TEAM # 2 – UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

The University of North Carolina-Lexington has a long and proud history. The University began as Lexington Normal College in 1875, and it has trained generations of public school teachers for the state. It has always operated as a state-supported institution. It became one of the constituent-campuses of the University of North Carolina in 1973 and now is subject to the UNC Board of Governors. Additionally, it has a local Board of Trustees. Currently, there are 7,500 students and 468 faculty members. The mascot is the Lusty Lemming.

The Lexington Alumni Association was formed in 1927, and today has over 20,000 living members. The Association is a separately chartered organization with its own elected Board of Directors. It has an Executive Director and a staff of nine full-time employees. The Association's offices are housed in a house adjacent to the campus that is owned by the Alumni Association. Because of the location of its offices, the name of the organization, etc., many people believe it to be a part of UNC-Lexington. With permission of the university, the Association has its own logo based on UNC-Lexington’s Lusty Lemming mascot; to differentiate the two, the Alumni Association’s Lusty Lemming appears in Indian headdress.

The Association charges $50.00 in annual dues to its members. Members receive a quarterly newsletter that features information about the campus and about fellow alums. It has maintained a website for the past few years which is linked to the official pages of UNC- Lexington. Some parts of the website are open to the public but others require use of an alumni PIN. One may pay annual dues online using a credit card. The Lexington Alumni Association also uses the web to sell paperweights, pen and pencil sets and T-shirts featuring the Association’s logo.

One of the major parts of the website is a directory of members with addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses. The Board of Directors has suggested that photographs be added to the directory. As a service to its members, the Association offers email services under the domain name [email protected]. Additionally, users of the email services are automatically signed onto a listserv for alumns which the Association manages and uses to distribute information about the organization, to announce events around the state, etc. There has been some difficulty recently with hate mail being sent to the listserv.

The Lexington Alumni Association’s blog permits any member to post musings about the school, the Association, etc. There have been some inappropriate matters posted involving both defamatory comments and sexually explicit material which the Executive Director has had to remove. The Association is also considering offering webspace on its servers to alumns but is concerned about liability issues. Over the past year, the Association has also become concerned about the use of its logo on webpages by both Association members and nonmembers. Moreover, some Native American groups have threatened to sue over the Lusty Lemming’s appearance in Indian headdress.

As attorney members of the Association, you have agreed to work with the Executive Director to draft a policy to deal with these and other issues concerning the Internet.