Beginning in 1945 at Yale, the Summer School of Alcohol Studies, started the publication and distribution of an annual alumni newsletter with the help of contributions from the Alumni Fund. Volunteer members of the Alumni Fund contributed one dollar for the year, which helped pay for printing and mailing costs of the new SSAS Alumni News. The extra funds donated by alumni were added to the Alumni Scholarship Fund, used to “make it possible for a worthy person to attend the Summer Session.”
Through the lense of SSAS participants, the Alumni News chronicles the history of the Summer School of Alcohol Studies, founded in 1943 as a part of what would become the Center of Alcohol Studies at Yale (later at Rutgers) with E. M. Jellinek as first director. The First Summer School set a precedent that defined alcohol education for many years to come, nationally and internationally.
Refresher courses called Alumni Institutes were soon offered after the first successful schools. The importance of the School to its alumni inspired them to found an Alumni Association, which published an annual Alumni News, to make sure that alumni of the program kept in touch with the school and each other. The digitized Alumni News is now part of the Alcohol Studies Collection in RUcore, the Rutgers University Community Repository.
The newsletter, 8-10 pages at first, announced forthcoming courses in the same year, recapped the events of the previous session, promoted new publications from the Center of Alcohol Studies and the field, and shared news about educational tools and opportunities.
The Alumni News, especially at the beginning, also listed major achievements of alumni, who became leaders in the field all over the country in federal and state government organizations, launched their own programs and treatment centers, or researched and published in the field. Many alumni returned to SSAS as course instructors later, such as Raymond McCarthy, Sheila Blume, Emily McNally, and Dana Finnegan.
There was always a lot to share, given the fact that major national organizations were also founded at SSAS, such as the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA) in 1944 by Marty Mann and the National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Addiction Professionals (NALGAP) in 1979 by Dana Finnegan and Emily McNally. NCEA later became the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA), and then the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), still thriving rebranded as Recovered, along with NALGAP, now called The Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and Their Allies, a membership organization.
In the late fifties, pictures started to appear in the newsletter. These grainy images, many of them digitized separately from the PDFs as of special interest, provide a glimpse into the SSAS spirit that I heard so much about from Gail Milgram, director of the Summer School (1983-2011) and experienced myself at SSAS Graduation events and once at an open AA meeting where we presented about the Big Book, with a first edition with us.
The Alumni News had become so much more than just informing members about past and forthcoming events, programs, publications, and success stories of the Association. For example, published in the 1971 Alumni News, the caption of a group photo taken at the 1961 Reunion, the last one held at Yale, illustrates the significance of the school by listing the leaders of the field as participants.
The Alumni News mirrors another tradition started much later in 1992, the SSAS T-shirts. For the 50th Anniversary of the Summer Schools of Alcohol Studies, a T-shirt was provided to participants (including instructors and library staff) each year, with a design showing lots of details of each school. Along with the group photos and shirts, copies of the SSAS Alumni News also became which became collector’s items over time and helped create communities at the Summer School of Alcohol Studies.
Documenting more than just the latest news related to the Summer School, these newsletters can be considered a historical treasure trove for early alcohol research, education, and treatment, including plenty of images, soon to be available in RUcore.
- Browse all available Alumni News in RUcore, the Rutgers University Community Repository