Outside HAA, A New Network Thrives

Nan E. Wilson '81 didn't want to hire just anyone for her advertising firm. She wanted a Harvard alum. And, as a minority graduate of the College, she hoped to give a fellow minority graduate a helping hand.

So she put out the word through her colleagues at the Associated African American Harvard Alumni (AAAHA). Over the next few days, Wilson estimates she received 10 to 15 resumes from black Harvard graduates--far more than she expected.

"I'm a real advocate of old-boy, new-girl networks," says Wilson, who oversees music business advertising. "I want a Harvard person working with me, and I'm straight up about it."

For Wilson and other minority graduates excluded from traditional Harvard networks, AAAHA is a way to connect professionally with other black alumni. According to the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA), it is the only minority network of its kind to correspond with the Harvard group.

"In our individual work situations, people tend to feel isolated," Wilson says of minority alumni from top schools. "There's not a lot of us who have had the experience of going to a Harvard."

R. John Smith '77-'80 has been on the receiving end of the network as vice president of operations at CitySoft. The Web site design firm contracts with inner-city engineers to design sites for clients, giving them an entry into the corporate world.

Though CitySoft may not have well-known engineers, large firms still sign on with the company. Several of those, Smith says, first found the company through AAAHA. He explains that minority alumni are simply more sympathetic to his company's cause.

"The minority alums know what it means to be in both worlds, so they tend to be open," he says.

The network works, as Smith and Wilson can attest to. Now, the task at hand for AAAHA members is to strengthen the six-year-old organization.

One focus will be increasing social and networking ties to undergraduates. In the past, AAAHA has given scholarship money, a program organizers hope to resuscitate in the future.

Black Students Association Treasurer Aaron C. Montgomery '00 says black undergraduates are itching to make these connections with recent graduates. In fact, Montgomery is hoping to increase the number of alumni included in the informal network.

He helps organizes a career fair each November that brings together job hunters with minority employees of consulting firms and investment banks like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley.

This year, Montgomery wants to bring more black-owned start-ups to campus.

"If you want to get the straight dope on what a company is like for minorities, you're not going to get it from recruiters," he says. "It's not necessarily because they sugarcoat it, but because they just don't know."

Montgomery says that divisive topics like affirmative action can create hostile workplaces for minority workers, and white recruiters might not even recognize the problem.

"You want to know what it's like to be a black person at a company every day, not what the company is doing to help black people," he says.

And AAAHA provides a network of people who understand what it's like to be both a minority and a Harvard graduate--a combination AAAHA member Kevin McGruder '79 says can be especially uncomfortable.

The executive director of a New York non-profit, McGruder says many of the white people he encounters do not expect to hear that he is a Harvard graduate.

"It's not overt," he explains. "There are cues you pick up on....I can tell from their facial impressions that they're surprised."

But McGruder says other black people frequently question why he chose Harvard over a historically black college.

All the more reason, he says, for black alumni to connect with those who understand their unique concerns. And that support can strengthen ties to Harvard, as well.

"Some people are always fearful that a black alumni association will divide or keep people separate from the University, but I feel that it has the potential to do the opposite," McGruder says. "My strongest network from Harvard was the black students I knew there. Keeping in touch with them has gotten me back in touch with Harvard."

Now, the AAAHA might have a more formal connection with Harvard. Members are meeting this week to discuss whether the independent AAAHA should ally itself more closely with the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA).

But as they consider their future, AAAHA members say they will rely on not just Harvard connections, but the shared experience of being black and at Harvard.

Moreover, they don't want to get lost in the shuffle of HAA alumni.

"The HAA is a very large organization, and it is difficult to feel connected to this big entity," says Michelle Webb '89, an associate producer with CBS News, and AAAHA member. "One rarely hears directly from any one affiliated with them unless it is for a contribution."