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April 15th, 2009: Sales began today and we quickly set a one-day sales record as the equivalent of about five tents sold out. If this pace continues, sales will be done in a couple of days.

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April 13th, 2009: The roster of schools has been updated to reflect the lineup for 2009 as of today. Nearly 60 alumni groups are officially involved for our 11th annual outing!

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April 8th, 2009: The URSC met and the Anchors accepted the proposed budget. Sales will begin soon (hopefully within a week).

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April 7th, 2009: We got a nice writeup by the Washington Post's Going-Out Gurus. Did you see it? Website traffic and Facebook activity were high before that; now they have gone through the roof!

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March 4th, 2009: All eleven 2008 Anchor tents have been renewed and the party is on!

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February 4th, 2009: The 2008 Anchors and the URSC met tonight to discuss ways to streamline planning and to make the 11th annual University Row the best yet.

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April 28th, 2008: We've updated the schedule. Please check it out to make sure you have the latest info.

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April 24th, 2008: We are sold out and have started a waiting list.

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April 18th, 2008: As of noon today we are at 70% sold. The USC/PAC-10 tent is sold out and several more tents are just about there.

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April 17th, 2008: Wow! The sale pace this year is even faster than it was in 2007. As of noon today we are at 58% sold. Yesterday was our biggest sales day ever, with another 438 tickets sold. We are preparing to start our waiting list.

Please note that our Web hosting provider has told us that the server will intermittently be offline tomorrow night (Friday) for a few hours after 10:00pm Eastern Time. So, if the site does not come up then, that's why!

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April 15th, 2008: Sales have begun! And after the first couple of hours we have already sold out the equivalent of two of our eleven tents, so we expect this process to go very quickly!

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April 3rd, 2008: Sales will begin soon! We are putting the finishing touches on a better ordering process than we had last year. If you have not already done so, add yourself to the event listing at Facebook or contact one of the Anchor groups to make sure to be notified when sales begin.

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March 19th, 2008: The Anchors met last night and decided the outstanding issues concerning 2008, including a more bathrooms, an improved layout, and a small reduction in the number of guests per Anchor (in order to better handle crowding under tents in the event of rain). With such a strong demand for tickets the last thing we wanted to do was reduce the supply, but there was no place for us to expand this year and we felt that we needed a better rain plan.

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March 5th, 2008: Even though we had solid commitments for at least two new Anchor tents and probably could have expanded a total of three tents this year, the tents adjacent to University Row all renewed, and the overall tent renewal rate was very high throughout the Virginia Gold Cup. So there was no space available for us to place a 12th, 13th, or 14th tent. We are developing a strategy to better accommodate the demand for growth next year.

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March 1st, 2008: "When will sales begin?" is the question on minds of many. Approximately March 15th is the answer. Maybe earlier, maybe later. But it will certainly be at least three weeks earlier than in 2007.

In other news, while the University Row Steering Committee and the eleven 2008 Tent Anchors have been hard at work for over a month, we will have our official Kickoff Meeting for planners next Tuesday, March 4th. If you are a representative of an official alumni chapter or club and wish to learn more about becoming a 2008 Tent Partner group, please let us know.

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February 26th, 2008: We have uploaded some previously unpublished photos on Facebook. Just go to the event posting listed below. Soon we will add the high resolution versions to our smugmug album.

Want to be sure not to miss any important updates to this page? Now it's easy to keep current. Just click here to have an RSS feed added to your e-mail client or browser.

Lastly, let us give a plug to a charity that supports education in the arts: The Corcoran Gallery of Art's 1869 Society. This year we will be donating two University Row tickets to their ARTINI event on April 30th. Coming just days before University Row at a time when we will surely have a waiting list, this auction may be your last chance to pick up two more tickets!

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February 21st, 2008: If you are on Facebook, click here to add University Row to your events. Once you have done so, you can easily share this event to your friends on Facebook and let them spread the info to their networks too so that they all get a fair warning before ticket sales start.

