It was one of the defining moments in Cornell history: just after five o'clock on a foggy April morning in 1969, about fifty Afro-American Society (AAS) members entered Willard Straight Hall's back door and commandeered the building's keys. The students cleared out employees and visiting parents, locked and barricaded the doors, and began their thirty-six-hour occupation.With the takeover complete, some AAS members performed a decidedly less subversive act: they called home. "We were elated," says Andree-Nicola McLaughlin '70. "We thought we were doing something significant, even though many of our parents were horrified.My mother was dismayed: 'I didn't send you there for that!' "

Thirty-seven years later, some of those student activists-- many now parents of college-age children themselves--are still struggling to engage with the University, this time from within. Minorities now make up about 9 percent of living alumni and participate more than ever in alumni activities, from mentoring undergraduates to serving on the Board of Trustees. But for many, something happens in the transition from student to active alumnus: they leave the Cornell fold--sometimes for years, sometimes permanently. The percentage of minority alumni who participate in Cornell activities lags well behind their overall representation in the alumni body, despite determined efforts by the University to step up recruitment, especially for leadership positions. While many minority alumni applaud those efforts, they say Cornell could--and should--be doing more.

Exactly how many alumni, minority and otherwise, participate in Cornell activities is hard to quantify. The various alumni groups individually track participation, but there is no comprehensive database. However, some key indicators tell the story of minority involvement: Only about 10 percent of eligible alumni have joined the University's oldest and most established minority alumni affinity group, the Cornell Black Alumni Association (CBAA). The Cornell Latino Alumni Association (CLAA) has enrolled 3 to 6 percent of eligible alumni, while the Cornell Native American Alumni Association (CNAAA) has signed up about 8 percent of its potential members. The Cornell Asian Alumni Association (CAAA) offers free membership for one year to any Asian undergraduate who wants it, but has only about 150 dues-paying members.

While the racial makeup of such highprofile organizations as the Board of Trustees and University Council has become decidedly more diverse in recent years--minorities now comprise 16 percent of the Board and at least 9 percent of the Council--groups such as the advisory councils for the colleges are still disproportionately white. "We are looking at a sea of Caucasian faces," says Renee Alexander '74, a founding member of CBAA who recently became the director of Minority Alumni Programs (MAP) in the Office of Alumni Affairs. "There are lots of minority alumni out there who are eager to become involved.We have to find them and assess what their interests are and where they best fit. I have an important job."

Many of Cornell's estimated 20,000 minority alumni say they're concerned about the situation, given the everincreasing diversity of undergraduate classes. Over the past ten years, the number of alumni, not including foreign students, who identify themselves as members of a minority has doubled. More than 36 percent of the Class of 2010 selfidentify as minority--the highest percentage ever. Asians and Pacific Islanders are the largest group of minorities in the class, at 18 percent. African American and Latino students follow, at 7 and 6 percent, respectively. Six percent identify themselves as "bi-multicultural." (The actual percentages may be higher because some students choose not to report their ethnicity.) Thanks to a growing pool of qualified multicultural applicants, the trend is likely to continue. "There's no reason to believe that it will diminish," says Doris Davis, associate provost for admissions and enrollment. "Cornell's commitment to racial and ethnic diversity remains strong."

The University's current initiative to involve more minority alumni dates back to 1985, when Austin Kiplinger '39, then chair of the Board of Trustees, headed a committee charged with identifying weaknesses in alumni activities. Among the recommendations in the so-called Kiplinger Report of 1987 were programs to increase involvement and leadership among female, international, and minority alumni. As a result, the President's Council of Cornell Women (PCCW) was formed in 1990, followed a year later by Minority Alumni Programs, which supports Cornell's minority affinity groups.

In 2002, the Board went further, creating the Minority Alumni Initiatives and Implementation Committee (MAIIC) and charging it with increasing minority alumni leadership. MAIIC initially sought benchmarks for its charge by tracking the racial makeup of a host of alumni organizations, but has since focused on such key groups as the Board of Trustees, University Council, and PCCW. Four years after its founding, MAIIC has not yet compiled precise statistics on the latter two, although Mary Berens '74, the director of Alumni Affairs, says that each has at least 9 percent minority representation.

