FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1999 Mary Spletter (510) 987-9004 mary.spletter@ucop.edu SEARCH BEGINS FOR "MISSING" UC ALUMNI The University of California is looking high and low for some of its 238,000 "lost" alumni. "Our alumni are known for their independence, so I'm not surprised that they haven't left forwarding addresses. But they also are known for their commitment and support of social values, and the fact is that we need them now," explained James Stofan, director of alumni affairs for the University of California system. Tracking UC graduates is complicated because students attend UC campuses from various regions of the state, the country and the world. Finding the lost alumni could make a major difference in membership and annual giving income to the university. Records compiled in mid-1998 showed that the University of California had no forwarding address for 237,827 of its more than one million alumni. Stofan has hired a firm to help track down the missing alumni so that the UC graduates can be added to an all-UC database update project. "This amount of additional involvement could be critical as the university prepares to handle the expected 40 percent increase in students by the year 2010," he said. Stofan's office is coordinating the project in collaboration with UC's nine campus alumni associations. Individual campuses will determine alumni activities and special projects on their respective campuses. If you are a "lost" UC graduate and want to reconnect with your campus, please call (510) 987-9161 or email your name and address to www.ucalumni.net. Stofan explained that the Executive Marketing Services of Naperville, Il., has been selected to help find the alumni. A company representative estimates that it will take three to four weeks at each campus to find the UC graduates with searches running simultaneously. The goal is to have the addresses of the lost alumni in the database by early 2000. # # #