Agents for Success The enduring legacy of W&L's Class Agent volunteers.

Mai Spurlock Sykes ’94 began serving as a Class Agent in 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and during the Board of Trustees’ deliberations on W&L’s name and symbols. Despite joining the program at a challenging time, she thrived in the role, finding it rewarding and interesting.

“The position demanded that I engage with classmates I had either never gotten to know or had not spoken to since college,” she says. “A lot has changed for us since then. When you are in college, you are very focused on yourself. I learned that perhaps I didn’t know people as well as I thought I did, as I learned a lot about my classmates through reconnecting with them.”

Washington and Lee’s Class Agent program strengthens relationships between alumni, serving to reinforce the famed W&L network. It also puts alumni in the position of serving as ambassadors who share updates and news from the university so that its constituency is informed and connected. Class Agents educate alumni on the importance of consistent gifts to the W&L Annual Fund and encourage loyal support.

Sykes, who now also serves on the Annual Fund Council, also appreciates the challenging conversations she has had with fellow alumni over the years. “I think I have been able to change a few minds, quell some misconceptions about what it’s like on campus today and get people out of their own echo chambers,” she says. Sykes encourages alumni with concerns about the university to visit and experience the W&L of today from the students’ perspectives. As a screenwriter, Sykes enjoys getting to know people and understanding their opinions and motivations, but she points out that the W&L community is social by nature, which makes it easy to connect.

“I haven’t met an alum or a parent, for that matter, who doesn’t want to chat about W&L for a while — whether it’s to share praise or concerns,” she says. “People don’t always talk about their schools with such passion.”

W&L’s Class Agent framework began as a class secretary program in the 1930s. A few designated alumni were responsible for collecting and distributing news among classmates, and, by 1934, the university had located more than 90% of living alumni. This newly identified group proved instrumental in the funding for a speedy reconstruction of Tucker Hall after a 1934 fire razed the building. Through the years, the university has continued to invest in its volunteers, producing training resources, implementing a volunteer database and launching a Volunteer Weekend to bring together key people who serve W&L so they can make connections with each other as well as faculty and staff.

“It is a great event. I was able to interact with volunteers in other class years, and being on campus, it made me feel like I was back in college,” Sykes says.

In addition to her dedicated volunteer work for W&L as a Class Agent and co-chair of her record-breaking 30th reunion committee this year, Sykes juggles family life with her husband and fellow alumnus Scott Sykes ’94 and a career in film. While it is a busy time in her life, she is happy to give back. “W&L is such a unique place, and so many of us love it,” Sykes says. “It would be a shame not to support it and help give students the impactful experiences that I had.”