Todd Friedman | The Phoenix

In Upper Tarble, current students and alumni connected over a dinner, organized by the Alumni Council.

BY DYLON CHOW

In print | Published November 13, 2008

Last weekend, from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9, alumni returned to their alma mater to attend classes, talk to current students and reconnect with the campus they once called home at this semester’s Alumni Council meeting. Council members, some of whom graduated as far back as 1955 and others as recently as 2008, convene on campus twice a year to foster communication between past and present Swarthmore students.

Around 50 alumni and 100 students networked at one of the weekend’s major events last Saturday, an alumni/student dinner in Upper Tarble. According to Assistant Director of Alumni Relations Jennifer Barrington, the dinner brings students and alumni together for two purposes: one social, the other advisory. According to Barrington, “It’s a time to sit back and have a conversation” in a setting that is conducive to career-oriented networking. Each of the seventeen tables was decked out in paraphernalia pertaining to a different career field, ranging from arts to business to healthcare to higher education. “Alums act as career mentors,” Barrington said, adding that the alumni/student dinner gives students the opportunity to “learn first-hand about potential careers.”

Other popular events included the alumni/student mixers, where students considering certain majors could speak to alumni with professional experience in those fields. Another was a lecture by Professor of Biology, Amy Vollmer, and Associate Professor of Astronomy, Eric Jensen, called “Astrobiology: Are We Alone?” which discussed the origins of life on Earth and the likelihood of the origin of life elsewhere in the universe. Many fondly referred to it afterward as “the E.T. lecture.”
Alumni belonging to the Student Support committee also had the opportunity to connect to current students by discussing various ways they could help the student body with funding and support. On Saturday, these alumni spoke with three members of the Intercultural Center. At the meeting, the IC representatives raised the issue that unpaid internships and externships impose a financial hardship on students who rely heavily on paying jobs. Financial constraints deter many students from participating in externship and internship programs that do not compensate them. The alumni present at the meeting addressed the possibility of starting a fund for these students.

The IC representatives also discussed extracurricular projects to which they devote substantial time during the academic year and asked the alumni whether they would be amenable to supporting these activities with a similar fund. Deivid Rojas ’11, one of the representatives, mentioned that it was inconvenient to arrange transportation between campus and Kennett Square, where some IC members are involved in service projects.

“Sometimes we have to borrow the van from the Lang Center,” Rojas said. According to Rojas, it is not always possible to find volunteers to drive IC members to volunteer sites in Chester or Philadelphia, but he said that providing the IC with its own vehicle would eliminate this problem. “We talked about the idea that the IC should have its own van,” he said. According to Rojas, the Alumni Council was very receptive to the suggestion and is considering creating a fund for an IC van.

Current IC members also discussed the activities of recently launched student organizations with which most alumni are not familiar. Cecilia Marquez ’11, one of the founders of the Swarthmore Womyn of Color Collective, spoke to the group about the organization’s efforts to empower women of color. “I enjoyed talking [with the alumni] about how we think we could be supported,” Marquez said, adding that the alumni discussion was very productive and she would welcome more opportunities for dialogue with former students. “They’re not prescribing, just asking,” Marquez said of the discussion’s tone.

Alumni said that they are making a concerted effort to make the community of former students more accessible to current ones in an online forum. Currently, alumni can contact each other through the Swarthmore College Online Community, a service restricted to alumni. Albert Kim ’93 and Matthew Armstead ’08 are building upon this idea to enhance opportunities for communication between alumni and current students in online venues.

Rojas said he appreciated the Alumni Council’s efforts to engage more directly with the student body. “I didn’t know about [the Alumni Council] before … [but] they are really concerned about being more accessible to students,” Rojas said.

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