As more students graduate Texas A&M University-Commerce and leave for the real world, Alumni Relations is taking steps to ensure they are taken care of.
“The heartbeat of the campus is the alumni,” Director of Alumni Relations Darryle Peace said.
With that in mind, the Alumni Association has been reaching out to make sure that A&M-Commerce graduates can receive assistance. According to Peace, many scholarships have been made possible by the donations of former students. In addition, having access to people who have moved into careers after A&M-Commerce can open doors.
“It’s passing the baton: assisting our young alumni to make connections,” Peace said.
According to Peace, reaching out to younger alumni can have its challenges.
“We have a lot of students that are transfer students,” Peace said. “They have no affinity [for the university].”
Understanding the need for contact though is understood by Peace, however.
“We’ve got to find ways to effectively communicate with younger alumni, so we ask them,” Peace said, “What attracts younger alumni and older alumni are two different things.”
With that in mind, Alumni Relations maintains a website that allows alumni easy access to school information. Social networking sites have proven effective in keeping contact as well.
“Just yesterday I found a young alumnus on Facebook and got their updated contact info,” Peace said.
Keeping in touch with alumni is a key issue for the department.
“Our biggest challenge with young alumni is keeping their info up to date,” Peace said. “We encourage people to go to our website to update it.”
One of the things Alumni Relations has been doing is the Alumni Ambassador Forum, going into its 26th year. Each university department selects an alumnus from that college to talk about their real-world experience.
“We use our alumni to share their experience,” Peace said.
The program allows younger alums to reach out to people that have been where they once were.
Having a physical presence on campus is very important to Alumni Relations as well, according to Peace. The new Alumni Center had its grand opening in February of this year. The million dollar price tag was made completely by alumni donations, a matter of pride to Mr. Peace. While Alumni Relations sends out a bi-annual magazine named Pride to over 50 thousand alumni, finding visibility in northeast Texas can be difficult.
“The challenge we face in the Dallas area is that they don’t see us in their media area,” Peace said. “Marketing is really the key.”
The alumni database holds the information for over 60,000 graduates, 9,000 of which are under the age of 35. That is why having accurate information is so important to Alumni Relations.
“It’s our link to people,” Peace said, “You can’t always expect people to come back to the university.”
Meetings of A&M-Commerce alumni aren’t restricted to campus either. Seminars are held in places like Dallas, Tyler, San Antonio, and other local towns.
“We want to connect with people in their community,” Peace said. “The key for me is service, and that we serve our students and alumni.”