Alumni representatives

Having heard recently from a couple students heading to Japan, I got to thinking that we must have a sort of "critical mass" of alumni there. Is anyone interested in volunteering to be a "regional alumni volunteer" either in Kansai or Kanto? Right now we do a lot of networking, but it tends to be through the listserv or even less formally (i.e., I distribute your e-mail addresses with reckless abandon). If we had a regional volunteer then maybe things might be easier. The alumni page of the university says that a regional volunteer does the following:

• Act as a central contact for alumni, parents, prospective students,new graduates, and the UAAA.
• Serve as a university ambassador at events determined by theUniversity (faculty visits, presidential visits).
• Plan the occasional informal event (book readings, viewing parties).
• Assist in determining a location for a University event in their region.
• Distribute promotional emails inviting people to attend upcomingevent in their area.
• Assist alumni relocating to their area.

Lest you think this would end up being an "expat" group, let me remind you that a lot of our alumni are/were international students. This would be a great way to meet the locals, too.

If anyone is interested, check out http://www.albany.edu/alumni/regionalvolunteers.php

And, let me know, too. Just because the Alumni Association gets involved doesn't mean the department would necessarily be copied on any correspondence.

Likewise, if there is anyone in Beijing or Shanghai (the two likely locations) who might want to volunteer that would be great. Given how many UA alumni are in China I'd think this would be easy.

I hope someone chooses to do this--right now there are only two international volunteers, which is pretty sad when you think about it. Come on, let's show them that EAS alumni are a force to be reckoned with (or, at least, a cool bunch of people)!