Colleagues,

Though I hope to make our meeting notes available
on-web rather than email-requiring, the Annual
Meeting of the Association of Independent Living
Groups, held 21 June, was special and deserves
mention here for the record.


History/Future:
| 
| A year-in-review document was distributed.[1]


Business:
| 
| Election for the Board of the Association of
| Independent Living Groups.  Per Charter[2], two
| seats, both of which were open.
| 
| Nominated: Emily Marcus (ET),
|            Jim Bueche (CP), and
|            Herman Marshall (BTP)
| Elected: Bueche & Marshall


Honor:
| 
| Outgoing Board members Alicia Allen Hunt
| and Stephen Stuntz were given a visible
| token of our appreciation, as follows:
| 
| for Alicia Allen Hunt
| 
|      With gratitude for your unflagging devotion
|      to the sorority cause and with fond wishes
|      for the next stage of your life, the Board
|      of the Association of Independent Living
|      Groups thanks you and wishes you the best.
| 
| for Stephen Stuntz 
| 
|      For year upon year of leadership including
|      in those times when no one else would do
|      what had to be done, the Association of
|      Independent Living Groups is and will
|      remain in your debt.  We are your legacy.


| Pleasure:
| 
| Superb invited talk by Jim Champy, Chair of the
| Corporation Committee on the Presidency -- some
| notes at [3] -- and, of course, fellowship.


Respectfully,

--dan


[1]
=================================================================

Year in Review, 21 June 2004

Since our last Annual Meeting (June 25, 2003) the AILG has done,
sponsored, been a partner in, or a beneficiary of the following:

* created the FSILG Cooperative, Inc.
* created and delivered Accounting 101 course
* elected AILG officers for the first time
* had substantial presence on the FSILG Task Force
* had substantial presence on the Financial Transition Plan(ning)
* focused quarterly meetings away from reports and onto decisions
* coordinated with FSILG Alumni Association position
* had some success in reaching incoming students & parents
* watched S.1246/HR1523 and coordinated responses to it
* provided input to Presidential search committee by request
* initiated a web presence for mitailg.org+com+net
* set annual goals, initiated board minutes, increased meeting frequency
* opened lines of communication with news organizations

There are other things of course, the organizational equivalent of
the "affairs of daily living" and, at the same time, we have
unfinished projects that are moving right along but cannot yet be
counted as complete enough to be reportable in the sense of a year
end review.

Our one-year-goals, to repeat, are:

    Strong house corporations (know them all, get/create tools)
    Economic buttressing (contribution flow through, econ models)
    Strategic assessment reports (govt/press/MIT relationships)
    Recruitment intervention (parents, public generally)
    Educational offerings (HM101, TR101)
    Capacity growth (executive director)

and, from that list and the one above, you can see that there are
indeed areas where we have fallen short or, more charitably, there
is much yet to do.  Perhaps the one most needing more progress is
the first of them -- a strong House Corporation is not sufficient
for a strong house, but it is necessary.  That first goal is first
for a reason.  Three areas of action are on the table now:

* working relationships with muncipal officials
* more tools (web, legal/financial, etc.)
* cross fertilization in "visiting committee" style

There is much to be said for brevity, so we close here.  There's
lots more, of course, but the summary is that for the AILG it has
been a very good year and looks to be a very good year.  As always,
the better it gets, the more your self interest lies with full
participation.

=================================================================

[2] http://www.mitailg.org/charter.pdf

=================================================================

[3] 

Jim was kind enough to follow a suggested outline, which was a
".. a bit of your biography, how affiliation and/or lessons
learned at PKS affected your career, and any update on
Presidential selection you would care to give but particularly
with regard to how we in the FSILG community are to make our
respective organizations thrive in future including what role
you see for FSILGs in MIT's future."

Biographically, Jim is a Phi Kappa Sigma alum and former IFC
Chair.  He had support from PKS from before he started at MIT.
He majored in Civil Engineering, ultimately focusing on IT.  He
went to law school and with others founded Index Consulting,
which became the leading consulting firm in applied IT and was
ultimately sold to CSC.  He is co-author of "Re-engineering the
Corporation", a consulting best seller in the 1990s.  He is
today the Chairman of the consulting division of Perot Systems,
a Member of the MIT Corporation, Chair of the Civil Engineering
Visiting Committee, and Chair of the Corporation Committee on
the Presidency (the search committee for the next president).

Turning to "What I learned in my fraternity life and how that
has applied to my life since." In the 1950s a pledge died during
hazing (falling through ice on a pond).  Without dwelling on the
event, Jim recalled President Killian's admonition to all that
"You should never allow yourself to be the victim of your
traditions."  He has kept this advice close since then and
recommends it to us.

In being a Rush Chair, Jim learned to rise above the chaos.  At
the same time, he learned that as a leader you must sometimes
contribute to the chaos, and how to rise above that.

Quoting David McCulloch -- "No single person is truly self-made"
- Jim noted that people who achieve great things do so with
help.  This is true from the beginning, and includes one's time
as an MIT undergrad.

On the Presidential search, Jim described how it began in
January with two committees.  One is a group of fifteen
trustees, another a faculty committee, and yet another student
committee but with trustee and faculty committees acting as one.
His "Corporation Committee" did community outreach for input;
the issues they heard most about were the FSILG issues.

Work began with over 100 names; as of June 21st, they are
currently doing second round interviews with candidates.  The
finalists represent a diverse group, a very strong group.
He/They are looking for someone with fundamental values and
beliefs: A commitment to openness and need-blind admissions,
plus a strong sense of meritocracy -- someone who believes in
excellence.

Leadership and management style matter.  At other schools the
power is in the Deans; here, the power is in the Provost &
President, and they want to keep it that way.  Our style is
derived from a more integrated management system.

The candidate needs strategic sensibilities thus to have the
ability to compete with our competitors.  While operating
decisions are made principally by the Provost, the President
must be someone who can understand the financial issues facing
MIT right now.  This includes the ability to fundraise -- MIT
needs to raise $250M/year in gifts.

Jim understands that it would be good to select someone who was
an undergraduate here, but he can't guarantee that because it
would narrow the field too much.  He feels that President will
need to seriously deal with the issue of undergraduate life.
The institution now has a much larger research base than it used
to.  While our competitors view themselves mainly as
undergraduate institutions, we do not -- hence the need for a
focused sensitivity to undergraduate life.

Both with the ILGs and with the undergraduate population
generally, there has been a huge structural dislocation -- and
we are all moving too slowly in addressing the issue for which
Jim sees a need to be more radical.  Consolidations, changes in
population, the need to preserve the important values, and what
is delivered were some of his points.  He emphasized how
important it is to deliver a superb undergraduate experience.
That may mean merging houses to preserve the quality of life.
He said that we cannot assume that every house has the skills to
work through these issues.  Perhaps more importantly, he said
that undergraduate students shouldn't have to struggle with
living group survival issues for the whole of the time they are
here.