President David Skorton spends a considerable amount of his time meeting with alumni. But if a recent webcast "town hall meeting" was any indication, in the coming months he will be "meeting" with a lot more alumni a lot more often.

From Sage Hall's basement recording studio March 26, Skorton hosted an online videoconference with nine of the university's most active alumni in the first of what, it's expected, will be many such conversations, with a view to maximizing the president's contacts with alumni while reducing costs and allowing him to spend more time on campus.

Tommy Bruce, vice president for university communications, facilitated the conference in which the participants phoned in or submitted questions and comments via e-mail. Skorton was unable to see his questioners, but they were able to see and hear him via voice and video links.

Skorton opened the hour-long conversation with an overview of the university's recent efforts to deal with the economic downturn. He then answered questions on topics ranging from why Cornell is increasing its need-based financial aid to how the economic downturn will affect athletics funding.

"This was great," Skorton said after the session. "I want to triple it or quadruple the participants next time, and get more dialogue and more questions. And let's do it soon."

The town hall meeting was Skorton's idea, but it's part of a universitywide effort to streamline operations and do essential work more efficiently, inexpensively and effectively.

Organized by Alumni Affairs and Development and University Communications, the goal was to save Skorton and the university significant time and money -- and augment the president's already close connection with an important constituency. "He wants to be out on the road talking to alumni, but there's obviously time involved in doing that, and cost," said Chris Marshall, Cornell's associate vice president for alumni affairs. "This is a much more efficient and potentially more impactful forum, in terms of a diverse audience. You can talk to anybody in the world at any time."

Bruce noted that using online technology to enable multiple conversations "is essential to the future of Cornell." He said, "Bringing alumni voices into a studio in this way to tell our story is not only effective, it's the way of the future, it's how it will be done."

The participating alumni were Cornell Board of Trustees Chairman Peter Meinig '61, BME '62, Philip Eisenberg '64, Timothy LaBeau '77, Ronni Lacroute '66, Alexander Levitan '69, Shannon Murray '94, Donald Peskin '77, Dennis Rhee '86 and Michael Troy '81.

The two divisions and Skorton hope to host the webcast conversations monthly.