By Dominic Moross ’90
It’s been nearly six months since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, and we continue to feel the weight of the situation as the school year unfolds. In accordance with the University’s mandate, Prospect Street is closed for the fall semester.
While we miss the hustle and bustle of our student members, we are using this down time to tend to a number of maintenance projects and ensuring that the premises remain clean in advance of the spring semester when we hope the landscape will have changed. The health and safety of the Club’s members, staff and their families remain !rst and foremost on all of our minds. Ivy is committed to the well-being of our family and all who are involved with the running of our Club.
Thanks to a recent generous gift, we have embarked on a renovation of our Precept Room on the second “oor with the aim of restoring the historic windows and converting the room into a more useful study space including state of the art video conference capabilities for remote meetings. The donation honors our senior member, Francis McAdoo ’38. We are also working on plans to bring the third “oor study space into the 21st century, both technologically and in terms of design and comfort, and we will share the new design with you on our website.
Spearheaded by board member Shea Owens ’94 and former of!cers Moyin Opeyemi ’19 and Folasade Runcie ’18, we are embarking on regional, Zoom-enabled “Ivy Chat” forums to connect Ivy undergraduates and recent graduates with established alumni who are interested in sponsoring or mentoring younger members. We hope that these forums will be enriching for all participants and might result in job or internship opportunities for our members. If you have an interest in learning more or becoming involved, please email Alanna (alanna. [email protected]).
Reconnecting with old friends has never been more relevant than today given the uncertain times we are all living through and the unintended consequences of being apart from family and friends for extended periods. Some time ago we introduced you to Wavelength, our private member database through which you can connect and reconnect by various metrics (region, profession, graduating year etc.). We plan to email you soon with an update describing new functions for the site. When you receive the link, I encourage you to check and, if necessary, update your details in the database and make good use of Wavelength which I am con!dent will enrich your interactions with fellow Ivy members.
To support our loyal staff in the early part of this year we made a request to our membership to pay graduate dues. I am pleased to say that this appeal kicked off a good response from many graduates. Now we start a new !scal year in which your dues are more important than ever. We hope that especially those who have not paid in recent years will consider doing so by mail or at theivyclub.org/graduate-member-dues/. I hope you have a wonderful fall and send my best wishes for the coming holiday season.