As SPAA enters its second decade, I would like to take a moment to celebrate the dedication and hard work it has taken to achieve this milestone.

It was with some trepidation I agreed to share the office of President of The School of Performing Arts Association. To serve SPAA is daunting to many of us —— we all have our own grown-up lives now; many of us have jobs and careers and families that demand most (if not all!) of our available time. So, to devote any effort at all to something associated with a place that occupied such a small fraction of our lives must seem like madness indeed.

Truthfully, it did to me at first as well. But then I realized what SPAA actually was, and what SPAA was not. And that made all the difference.

SPAA is not an alumni association of a thriving academic institution with a financial endowment and outside administrators and fundraisers. Nor is it an office with phone banks and water coolers.

SPAA is an idea. It lives inside all of us: it’s our memory of a special place. And it’s an idea that connects all of us in unexpected ways, and an idea that compels some of us to spend a little time on the phone or at the computer, or give up an occasional Saturday once in a while, in its service.

We alumni who volunteered to take positions on the current Board of Directors share an important task: we are guardians of this idea. We are the temporary custodians whose job is to (hopefully) nurture and grow it. And after a year or two in the driver’s seat, it’s our responsibility to turn the wheel over to others ... to YOU.

So please consider this invitation to join us in whatever capacity you can comfortably fulfill. You will be honoring the unique position you hold as a graduate of PA. You will be serving not only your former classmates and friends, but also generations of PA alumni throughout the country and the world who share with you that special bond. And you will feel good about it, indeed.

With fondest wishes for SPAA's continued success,

Margaret