Please note that replying yes or no to the Facebook listing does not take the place of buying tickets. It is intended only to help guests view some of the other likely attendees and to promote the event to those who may not otherwise be contacted directly by the AEA or its member organizations.

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February 15th, 2008: The 10th annual University Row is a go. Ticket sales will begin soon. Make sure you and your friends are ready to buy because sales will finish quickly once started!

Our Website updating project continues. The menu, schedule, policies, list of sponsors, photo album, and other posted items from 2007 and previous years will be changed soon.

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February 6th, 2008: Look for updated Web content on this site in a few days. We will have details about what we have cooking for the 83rd running of the Virginia Gold Cup.

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January 14th, 2008: Negotiations are underway now with the Virginia Gold Cup Association regarding the 10th annual University Row. We hope that we can work something out that will allow us to continue this great event. But no matter how things turn out, we are proud of what we have done. It's been quite a ride!

Here are some of the statistics: In the 9 years since University Row began we have introduced over ten thousand people to the Virginia Gold Cup and this gathering has become the uncontested focal point along North Rail. Without any paid staff or subsidies our volunteers have sent $202,573 in fees to VGCA and the Meadow Outdoors Foundation—of which, approximately $52,760 are considered charitable donations by the IRS. And in 2007 University Row paid about $100 more in non-deductible surcharges per tent than regular customers.

Over the years University Row has ordered more tent spaces than any other group (80), averaging about 9 per year. Since 2002 University Row has averaged over 11 tent spaces per year.

With our emphasis on responsible fun and our support of the tradition of the Virginia Gold Cup Races, we have set the standard for all other groups.

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July 19th, 2007: Two bits of news: First, we have been exploring having a Fall event and should be able to make an announcement on that soon. Second, William & Mary alumni have recently started two new clubs ("8595" and "9606"), and while their events at the 2007 W & M Homecoming are relevant only to W & M alumni, the innovative structure of these new clubs may be of interest to other alumni communities. See http://www.8595.org for more, or click here to read a summary.

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May 2nd, 2007: Great news: Macy's Ballston will be helping us judge the 2007 Best Dressed contest! We hope this will be the start of a long relationship with University Row.

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May 1st, 2007: We have shut down this year's waiting list this morning. We already have several more tents worth of people on it and there is no point in adding to it further. Our space is huge, but we cannot accommodate more people comfortably.

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April 29th, 2007: We have posted information about this year's Best Dressed Man and Best Dressed Woman contests. We expect this one to be the best yet! Click here for more.

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April 25th, 2007: In a repeat of 2006, today we had the good people at Craig's List shut down over a dozen pending ticket scalping and transfer transactions. We are also working on voiding any admission tickets that changed hands before we saw these ads. See the FAQ section: It is against our policies to allow guests to transfer or resell admission tickets. This event is run by unpaid volunteers for non-profit organizations and it is not right for any profit to be made by third parties. Plus, under Virginia law it is illegal to for guests to resell a ticket that includes an open bar.

If your plans have changed, you need to work with us. We have a huge waiting list already at this point, so—even though all tickets are sold as non-refundable—if you cannot attend the event, it is quite possible that the Anchor you bought from will be able to help you solve your problem. We don't want anyone to lose money on this event any more than we want anyone to profit off of it.

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April 23rd, 2007: The AEA store is back with T-shirts and other University Row 2007 items. Click on the T-Shirts link for more. We have also posted updated menus.

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April 20th, 2007: We rolled out the 2007 waiting list at about 2:00pm today for Tent + Bus admission tickets—with two weeks and some change remaining before race day!

April 18th, 2007: Yesterday, JMU became the first Anchor to completely sell out in 2007. Today Texas and UVa have concluded admission ticket sales, and five more tents have anywhere from one to three admission tickets remaining and will be fully sold out at any moment. The remaining three tents are at about seventy-five percent sold collectively.

