An Idea takes Root: Student Founds Haddam Killingworth Alumni Association
By Diane Kellsey

Alumni associations are common at colleges and universities. But at high schools?

This month, Haddam-Killingworth High School became one of the relatively few public high schools nationwide with its own alumni association when the Haddam Killingworth (HK) Alumni Association was incorporated with the state of Connecticut.

The primary purpose of the HK Alumni Association is to raise funds to support independent research projects initiated by students at the high school, for which funding would otherwise be scarce.

Fittingly, the organization is the end product of an independent study project initiated and brought to fruition by Logan MacLennan, a senior at the high school.

Logan developed the alumni association as part of an independent study project he pursued through the school's innovative Senior Project course elective.

"This course allows students to choose a field of study they are passionate about, and explore some aspect of their chosen fields in depth," Logan says.

Charles Macunas, principal of the high school, adds:

"Students in this elective program exercise real life skills as they reach out into the community with their projects. Through the Senior Project, students explore their chosen field both academically and from a practical perspective."

When the Senior Project was offered on a pilot basis this year, Logan was one of five seniors at the high school to sign up.

In retrospect, he was a perfect fit for the innovative course, and vice versa.

Logan had discovered a field he was passionate about – business – after taking economics and business law during his junior year at the high school.

"After taking those courses, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in business, but I was interested in the big picture," he says.

And he was intrigued by a success story his father, Rick, had shared with him.

Rick, an alumnus of the University of Arizona, had recently been contacted by the university's alumni association. The organization was launching its first major fund-raising drive and was reaching out to the school's 50,000 alumni for donations.

The University of Arizona Alumni Association had set a goal of raising a billion dollars (yes, $1 billion) for the school over a five-year period. So enthusiastic was the response of the alumni, thought, that the organization raised the funds in just six weeks.

When Rick told Logan about it, the seed of an idea was planted.

This fall, the idea took root when Logan signed up for the Senior Project elective.

As he listened to the handful of students enrolled in the course discuss their ideas for independent study projects, he quickly realized that substantial funding -- and other resources the school would not ordinarily have on hand -- would be needed if a larger group of students chose to pursue independent study projects in the future.

Macunus confirmed Logan's take on the situation.

"It's very difficult to budget for independent study projects, because the school really can't know ahead of time how many students will want to do them, and the depth and breadth of what each project will be," Macunus says.

After learning about the budget constraints the high school was operating within, Logan decided to establish an alumni association for Haddam-Killingworth High School in the hopes that the school's alumni would want to give back to the high that had given so much to them.

When he shared his proposal with the principal, Macunus wanted to be sure that the 18-year-old knew what he was taking on.

"You do know this is a monumental task," he said. "There are companies out there who hire consultants to do this."

But Logan was determined to follow through. So under the guidance of Dawn Hoffman, a teacher at the high school who had volunteered to oversee the Senior Project pilot, he developed his proposal, created a projected budget, and identified the resources he would need to make his idea a reality.

During the course of the school year, he researched alumni associations and reached out into the community (first in Haddam, then beyond) for the technical expertise he needed. He talked to lawyers, financial experts, and others who could guide him through the intricate maze of requirements that had to be fulfilled to establish the HK Alumni Association.

Along the way, he came to appreciate the scope and complexity of the project.

"It's a lot of work getting incorporated with the state, creating a board of directors to manage the association and filing for nonprofit status at the federal level," Logan says. (Nonprofit status is pending approval from the Internal Revenue Service.)

"I had to make a lot of cold calls, contacting people I didn't know over the phone. I wasn't good at that when I started out. I'm better at it now."

As he moved ahead, Logan learned that not everyone who agrees to provide assistance comes through, and that it's important to always have a back-up plan in those situations.

He also learned how to multi-task and work in a nonlinear fashion. It was a different way of doing things than he had been accustomed to. "In school, kids usually have their assignments fed to them. When they finish up one assignment, they get another," Logan says.

"With this project, it didn't work like that. I would call someone, they wouldn't be available, and they wouldn't always call me back right away. While I was waiting for them to get back to me, I had to work on some other aspect of the project. Sometimes, I was working on many different things at once," he says.

"You have to be really intense about what you are doing," he adds.

"Just doing the leg work, I wanted a secretary!"

Now that the HK Alumni Association has been established, does Logan have a fund-raising goal?

"It's hard to set a goal for that at this point, because it's so new," he says. "But I hope alumni and people in the community will support it."

Logan says he got so much out of his independent study project that he'd like to see many other students have the opportunity to do the same. Funding from the alumni association will help to make that possible.

Macunus is proud of what Logan and the other four students who enrolled in the Senior Project elective accomplished during the past year.

He says it may take years for Logan to fully realize the impact of his achievement.

"Many students have an impact on the high school while they're students," he said. "But Logan has left a legacy that will have a positive impact on the school years long after he graduates."

This article originally ran in the Haddam Bulletin. It is re-printed with permission.