NIU Huskie Telefund surpasses $1 million mark Sometimes the NIU Huskie Telefund callers come to work in slippers and sweats. The Telefund's 29 workstations in the basement of Grant Towers North ­­ some alums will remember the space as a dining area called the Barn ­­ offer an easy walk to the job for students who live upstairs. But the ultimate in casual attire has not stopped Robert Heuermann's and Bill Lambert's crew from ringing up more than $1 million in pledges this fiscal year, the highest pledge amount yet after three years of phone calls and the first time the tally has reached seven digits. "It's the students," said Heuermann, director of annual giving. "The people we call ­­ alumni and the like ­­ really enjoy talking to the students today. There's no one better to talk to our alumni and remind them what it was like to be a student than today's students." With a month left in Fiscal Year 2000, the pledges stand at $1,023,000. Last year's Telefund yielded $860,000 in pledges while the first year of calls raised $580,000, an immediate success. The FY98 numbers represented a 56 percent increase over the pledges restricted to colleges collected the year before when our alumni were being called by a professional telemarketing firm in Iowa. "Those callers didn't have any relationship to Northern Illinois University," Heuermann said. "Some alums would make comments about a particular building or a particular professor, and the professional caller out in Iowa wouldn't have any idea what they were talking about. This business really is built upon relationships, and calls from professional telemarketers left our alumni feeling very disappointed." The NIU Telefund is staffed by student workers who receive 11 hours of training prior to being put on the telephones. This training prepares them to offer a knowledgeable and personal voice about the campus to about 100,000 NIU alumni and friends each year. Fluent in a variety of foreign languages, they are able to communicate with alumni who are more comfortable speaking in their native tongues. Callers stress the need to improve the university academic programs through upgrades to equipment, software and other technology and also through faculty enhancements, such as assistantships and research funds. "They talk about all the great things happening here," Heuermann said. Student callers also provide a "lifeline" to alumni who have moved far away and have little contact with NIU other than the alumni magazine or their departmental newsletter. "This is their link back," Telefund Manager Bill Lambert said. "We've got lots of alumni who ask about their favorite professors. Some of them are looking for their classmates. Some of them want to know if they can still get beer nuggets." This year's new program, the Senior Challenge, was created by the Student Alumni Association in cooperation with the NIU Huskie Telefund. To date, $53,000 in pledges have been raised with nearly six months to go. May graduates, along with those who plan to earn degrees in August and December, voted to endow a scholarship for seniors with the gifts from the Senior Challenge. "The Senior Challenge represents a marked change from the occasional class gift in the era when graduates might purchase a bench or plant a tree," Heuermann said. According to Heuermann, there weren't any well-known class-giving programs in the past. "This is the first time we've really been able to use an honest-to-goodness program to allow the seniors to give back to the university." Meanwhile, the NIU Huskie Telefund also is giving its student employees a boost in the job market. "Our students end up with very strong communication skills. Several employers we've talked to have commented very positively on the students coming out of the program and that they like seeing this on the students' resumes," Heuermann said. "Many of our students, when they're on the phones, end up being offered internship opportunities and even jobs. Some alumni say, `Hey, when you're done, send me your resume. I'd like to talk to you.' " More news...