The answer for last month’s trivia question, what building first housed the library on campus when the campus first opened, was Charles City Hall. The library has been moved to three different buildings. The first was Charles City Hall, then to the second floor of Lewis Hall, and final it moved into the library.
Did you get it right? Let us know!
As years go by, plans change and people move all over. We like to stay in touch with our Morningside family. Feel free to let us know what you have been up to or how life is going, we would love to get connected!
Feel free to comment below to let us know or update your information here: https://www.morningside.edu/alumni-and-friends/contact-us/update-contact-info/
Chances are, at some point in your professional career you will be approached by college students or others, either directly or indirectly, interested in pursuing careers in your field of study. It’s sometimes difficult to know how to guide young people in the right direction. What kind of information should you share? How much should you do for students?
As a college alum, the best advice you can offer to students is the value of your experience! Think back to your own thoughts, fears, and regrets. Can you think of a time when you passed up a great opportunity that you later regretted? Were there things in your college experience you credit with getting you where you are today? How did your experience shape your career choices? For example, it may be difficult for a student to understand how being the president of the Climb Club could help them become an effective educator, how participating in choir could affect their career in business, or how being a collegiate athlete could lead to becoming a nurse manager.
In addition, talk about the types of things you participated in or the college decisions you made and how those impacted your relationships. Maybe there are some relationships you still have today? How have those impacted you? These are great experiences to share with students, as well as a helpful nudge for students into making decisions that will impact their career and their lives in a positive way.
Whether you are at a basketball game, theatrical event, or just back on campus once a year for Homecoming, as you connect with alumni, faculty, staff, Alumni Relations, Career Services, and students of the college, a simple invitation that indicates that you are open to sharing your experience with students will go a long way.
Next month, I will offer some tips on the appropriate way to provide networking contacts or job leads to students.
Stacie
Here we are – two weeks into the New Year! If you are like most of us, you made New Year’s resolutions in an effort to do things differently in the coming year. It’s an important exercise.
I am a strong believer that we must look back in order to look forward. I don’t care to be singularly focused on looking in the rear view mirror. Let me share with you why.
As the director of alumni relations at Morningside College, I have a foot planted in the past, but I need to be moving forward at the same time. Looking back and looking forward. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? It really isn’t, as long as we understand the need to have both in some sort of balance.
Last June, President Reynders created strategic planning task forces across the college, asking us to look at what we’ve been doing in the past and then determine what we should be doing in the future. As our small alumni relations group grappled with where we have been and where we are going, I was guided by what Steve Jobs, the founder and chair of Apple, once observed:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
So as the alumni office looked to the future, it was important to those of us on the committee to have input from alumni, students, staff and friends of the college. We asked questions such as the following: What kinds of programs should we have in the future? What programs for young alumni, retired alumni and everyone in between? What should they look like? What are we doing to build a strong alumni base for the future with programs for current students? What should we be doing? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the office? To say the least, it was a sobering yet exciting exercise!!
We haven’t landed on exactly what the task force’s final recommendations might be, other than to say we will be much stronger and more focused on advancing the cause of building relationships at Morningside College. While we are most proud of our past accomplishments, we must continue to “look through the windshield” at the future. It cannot happen without you! With your continued help, support and prayers – it will happen!
Gene Ambroson
Director of Alumni Relations