From 2002 to 2004, MAIIC--which consists of thirty alumni and three students--posed a question to focus groups of minority alumni and students: what would encourage minority alumni to become more involved? It became clear that they wanted three things: more opportunities to interact with students; continuing education on career, personal, and academic issues; and forums for professional networking. MAIIC's most visible effort to address those needs has been Cornell Mosaic, a three-day conference in April 2005 that drew 650 minority students, faculty, staff, and alumni to Ithaca for networking and workshops that aimed to "celebrate diversity and advance inclusion."

To reach alumni who could not or would not attend that conference, and keep in touch with those who did, MAIIC has taken the concept on the road, sponsoring regional Cornell Mosaics in conjunction with other alumni events. Conferences in New York City and Philadelphia drew a total of about 175 participants; events in Chicago and Los Angeles are slated for this fall; and MAIIC plans at least one Cornell Mosaic, perhaps in Atlanta, in 2007, as well as another in Ithaca in three to four years. "The idea is to involve alumni and inform them about what's going on at Cornell, with students and on campus," says Liz Moore '75, a trustee who has chaired MAIIC since its inception and serves on the ILR Advisory Council. "The other goal is to inform them about opportunities for involvement as alumni leaders."

What's at stake if the University's efforts fall short? Foremost is untapped dollars and underutilized talents. "A lot of alumni of color are doing well, and they have a choice in where they donate their discretionary funds," says Linda Gadsby '88, a former president of CBAA and a current member of Cornell Alumni Magazine's governing committee. "Cornell might lose out if they are not embraced and brought back into the fold." Nor will Cornell benefit from their expertise, says Ramona Connors Muñoz '94, a Shinnecock Indian. Currently the University is missing out on the unique perspectives of "some great scientists, educators, and entertainers," she says.

Cornell could also find it more difficult to recruit the most talented minority students. Ken Roldan '86, CEO of Wesley, Brown & Bartle, an executive search firm with a specialty in diversity recruitment, says that the University's ability to engage its minority alumni could be a lure for applicants. "Let's face it-- now students are a little bit more savvy," says Roldan, a former CLAA president and former University Council member. "They're going to realize that it's not about what you know, it's who you know. If you're not going to have people of color coming back to the University and feeling a sense of partnership and value, Cornell is going to lose in the long run."

The implications extend beyond the campus, says Andree- Nicola McLaughlin, the former AAS member who began her academic career at CUNY's Medgar Evers College. Now the Dr. Betty Shabazz Distinguished Chair for Social Justice and a professor of English, cross-cultural literature, and interdisciplinary studies at Medgar Evers, McLaughlin fears that without greater minority involvement Cornell will produce alumni unable to compete effectively in a multicultural world. "We have people going to study abroad who don't even deal with the different cultural groups in their own city," she says. "This is another kind of illiteracy-- cultural illiteracy--that we have to overcome."

The decision of minority alumni to become involved in Cornell also affects current undergraduates. "If you're a student of color and you hardly ever see alumni of color return, what does that tell you?" Linda Gadsby says. "They graduated and they're not looking back. If students follow that pattern, the trend continues."

It would be difficult to find a stronger advocate for Cornell than Denise Meridith '73. She has been an alumnielected trustee and founded alumni clubs in Washington, D.C., New Mexico, and California. She serves on the CALS Advisory Council, has been a CAAAN ambassador, is a ten-year district coordinator for the CALS Alumni Association, and is active in the Cornell Club of Arizona. She tells prospective students that Cornell offers the highest quality education they can get. "Having a Cornell degree, you can go anywhere in this country,"Meridith says. "It's the key to opening many doors."

But ask her to describe her undergraduate days, and you'll hear a more complicated story. "I really disliked Cornell when I was going there," she says.Her advisor repeatedly discouraged her from becoming a veterinarian--and told her that African American people didn't know how to study. She says the career planning office was also negative about her plans; she eventually dropped out of the pre-vet program and graduated with a BS in wildlife biology. "There were all these little things that built up and said you aren't going to get there," Meridith says.

