Dooley tours U.S. to meet with alumni

11/13/09 - For the second year in a row, the University of Rhode Island's Big Thinkers Series hit the road, this year hoping to introduce the new president to the URI alumni community. This year URI's new President David Dooley was selected as the "big thinker," and has already presented in Boston this year.

"We thought what better person could we bring to the market place or public square than our new `big thinker` who is the president of the university," Associate Vice President for Advancement Paul Witham said.

This year the university decided to use the Big Thinkers Series as a way of introducing the new president to the URI community who reside away from the URI campus.

Dooley has already presented in Boston this year, which was streamed live on the Internet for the first time.

Witham said the event in Boston went "extremely well."

The series plans to travel to Washington, D.C. on Nov. 19 and New York City on Dec. 1.

"The president has been incredibly well received," Witham said.

When the division for university advancement started the Big Thinkers Series, they decided to make a three-year commitment to the program. It is currently in its second year.

"There really is a nice connection for the alumni to not only meet the speaker, but staff members of the university to find out what is going on. It is a way to connect and maintain those connections," Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications David Lavallee said. "So it's like the university is showing we care about its people. We're going to them."

The three main goals of the series this year are to introduce the president, to have alumni hear the aspirations for the university and to provide an opportunity for alumni to come and spend time together.

"The sum total of all this is that we are trying to build a connection among our constituents who live outside the state to the institution and the way we do that is to bring the institution to them," Witham said.

The series started last fall in a hope to promote the university's new brand and slogan, "Think Big. We Do."

Last fall at the Distinguished Achievement Award Program the university promoted its new brand. To complement the success of the event, the division of university advancement looked for another way to promote the new brand.

"We felt like we were doing a very good job in Rhode Island but we've got 110,000 alumni and many of those alumni are spread throughout the country," Witham said.

The division of university advancement was trying to think about a program that they could take to key geographical areas to introduce the new brand. The Big Thinkers Series developed from this initiative.

Last year the series went to six different locations around the country, including southern California, Washington, D.C. and New York City. At each show a distinguished alumnus talked as the "big thinker." Past speakers include Howard Frank, the chief operations officer for Carnival Cruise lines and Dick Harrington, the namesake of the new Harrington School of Communications.

These speakers talked about their specialties, how the economic state has affected their companies and about their experiences at URI.

"The notion was we try to get an attractive and distinguished URI alumnus," Witham said.

At the events there are three segments. The first is a reception and networking time for alumni, followed by a 15-minute discussion about the new brand and the last is a presentation by the "big thinker."

The turnouts for the series have been 75 to 100 people per event, Witham said.