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April 17th, 2007: Although this site is normally exclusively about University Row, in a larger sense our annual gathering is about solidarity and camaraderie—in troubled times as well as good—so we feel justified in straying from our standard topic today.

Yesterday's senseless violence in Blacksburg was a devastatingly tragic episode in our national drama, and it could have happened in any state, on any campus. We all mourn with our Virginia Tech brethren at this time and wish for their healing to begin.

Interested parties wishing to send donations to assist those injured, and to help the families of victims should click here for more information. Memorial gifts should be made payable to the "Virginia Tech Foundation" and designated specifically for the "Virginia Tech Family Fund" and then mailed to: University Development, 902 Prices Fork Road (0336), Blacksburg, Virginia 24061.

Now, back to University Row news . . . we are just about down to the final ten percent of tickets now and we have sold more tickets total than ever before with this many days remaining. We have been ahead of even 2006 in that regard since the 14th.

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April 16th, 2007: We got a nice write-up in the Washington Post's Going Out Gurus blog for today. Click here to check it out. "Primary social area" for a fifth straight year!

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April 14th, 2007: As a service to our guests who may be interested in booking limousines to Great Meadow, we have now added a few listings of Greater Metropolitan Washington area limo companies on the Links page. These firms are not sponsors; please let us know if you have any good or bad experiences with them and we may decide to change these listings.

Yesterday was another amazing day of sales and goes down in the books as our third-best sales day ever. We are now slightly ahead of 2006 in terms of total tickets sold at the T-22 mark. Overall the Row is now more than 2/3 sold.

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April 13th, 2007: Looking for a unique Virginia Gold Cup hat? Check out our new listing of milliners on the Links page.

Our second full day of sales this year was second in the record books only to our opening day. We have been keeping centralized records of sales since we became the biggest Gold Cup gathering in 2002 and nothing compares to this pace. We are approaching 2/3 sold already—and two tents have not even really started their sales efforts yet.

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April 12th, 2007: Yesterday our sales broke all records by several orders of magnitude. Clearly there was a lot of pent-up demand. Sales continue strongly today and 3 tents are close to selling out, while the average across all 11 tents is about 1/2 sold. We are now ahead of all prior years except for 2006. But the pace in 2007 is so fast that we should overtake last year's percentage sold figures in a few business days, in spite of having two more tents to fill. Last year we sold out with 17 days remaining (two weeks earlier than other North Rail offerings). If anything close to the current pace continues, we should sell out before that mark.

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April 11th, 2007: Sales are insane. The few hours sales were up yesterday still resulted in a record sales day (going back to since we kept centralized records in 2002). And as of 11:00am, today appears to be on track to blow away that new record. A number of tents have already sold out of their cheapest tickets and are into their regular priced batch. Some tents are approaching their final prices.

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April 10th, 2007: Finally, sales have begun! Our new ticketing system took longer to set up, but it will translate into a much better check-in experience, both at Rock Bottom and onsite at University Row. We do not expect sales to last long and as of midnight we already sold more than a tent's worth after just a few hours of limited knowledge that tickets were on sale. Once all spots are filled we will revert to a waiting list again like last year.

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March 23rd, 2007: We are working on getting ticketing started for all tents. We should have that online in a few business days.

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March 12th, 2007: 66 alumni groups will be participating in our 9th annual event. Wow! This breaks the previous all-time record of 55, set last year.

Also, we recently received several video spots from VGCA and we have now made them available on our Reviews page. Click here for a shortcut to the ESPN 2005 clip.

Ticket sales will begin soon.

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February 28th, 2007: Villanova has just become our 11th Anchor for 2007. Villanova has been involved with University Row for a number of years, but this will be their first year anchoring a tent.

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February 23rd, 2007: We are pleased to announce a number of alumni groups that will be joining University Row for the first time in 2007: Harvard University, Kansas State University, Lafayette College, Mount St. Mary's University, Sweet Briar College, the University of Arkansas, the University of Florida, the University of Miami, and the Davis, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz campuses of the University of California.

