On the road to meet alumni

Barely a month after her formal installation last September, Skidmore President Jamienne S. Studley was off on an inaugural tour that will take her to a dozen U.S. cities, from New York to San Francisco. "Traveling the country to meet Skidmore parents, alumni, and friends is adding a new dimension to my understanding of our national network of enthusiastic ambassadors," Studley explains. And the input and insights along the way will help the new president "Map the Path to Skidmore’s Future," as the tour is themed.

First up was an October evening with the Minneapolis alumni club, followed in November by an SRO gathering in Manhattan and an elegant affair in Boston. "My first round of welcomes also included holiday gatherings in Hartford and the Capital District of New York," adds Studley, whose husband, Gary J. Smith, joined her there and at the New York and Boston events.

The tour continued in Florida in January (for events in Boca Raton, Vero Beach, Naples, and Sarasota) and is slated to wrap up in Washington, D.C., in February and California (Los Angeles and San Francisco) in March.

Most stops feature a video montage of Studley’s inauguration and related events, as well as invitations to Skidmore’s far-flung community to share in the creation of a special inaugural-tour "memory book." Elegantly bound in scarlet, the big scrapbook is already filling up with alumni greetings and wishes, from the ’40s through the ’90s. "Think you’ll be a great ‘Prexy!’ " wrote a member of the Class of ’54. "A toast–in Saratoga water–to Jamie and Gary!" wrote another well wisher, and "Hope you enjoy Skidmore as much as I did," said another. Long after all those frequent-flier miles are logged, the book will be a memento of the journey Studley sees as "a wonderful way to learn about the many different forms of Skidmore ‘magic.’ " –BAM