Over the past few weeks and months, Georgetown has been the site of several events of community building and strengthening. For example, the Black Alumni Summit held in late October brought together a large group of African-American alumni to reconnect to the university. Hundreds of alums attended sessions that catalyzed a new wave of networking. The sessions focused on leadership and education at Georgetown, as experienced by our African-American alumni.
In another set of activities a university-wide committee on diversity, a committee largely containing student members, has been meeting. We’ve divided up the various initiatives we want to advance (e.g., improving the diversity of the faculty, increasing the visibility and breadth of educational programs focusing on race and culture, improving campus tours, improving faculty understanding of diversity issues). It’s been good to see how dialogue between students, faculty, and administrators can form bonds of commitment to address important issues.
The students have expressed the desire to meet and network with alumni of color. They are seeking the kind of informal mentoring that can help younger persons learn from the lessons of those who have experienced some of the same things they are experiencing. How best can one navigate his/her way through Georgetown as a student of color? What support mechanisms can be forged? How is social interaction at Georgetown different from what they might expect to experience in various work settings? What kind of issues are students likely to encounter when they enter the world of work? How have alumni successfully traversed those issues? What have the alumni learned about career options that the students might not know? How do they best achieve their ambitions?
The wonderful thing I discovered in these activities over the past few months is that there is a perfect alignment between the contact students of color wish to have with alumni, on one hand, and the interest of alumni of color in interacting and mentoring our current students. Both sides want the same contact. All we need to do is to create the mechanisms to nurture such interactions.
This won’t be a one-way street of benefits, solely helping students. I am confident that both the alumni and the students will be enriched by the interaction. Good mentors are effective because they care for those whom they guide. In return, they receive the deep pleasure of helping one another. This opportunity to give back is part of completing a circle of benefits they received in attending Georgetown. The resulting satisfaction the mentor derives is sweet and long lasting.
We’ll work over the coming days to develop ways to make these connections more and more real, more and more widely available to our alumni and students.
Great thoughts on alums and students connecting re specific populations and in general. Please make sure you include the GUAA board of Governors Committee on Alumni -Student initiatives whose entire agenda is to facilitate interactions and connections between students and alumni. They could be a GREAT partner in this effort and have already begun many such initiatives. Very important resource and you are very correct that the benefit really goes both ways.
I am so glad to read/learn about these conversations, gatherings, and initiatives.
I agree with you.
Thank you, Provost Groves! We have been fortunate to have some amazing mentors within the Georgetown Scholarship Program (GSP) and are always looking for more. We’d love to have more alumni of color, specifically, involved with GSP. Please contact me at foym@georgetown.edu if you’re an interested reader!