More schools will be announced soon and we expect to add additional tent space to last year's configuration. With the new groups and the return of a number of clubs that were previously involved before 2006, including Fordham University, a new Anchor, we are already ahead of last year's record number of groups (55).

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February 9th, 2007: Want to gain exposure at our event or on universityrow.org? Now there are two simple ways. You can become a traditional event sponsor and have your logo and recognition text on our Website and tickets, along with display space at University Row. Additional customized accommodations are available, such as a spot on our bus video. Or, if you want to keep it simple you may opt to a Website-only sponsor through Google Ads or AdBrite.

Click here for more information about AdBrite.

For Google, please visit their site and request to be placed on universityrow.org. Of course, the AEA reserves the right to reject inappropriate or unsuitable sponsorship.

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January 29th, 2007: Is it a sign? Our annual kickoff meeting for planners is set for tomorrow night and attendance is projected to be nearly double that of last year's record turnout of 49 alumni leaders. In 2005, the AEA's first year of running this event, this meeting was attended by 37 people. During the explosive period of growth under CAN, this meeting usually attracted about the same amount of planners (36 in 2004, 39 in 2003, and 34 in 2002). Part of this increased interest is surely due to last year's quick sell-out and waiting list, but it also appears that member organizations are also tasking more than one rep to handle their Gold Cup involvement, which means we'll have no shortage of labor and good judgment to help make the 2007 University Row the best yet.

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January 10th, 2007: Six members of the Steering Committee met over beers at Carpool. Things are progressing nicely.

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November 28th, 2006: Basic planning for the 9th annual University Row event has already been underway now for three months. The steering committee will meet in December and we plan to host our annual general meeting for returning and prospective alumni groups in mid-January. Please drop us a line if you wish to help the effort.

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Congratulations to our 2006 Best Dressed contest winners, Brian Borgestad and Amanda Emerson. In addition to a bag of great stuff from DC STYLE they each received a University Row T-shirt and gift certificates from MIX 107.3 and Sage Spa at the University Club.

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Want a T-shirt? Go to the new AEA store at CafePress. Proceeds will be funneled directly back to the University Row effort.

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May 2nd, 2006: Folks, there really is no hope. We have over 500 people on our waiting list. Please get in touch with us for 2007—have a great Gold Cup!

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We have updated our Sponsors page. Please let us know if you like the new format.

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April 20th, 2006: All University Row tickets are sold out. Please get on the waiting list for a chance at any spots that open up. Or, if you need to make your plans now and do not want to drive, we suggest doing a Web search for other Gold Cup bus outings as we have been informed that there are still plenty of tickets available for the bus trips going out of Clarendon and other parts of Ballston.

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April 19th, 2006: There were runs on the Richmond and Marquette tents yesterday and we are now down to just a few Tent-Only tickets for all 9 tents of University Row. We have started taking waiting list requests.

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April 18th, 2006: Texas sold out at around noon today and JMU sold out at about 3:00pm. UVa sold out at about 7:00pm. We have less than a half-tent of availability left and are getting ready to roll out a waiting list.

We are also to pleased to announce that Sleight-of-Hand Studios will be our official 2006 photographer. SOH's Larry Hugg (UVa) and Dori Kelner (Cornell) attended the event last year and will be on hand this year to capture stills of groups, couples, and friends.

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April 17th, 2006: Virginia Tech finished sales around noon. The W & M tent followed at about 4:00pm. A number of other tents are about to pop as well. What a crazy year for sales!

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On April 15th, the USC / PAC-10 tent became the first to conclude sales in 2006. Congratulations! What a run! The Virginia Tech, UVa, W & M, and Texas tents are all about to finish as well. There is still availability in the other tents, but it is rapidly contracting.

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As of April 13th we can now project selling out earlier than ever before, perhaps as soon as April 22nd (based on the current sales pace).

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Good news: We will have reserved parking for all University Row buses this year for the first time ever! This will make finding our buses so much easier and it will allow us to fill and depart Great Meadow much more efficiently.

