At Dartmouth, Volunteering is "In the Fabric"

Amy Alitzer ’99 and Adrienne Wagner ’99 serve as co-presidents of the Dartmouth Club of Dallas/Fort Worth, which has 800–900 registered members from the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area. They recently spoke about their early days at Dartmouth and how their undergraduate experience prepared them for their co-leadership roles. 

 
Dartmouth in Dallas

Adrienne: Our club promotes connection and excitement for Dartmouth in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Typical events for our club include a football watch party, faculty speakers, and a service event in conjunction with the Dartmouth Day of Service. 

Amy: Besides the social gatherings, we also host admissions events, such as a get-together every April for admitted students to get them excited about Dartmouth. They often get to interact with the people who interviewed them as well as with other alumni. A lot of these attendees are already committed through early decision, so they sell each other on the College when they meet.  

In late July, we have a sendoff celebration for those who are matriculating. This party is a wonderful way for the students to get excited about their journey to Hanover.  The students trade tips, like, “What are you shipping? What are you buying in Hanover? What does the Target in West Leb have?”… those type of things. 

AW: We are focused on getting more people involved and recently added a parent liaison role to reach out to parents of newly admitted students. They host an afternoon coffee or tea in February to bring all parents of current students as well as early-decision students’ parents together. We’ve also worked hard in the last two years to get young alumni involved, and we have some young alumni who are eager and involved in planning events. 

Friends since their Dartmouth days

AW: We are both ’99s, but we met before attending Dartmouth through a mutual friend. Amy came to Dallas the summer before we matriculated, and we had lunch together. 

AA: I thought, “Hmm, I wonder if she’ll want to be my friend,” and literally the first day of move-in I hear a knock on my door, and she said, “Do you want to go get lunch?” And the rest is history. We lived together during our senior year. Adrienne’s the godmother of my oldest child. 

AW: Amy and I were also co-chairs of Sophomore Parents Weekend. That was our student government experience in college, so we knew we could work together way back when. Amy was an economics major at Dartmouth and is now an accounting professor, and I was an English and Spanish major at Dartmouth and am now an English teacher. I feel like we’re kind of polar opposites, but because of the type of people we are and the type of people Dartmouth attracts, we’ve been lifelong friends. 

AA: Together we are a perfect president because we have two complementary skill sets. We round each other out. 

What inspires us to volunteer

AW: I had such a great experience at Dartmouth. I've described it as my place of possibility, where if there was something that I wanted to do, there was someone I could talk to about how to make it happen. I was in the Decibelles, and I have great friends from that time. I served as a Class of ’99 officer, too.  I value those experiences and think about them a lot. 

Dartmouth students are very engaged with life, and to me that just speaks to volunteerism. It’s in the fabric of who we were as Dartmouth students. It makes sense to volunteer. 

AA: For me, it’s all about the people and the opportunities that Dartmouth provided. The Dartmouth community encourages students to get involved. Most people we knew did volunteer in some way during their four years at Dartmouth.  

I met my husband at Dartmouth, and now I have a child at Dartmouth. Really, it was the best four years of my life in terms of the classes I took, how I grew as a person, and the relationships and lifelong ties that were so instrumental in shaping who I became. I still exchange Christmas cards with a Dartmouth professor! 

The benefits of volunteering

AW: Dallas is a tight-knit community, and the relationships I have with those in the Dallas/Fort Worth club are so much fun. These people are very engaged in life and their community.  

AA: I would echo what Adrienne said about connections to other Dartmouth alumni. I get a sense of fulfillment from connecting and supporting a place that was so special to me.