Even though seniors will be leaving campus for the last time time as students in the coming days, they will still be able to connect back to the school through Notre Dame’s Alumni Association.
The association has made connecting alumni to one another and the university a priority through the hundreds of clubs around the U.S. and beyond. Bill Gangluff, the senior director of marketing communications at the Alumni Association, said there are over 270 clubs world wide.
“Notre Dame has no end. It’s a special place for students for those four years and there's just a desire ... for our students to continue that relationship,” Gangluff said. “We work with class officers from the class of 2018 all the way to the class of 1950 to try to engage them back into the University.”
One of the newest outreach additions for recent graduates is the Young Alumni Board, a 16 member board of recent graduates who help facilitate the transition of young graduates into local alumni clubs.
“The board as a whole will look at kind of larger initiatives that will connect young alumni back to the University,” Gangluff said. “We're working on how to we kind of embrace the new students and graduates coming into those markets in a more methodical way.”
Gangluff said 20 percent of Notre Dame’s alumni are engaged in clubs in their regional areas on an active basis. Fifty percent of young alumni surveyed said they had been to at least one club meeting in the past year.
This board will serve to offer new outreach programs for recent graduates to become more involved in clubs specific to younger alumni.
“They're very interested in getting to the University, and so our goal was to make sure we have programming and avenues to do that,” Gangluff said. “The club structure in different cities and areas is a natural way to continue to connect to foster that Notre Dame spirit.”
This new Young Alumni push is one of the association’s latest efforts to become more accessible to their graduates and friends. Gangluff said the association has also been pushing for more digital services as well.
“Our digital programs have been a great way for us to scale our ability to touch people who can’t make it back to campus,” he said. “During the month of December, for example, we were able to broadcast videos each day of Advent. We had over 173,000 viewers over that month.”
The Alumni Association urges the seniors to update their contact information with the association online in the coming weeks. If students do not hear from their club in the months following graduation, graduates can join through my.nd.edu/clubs.
“Our young alumni provide an important role at Notre Dame based on their unique voices and life experiences,” Gangluff said. “We are only the Notre Dame family if all aspects of that family share their perspectives and get involved. We are the envy of almost every peer university we meet. They want our club structure, and they want the engagement levels of our alumni — all ages, young to senior.”
