They gathered, they listened. they left.

The words “No legislation submitted” on the agenda for yesterday afternoon’s Student Government Association meeting was a welcome sight for many of the senators and provided a break from motioning and debating.

With no old or new business to discuss, the senate turned its ears to the guest speaker of the evening-Don Whelan, vice president for Development and University Relations.

Whelan presented an overview of his department before fielding questions from the senate.

Whelan-who has served at SLU for almost 12 years, two being in a vice president position-listed the organizational structure of Development and University Relations.

He briefly described the functions of its three main divisions-development services, alumni relations and public relations.

Even after the loss of several personnel in the public relations division, Whelan said that 75 people constitute the entire Development and University Relations department. “We’ve been fortunate at this University to keep people for a significant amount of time,” Whelan said.

The development services branch’s two main functions are to distribute thank-you letters signed by University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J. or University deans and to process thousands of checks, according to Whelan. Planning class reunions, maintaining regional alumni clubs and overseeing a travel program are handled by the alumni relations division.

The third division, public relations, places stories about SLU in local, regional and national news.

“Public relations gets the news out about the University,” Whelan said. “For example, last year when the Pope came to St. Louis, public relations played an instrumental part.”

Development and University Relations also has a research department whose main task is to update contact information for the approximately 85,000 SLU alumni.

“We know where about 95 percent of alumni live,” Whelan said. “We keep pretty good tabs on people.”

Whelan said that last year’s total of $28.7 million was the best ever in terms of fund-raising. The last campaign, which ended in December 1997, collected $221 million, an amount well over the projected $200 million.

Whelan said that the University will most likely set the terms for its next fund-raising campaign, which will stress academics, in two or three years.

“We’re in what we call a `silent phase’ right now,” Whelan said. “We’ll have to wait and see when we get farther along. Then we’ll be able to identify prospects and goals for the next campaign.”