Alumni Generate Ideas for Interaction with School at  Recent Brainstorming Session

Energy and enthusiasm drove a February 10 brainstorming session in the Jepson Faculty Lounge attended by 10 alumni, five administrators and staff members and three current students. Interim dean J. Thomas Wren organized the get-together to start a conversation about the best ways for Jepson to strengthen alumni relations.  

Wren planned the brainstorming session to dovetail with Real World, an annual student-sponsored event that brings alumni to campus to discuss their career paths with students. Nine of the 11 Jepson graduates who participated in Real World also attended the brainstorming session: Joycelyn Bassette, ’04; Evan Baum, ’03; Kristen Emerson, ’05; Maurice Henderson, ’97; Samuel Kaufman, ’99; Kenneth Kraper, ’05; Alison Kulach, ’99; Rebecca Ponder, ’05; and John Renehan, ’00.  

Kathryn Materna, ’02, and Charles Caldroney, ’01, both members of the Jepson Alumni Networking Group, also attended. Three seniors—Jepson Student Government Association (JSGA) president Sara McGanity, JSGA senator Mark Hickman and Richmond College Student Government Association president Ethan McWilliams—represented the student viewpoint. 

Following an informal conversation over dinner, Wren opened the brainstorming session by asking alumni and students for their suggestions on ways to encourage alumni involvement in and connection to the Jepson School. Noting the relative youth of alumni, Wren emphasized that rather than concentrate on fundraising, he preferred to explore ways in which alumni could contribute their time and talent.  

The alumni eagerly took up the challenge. Suggestions included serving as mentors to current students and recent graduates, offering internships to current students, establishing an alumni advisory group, providing case studies based on their work/life experiences for classroom use or further research by faculty, helping to organize leadership continuing education conferences or workshops, including minors in alumni outreach efforts, collaborating on research or publications with faculty and current students and creating a leadership program or module for use in businesses and schools. 

Building on the last suggestion, alumnus John Renehan discussed his idea for recruiting recent graduates to work for EnVision Leadership, a Boston-based organization that he and three other Jepson alumni founded in 2000 to introduce the Jepson model of teaching leadership to businesses, nonprofits, schools and colleges.  

Wren also asked alumni to share their ideas on ways to celebrate the School’s 15th anniversary while highlighting its achievements. Alumni recommendations included sponsoring one or more of the following: an educational conference on some of the latest developments in the field of leadership studies, a speakers’ forum featuring several alumni who have excelled in their fields, a black-tie social event, a national award to be given annually to an individual who has displayed exceptional ethical and transformational leadership and a day of service or even a long-term service project.   

The Jepson administration will follow up on the many excellent ideas generated at the brainstorming session, Wren said. "The Jepson School is a family encompassing faculty, staff, students and alumni." Wren said. "We all have such a love for and commitment to the institution and what it stands for. This whole initiative is simply intended to renew our ties to our alumni and bring them back within the Jepson fold. It is time we involve our alumni in the life of Jepson."

The alumni present at the meeting expressed an extraordinary level of excitement about and commitment to their leadership studies education and the School. They appeared eager to share their knowledge of leadership studies with others in their communities and to reinvest in the School.  

“We want to help, we want to give back, we want to do things,” Alison Kulach said. “Don’t be afraid to ask us.”