Alumni

An important message for Vanderbilt alums

Dear Fellow Vanderbilt Alum,

We are writing to invite you to join the newly-formed Vanderbilt LGBT Alumni Group. As far as we know, this is Vanderbilt’s first-ever LGBT alumni organization, and we would welcome your participation and help in making it a big success.

We are forming this group as part of Vanderbilt’s broader effort to expand and improve the ways that it engages its alumni community. Among other efforts, with the assistance and support of the Alumni Relations office and the Alumni Association, alums have formed a number of “affinity” groups – i.e., associations of alumni based on a shared experience during their student days at Vanderbilt (e.g., participation in Vanderbilt student media), personal background (e.g., race, ethnicity), common career (e.g., “Vanderbilt in Hollywood”), or some other unifying theme. The school’s experience is that these types of affinity-based groups can create strong bonds among alumni and between alumni and current Vanderbilt students.

Against this backdrop, the Alumni Relations office reached out to ask us to form an LGBT alumni group, because it believes the group would make an extremely valuable contribution to Vanderbilt, its current students, and the alumni community. We are excited to get this effort underway. In addition to supporting the University’s alumni relations efforts and helping connect LGBT alums, we think the Vanderbilt LGBT Alumni Group can be a great resource for current LGBT students and provide valuable feedback on LGBT-related issues that arise on campus from time to time.

If you are interested in being a member of this group, please email any of us at the addresses below, and please provide the following information in your email:

• Your current contact information, including email address;
• Whether you have any interest in participating on a steering/planning committee for the organization; and
• Any ideas you may have on how to make the group a success, such as types of events, projects, etc.

Also, we would appreciate it if you would forward this to any other Vanderbilt LGBT alums.

Many thanks for your time and attention to this.

Kind regards,
Alan Elsas (A&S, `95, New York), alanelsas@hotmail.com
Eddie Lee (A&S, ’91, New York), eddie@eddieleeinc.com
Wes Powell (A&S `91, New York), wpowell@willkie.com
Troy Underwood (A&S, `91, Los Angeles), underwood.troy@gmail.com