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The University Row Event Day Update list is now open for guests wishing to receive race day updates, status reports, and other announcements via SMS text messaging. Click here to sign up.

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As of April 6th, sales are running at a pace three times faster than 2005, which was previously our record year. We're not kidding when we advise you to buy now!

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With the latest addition of a few more Tent Partner groups, we are now at an all-time record total of 54 participating alumni chapters and clubs.

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A nice blurb about University Row just appeared in the March 31st DC STYLE magazine e-newsletter. A partial reprint is included here for those of you who have not subscribed yet.

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As of March 30th, sales are live for all but one tent. Last year we did not start any sales until March 31st. This year we are 1/3 sold already! Tickets are selling very fast; we will start a waiting list again this year when we are sold out.

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Several Anchors began sales on March 24th. The rest will follow shortly. This is one week earlier than 2005 (or six days earlier relative to race day), and it is the earliest start of sales since combined records were kept in 2002. We have experienced very heavy Website traffic and demand appears to be stronger this year than ever before, so we expect to sell out even earlier than we did in 2005. Please do not wait to buy tickets!

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For the first time ever, we have consolidated, standardized, and formalized our policies for just about everything having to do with University Row. The first version of this document is available for public view on this Website (see the policies sections on the new FAQ page).

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This year we will offer text message updates to guests. After you purchase tickets, University Row Event Day Update (UR-EDU) subscription instructions will be furnished to those interested in taking advantage of this option.

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Our tentative list of participating groups for 2006 has been posted and includes new Anchors USC / PAC-10 and Marquette, and a return to Anchor status for Row co-founder UVA. There are also quite a few new Tent Partner groups! We will post the finalized list shortly.

*  *  *

Our preliminary survey results indicate that guests give University Row 2005 an overall value rating of 8.4 (out of a possible perfect 10.0). Security and crowd control received the highest marks from guests (8.7), followed by catering and bar service (8.6). We thank everyone who was already motivated to respond and we will strive to improve our ratings for 2006.

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We are pleased to announce that DC STYLE magazine is our 2006 Publicity Sponsor and will also help judge the 2006 University Row Best Dressed contests.

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The steering committee met in the Fall of 2005 and planning is well underway for 2006, but now it's time to get all prospective Anchor and Tent Partner schools together. If your alumni group is interested in participating, please join us at our February 22nd kickoff meeting in Ballston.

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Photographs from University Row 2005 have been posted! Check out them out.

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Sales have concluded and we are no longer adding names to our waiting list. We hate turning people away, but we absolutely will not oversell or crowd our space.

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We would like to welcome several new groups for 2005, including Stanford, Providence, La Salle, Marymount, Texas A & M, Arizona, Roanoke, Grand Valley State, Kansas, Mary Washington, Penn, UNC Chapel Hill, Southern California, Colorado State—and we welcome back UVa, a Row co-founder.

*  *  *

The Virginia Gold Cup is not just for people in the Greater Metropolitan Washington, DC area; guests travel from all over the Commonwealth and beyond to enjoy this annual celebration. Recently we have had some inquiries from alumni organizations in Charlottesville, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Baltimore, and Annapolis, and we are interested in hearing from you too! If we see sufficient demand for running a bus or two out of other cities we just might do it.

*  *  *

There are several important changes for University Row in 2005. Chief among these: CAN has returned to its original role of facilitator and clearinghouse; responsibility for the event this year solely in the hands of the 2005 Anchors and the AEA University Row Steering Committee (URSC). The URSC will help formulate both tactical and strategic options for the Anchors and will carry out the decisions of the group.

It must be said that even before this event came under direct CAN oversight, CAN was always a key component to the mix that resulted in so many successes and this restructuring relies on a close and continued cooperation with CAN—even as the management formula is tweaked and optimized. We expect a significant overlap of volunteers between CAN and the Alumni Events Alliance, and we see this realignment as a positive development that will allow both groups to better focus on core mission objectives.