For other minority alumni, memories of inspiring professors and life-long friends are mixed with less pleasant recollections of racially charged interactions. Dennis Williams '73, a former vice president of the Cornell Alumni Federation and Georgetown University's associate dean of students and director of the Center for Minority Educational Affairs, describes his freshman year, begun the fall after the Straight takeover, as "traumatic." Regina Little-Durham '78, the current CBAA president, says the biggest emotional drain was dealing with white students who assumed that she was less academically qualified "without knowing that I was a Regents Scholar and spoke Latin." Gadsby remembers Ithaca as the first place where someone hurled "the N-word" at her.

More recent graduates have rarely had to contend with such overt racism, but they have faced other challenges. For Ramona Connors Muñoz, who was the first in her family to attend college, socioeconomic and cultural differences compounded a tough academic transition from SUNY-Farmingdale, where most of the students with whom she associated came from lower-income families. "You thought, 'Well, I'm not from a wealthy background, I don't belong here.' " T. J. Carrizales '01, president of CLAA, says that students who were unaware of resources such as the Latino Living Center often felt that Cornell was an unfriendly, isolating place. "You miss that culture, that sense of family, that's really strong in the Latino community, and it takes time to establish a new community at Cornell."

Such cultural issues also resonate among Asian students: Ginger So '79, former University Council chair and a current member of the Cornell Alumni Student Mentoring Program's board, says she knew Asian students who were the first in their families to attend college and needed guidance on how to develop a relationship with their professors. She knew not to see the faculty as unapproachable "sages on the stage," she says, but rather as mentors and advisors. "I was lucky because I had that experience, although some of my peers may not have."

Nicole Xian '00, president of CAAA, says that, if anything, she felt reverse discrimination: some on campus expected her to be smart because of her ethnicity. "It is, after all, a very 'white' school-- but it depends how you perceive it. If you want to feel like a minority and discriminated against, the statistics will support you, because there are obviously more white students on campus," she says. "But if you don't choose to think that way, if you want to feel that you are just part of a diverse university, there are obviously a lot of Asian people at Cornell. You can definitely see that when you compare Cornell to other Ivy League schools. It feels very diverse."

Some minority alumni say that their negative experiences on the Hill have actually fueled their Cornell involvement: their goal, they say, is to insure that current and future undergraduates don't face the same challenges that they did. "That's usually the reason that people want to be involved," says Deniqua Crichlow '99, director of the Johnson School's Office of Diversity and Inclusion and a former director of Minority Alumni Programs. It was the case with Gadsby: she avoided Cornell activities for years because she felt the University hadn't supported her as an undergraduate--but time, and maturity, changed her perspective. She now serves on PCCW and MAIIC and recently finished terms on the University Council and the ILR Advisory Council. "If you're not involved, you can't change anything," she says.

But that argument doesn't sway everyone, says Little-Durham."There are many black alumni that I've tried to reach out to who said the experience for them was so overwhelming and so intense that they never want to have anything to do with Cornell again--ever."

Some of the biggest obstacles to minority alumni involvement have nothing to do with ethnicity. Lack of time is a problem for many younger alumni building families and careers. Liz Moore says she tries to emphasize how flexible volunteering can be. "If it's not this year that you can go once a month to a meeting because of other commitments, that's fine. But maybe, for example, you can attend just one meeting to talk to students."

Another challenge is the belief that what Cornell really wants from them is their money. "A lot of minority alumni view alumni outreach as a thinly disguised way of raising money for the University," So says. To counter that perception, Moore mentions the many opportunities that do not require a financial contribution. Cornell Mosaic was one good example, she says. "Having events where we're reaching out to alumni to talk about their experiences at Cornell, to learn about the current situation at Cornell, and to learn about other topics that interest them--that's a nice way to reintroduce them to the University."

