The Jacobs Alumni Association began a new start in September with a newly elected Board constellation; and with a new Board comes a new set of priorities and exciting new plans – none of which would have been possible without the tireless efforts of previous boards and collaboration with the University. The new Board’s highest priority is being placed on developing and nurturing the alumni network and building new standards of inclusion and active participation. It is with this mindset that the new chapter development plan came to life.
“We wanted to start small, in order to develop a good foundation for growth and stability, so we chose 11 cities to start off with” says Sharon Min (class of 2016), Assessor for Network Development on the Alumni Board. In order to kick off this plan she, together with Cristina Trifon-Calvopiña (class of 2013), Assessor for Event Management, planned 11 Christmas Market outings in 11 different cities during the month of December. This would later be known as #ADecemberToRemember.
Together with the Alumni Relations Office, Sharon and Cristina set out to find engaged alumni in all 11 of these cities who would be willing and open to initiating the individual meet-ups that would hopefully lead to fruitful networking opportunities and the chance to hear about what is new at Jacobs University. The 11 mentioned cities/states committed to the meet-ups were Amsterdam, Baden-Württenberg, Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Munich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, San Francisco and Zürich. Each of these were chosen due to a relatively high concentration of Jacobs alumni presence, and proximity to current Alumni Board members. This pilot project was a success, being the largest coordinated alumni event to date.
The future promises to be very exciting and full of new events and formats. The Alumni Board, together with the University and the Alumni Relations Office, very much looks forward to continuing the support of alumni network development and bringing everyone together.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the alumni that were essential in making the plan work, and are also very responsible for its success:
Amsterdam: Franziska Pohle
Baden-Württenberg: Albena Bogoeva
Berlin: Cristina Trifon-Calvopiña
Frankfurt: Aman Bhattarai
Hamburg: Asfand Malik
London: Alexandra Moroti
Munich: Shailen Sobhee
Nordrhein-Westfalen: Wiebke Rohrs and Marvin Secker
San Francisco: Aakash Jain and Stefan Kuzmanovski
Zürich: Jessica Geiger
BY DAISY JUKNISCHKE-HEINSEN (DOMINICAN REPUBLIC) | ALUMNI AND CAREER SERVICES OFFICE
