting careers, for specialized graduate and professional study, for personal enrichment and fulfillment, and for productive service to others. We, as members of a worldwide alumni family, can be proud of our School and our University and grateful for the opportunity to have earned our degrees and graduate certificates.

Please continue to think kindly of your School, and let us hear from you.

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