On the Job: Loretta Deem

What is your job at the university?

I'm the supervisor of records at the Alumni Association.

How long have you been there?

I came to the Alumni Association in November 1983, and I've been a supervisor since 1986.

What does your office do?

We try to keep good address records of graduates from all three UI campuses. We keep a database that the Alumni Association and other campus units -- such as the UI Foundation -- use to reach alumni and friends of the university. We don't try to raise money or anything like that, we just try to keep track of where everyone is.

How many people do you keep track of?

From the Urbana campus we have about 300,000 addresses of degree-holding alumni, and more than 100,000 addresses of university friends. Friends are people who have shown an interest in the university through donations. Including the other campuses, there are more than 500,000 names total in our database, and we add about 9,000 new graduates to that list each calendar year.

Isn't it difficult keeping up with so many people, many of whom move quite frequently?

It can be. On average, we make about 25,000 address changes each month to keep our records up to date. We're alerted to address changes in a variety of ways, including post office change-of-address notices, departmental mailing lists, and calls directly from alumni, their parents or sometimes old friends.

What's an average work day like for you?

I usually come in right after 7 [a.m.]; sometimes things can get hectic here early. People call our office from all over the country, and there are times when the phone rings all day long. We average about a dozen calls each day from people looking for someone who attended school here, and other calls are from alumni who want us to straighten out their records. So some days I spend a lot of time working with other departments trying to clear up those problems.

What's the most interesting part of the job?

You have to be kind of a detective sometimes to track people down, and that can get pretty interesting. Occasionally we'll have a person bring in a class ring with only initials on it and we're able to figure out who it belongs to, or sometimes an alumni member will want to get in touch with an old romantic interest and we're able to forward a letter to that person, so that's the exciting part. But the job can be boring sometimes too, like when we're coding names in our database for specific mailings. We have about 1,000 different codes for alumni, depending on what activities or clubs they were involved in when they attended the university.

How many members of the Alumni Association are there?

Our numbers have been going up recently, and as of April we have about 136,000.

What does the association offer graduates/alumni?

A number of benefits, including a health insurance plan that costs less than what most companies charge, and a credit card, and an award-winning magazine about alumni that's published six times a year. Plus, members can use facilities such as IMPE for a small fee, and they can check out library materials. We give a free one-year membership to new graduates with the hope that they'll become lifetime members and to get them used to keeping in touch with us.

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