Other recruitment challenges have to do with matters of identity. In the past decade, the Office of Alumni Affairs has made a determined effort to ask alumni if they identify with a minority group and explain why it's asking, says Mary Berens. (Until the 1970s, it was illegal for universities to ask students about their ethnicity.) But not all minorities identify themselves as such, making it difficult to find them, let alone recruit them. For example, Nicole Xian says that some American- born Asians see themselves as American, not Asian. "At Cornell, there are a lot of people like that. They don't necessarily feel like they are a minority."

If some alumni don't define themselves as minorities, others don't define themselves as Cornell volunteers--at least not officially. Some, like Maynard Brown '76, MBA '83, a Los Angeles high school teacher who encourages talented students to apply to Cornell, work outside the context of the alumni organizations. In the past, individuals like Brown have not been cultivated for leadership positions in the alumni infrastructure, Berens says--but that's changing.

In the end, the "personal ask" is the most effective recruiting tool, according to Berens. "That's how you get alumni involved--you ask them."Unfortunately, the shortage of active minority alumni has limited their reach. Few have been involved for extended periods of time, Liz Moore says--"and those that have been are generally tapped into a great deal."

Even skeptics acknowledge that Cornell Mosaic represents an important step forward in encouraging more minority alumni involvement. But there's a general feeling that Cornell could be doing more. "I've always said it's their weakest point on diversity," says Meridith. "They're headed slowly in the right direction with Mosaic--but you have to have a continuing effort." She suggests creating a targeted marketing and education campaign to let minority alumni know how they can become involved. "All these organizations exist, all these opportunities exist," Meridith says,"but unless people know about them, there's not much you can do."

Gadsby agrees. Cornell can't simply assume that interested alumni will log onto the alumni website, she says; it needs a more targeted approach: "Linda Gadsby, we want you to become involved in the ILR Advisory Council. Here's a contact person who would love to hear from you. If I get a personal letter like that, I'm going to be much more inclined to get involved."

Cornell could also make better use of the skills of those who are already involved. Roldan says that even when he was serving on the University Council's human resources planning committee, Cornell never took advantage of his expertise in diversity workforce issues. "It's not like there's been proactive outreach," he says. "And I've been in the circle." Gadsby, a lawyer, would like to see more minority alumni invited to campus to teach or present on panels. It was sixteen years after she graduated before she was invited to speak on campus. "And I'm an active alum!" she says. "Think of all the people who are not on the radar screen but are very accomplished in their industries, and nobody ever asks them to come back and speak."

Others suggest that minority alumni would feel more inclined to participate if programming were better aligned with their interests. Asian alumni, for example, are particularly interested in admissions issues, according to So. "One way to reach out to them is to do information sessions with admissions topics," she says. Joe Scantlebury '84, a former Ujamaa residence hall director and student trustee, says the University must demonstrate that it is engaging in social justice initiatives, not just reaching out for corporate support. "Is the University trying to be-come more accessible to communities of color? Is it trying to deal with education issues and the achievement gap in America?" says Scantlebury, a senior policy officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "I don't hear Cornell saying, 'We see world problems, we see state problems, and we want to bring our intellectual power to that discussion.' I don't hear the University promoting itself as that kind of institution-- but I see a lot of Black and Latino alumni actively engaged in that kind of work."

According to Muñoz, an Akwe:kon residence hall director from 1995 to 1998, the process of building minority alumni involvement should begin with the student experience--hiring more faculty of color and supporting minority theme houses. Students also need to see that the University recognizes and values diverse leadership, Dennis Williams says. "If we're going to expand the leadership, then the leadership has to recognize and value the things that I do and that I care about, even if they're different from the things that you do and you care about."

Significant initiatives like Cornell Mosaic are crucial to long-term success because they signal that Cornell is serious about its commitment to diversity in the alumni leadership, says Williams. "It's only when you get a lot of money and resources and university leadership actually in-volved and showing up that people say, 'Oh yeah, I guess they mean it.' Those are the right steps. I don't know if they are going to be sufficient. I don't think anybody knows yet."

Liz Moore, the MAIIC chair, is optimistic about the process currently under way. "It's a vessel that we can continue to fill and it will never be full," she says. "There's no such thing as absolute success. But we have a foundation and we have a framework that will outlast me as a trustee, and it will, I hope, continue on for a considerable amount of time."