IST Alumni Show Lack of Effort
I wrote an enthusiastic post yesterday, after the IST Mentorship Breakfast, about the success of the IST Mentorship Program. A source says otherwise.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but only 3 IST Mentors showed up at yesterday’s Mentorship Breakfast out of only 7 who RSVP’d 5 IST Mentors showed up at yesterday’s Mentorship Breakfast. There are about 35 Mentors total. I talked to a couple of Mentees who were mildly disappointed that their Mentors did not show up after having promised to do so or did not make a slight effort although they were in town for the week. The Breakfast was at 8am and many Mentors may not have not cared enough for the program to sacrifice sleep for it. Props to the few IST Mentors who did show up for the Mentorship Breakfast.
This wasn’t the only IST Alumni event that fell through this week. The IST Alumni vs. Students Kickball Competition turned out to be a total failure on Thursday, April 17. Only 4 Alumni showed up for the sporting event, defeating the purpose of the event. This is disappointing to hear after seeing a lot of hype on the Facebook event page.
On top of all this, there seems to be problems plaguing the IST Alumni Society in general. Very few students of this year’s graduating class have signed up to join the Alumni Society. What may be the reason?
Tags: alumni, ist alumni, ist alumni society, ist mentor, ist mentorship breakfast, ist mentorship program
12 Comments, Comment or Ping
Alex Goodstein
I agree that there are some issues with the apathy of the IST Alumni. However, I need to disagree that the Alumni are not interested. It is still early for this year’s graduates and they have time to join. As for future graduates, I believe there will be a large number of people who join that will be graduating in May ‘09. That is by far one of the most involved classes in IST and many will probably stay well involved long after.
As for the Students vs. Alumni event, anyone who was there would not consider it a failure. Sure there were very few alums there, but the ones that showed up had a great time. And we cannot forget about the students that showed up. There were at least 40 or 50 students that showed up for this event. The incoming IST Alum. Pres. Pete Lechner even said it himself that the event was best attended event that the IST Alumni Society has sponsored.
Apr 19th, 2008
James
The Alumni Society is purposeless. They have been failing at their primary goal of recruiting more students for the sole purpose of trying to recruit more students.
I was at the Alumni Society meeting on Friday. There was little focus, and was monopolized by the couple 02-03 era grads congratulating each other on how wonderful a job they were doing.
Its not that IST alumni are apathetic, its that we have better things to do than show up and be excluded from meaningful participation.
Apr 19th, 2008
Caroline Furey
@Alex Goodstein: I heard from everyone that attended the IST Alumni vs. Students kickball events that it was a good time. I am also sure it was one of the best attended events that the IST Alumni Society has sponsored, but that’s not the point. For an event where IST Alumni are supposed to be facing the students in sporting games, you would think the numbers from each side would be comparable. In this case, a few alumni to 40 or 50 students is not a balanced competition.
As for the IST Alumni Mentor Program breakfast, we enjoyed a delicious hot breakfast sponsored by the Society. Though the students present enjoyed the breakfast, many expressed their disappointment that their mentors did not attend. I understand that most mentors could not take off from work to travel in, but for those who were seen later in the day in IST, what was their excuse for not waking up early or even notifying their student that they would not be present?
On the other hand, should we be upset that Alumni did not want to wake up early on their day off for an 8am breakfast with students? Or that they may have wanted to hit the bar scene downtown rather than a 9-11pm kickball game Thursday night with students? What can we really expect from Alumni only a few years older than us?
To evaluate James’ comment, I wonder how exactly does the Alumni Society recruit recent grads? Do they send out an e-mail inviting you to join the Society?
Apr 20th, 2008
Daehee Park
@Caroline Furey: Thanks for the link to the Facebook Event page.
Apr 21st, 2008
Mike
Umm, that was probably the first time in a while that they came back to State College. They probably all went out and partied and were too hung over the next day. I don’t blame them. Perhaps if the breakfast was held at the Waffle Shop they might have showed. Besides, if you want a mentor that badly… go find someone you can depend on.
Also, that game should not have been kick ball. It should have been dodge ball and it should have been 7pm. Dodge ball is cooler and 9pm is prime “it’s time to start drinking” hour. If you want Alumni to show up, make sure it doesn’t interfere with their drinking time.
As for post graduation commitment to being an alum, I’ll take a shot. IST majors are, in a sense, spoiled and lazy. Now that I have made that generalization, let me clarify why I feel this to be true. Coming from engineering, we really had to work our asses of just to get passing grades. Even then, many didn’t. Then the switch to IST is made. Everything is online. Everything is easy. Everything can be BS’d and you have a safety net of a group to depend on. That breeds apathy. I have two majors right now.
In my second major (InArt) I will stay up all night for weeks on end to get assignments completed, and I really care about what I am doing. I try really hard and it pays off. In my IST classes, I have let the ball drop so many times and had zero repercussions, it’s disgusting. In IST, I don’t have to try hard, so I don’t, and it wouldn’t pay off if I did anyway. If you want to make the alumni association more interesting for people to join, make the major at least somewhat difficult to attain so that graduates can be proud. That is why the business school has a rock solid alumni network.
I apologize if my comment was belittling, but I think that major changes need to be made to the degree program in IST.
Apr 22nd, 2008
Ross
Being a 4 year branch campus product of IST from 03, I find that there’s very little to motivate me to go to an event in State College and there wasn’t much then. I haven’t seen or been in the IST building, but I was plenty pissed when they announced it. The program is a failure because it’s dictated by a limited set of corporate interests teaching their views of the world, and the alumni society… I don’t even know what they’re supposed to do.
Apr 22nd, 2008
Daehee Park
@Mike: “If you want to make the alumni association more interesting for people to join, make the major at least somewhat difficult to attain so that graduates can be proud. That is why the business school has a rock solid alumni network.”
The minimum GPA is discussed in some detail by Tom Bierly here.
Apr 22nd, 2008
Daehee Park
@Ross: I would prefer having some corporate influence over the curriculum rather than an academic fog distorting some of the “problem based learning” projects even more so than they are already.
Apr 22nd, 2008
Peter Lechner
First let me reiterate what I have said many times before and that is how happy I am to see so many active student organizations and committees. This is a reflection on student leaders such as Steve Garguilo, Laura Thomas, Pedro Huerta, Kim Butcher, Anthony Zmoda, Prerana Dalal, Caroline Furey, David Horne and many many others. Student participation has grown exponentially. The Alumni Executive Board identified a need to support the students 3.5 years ago. I still remember the first event that I sponsored. Only 6 students showed up. To see over 50 students show up to the Kickball Event showed that this committee has come along way and that this event was truly a success. I spoke to Anthony several times and gave him my thoughts on what it would take to make it a success. The purpose of the committee is to provide students the support that is needed. Anthony and his team deserve allot of credit. He went above and beyond to make sure that this event went smoothly. There were some students that would have liked to have come but had other things going on so they did not make it. This is always understandable. Perhaps we titled the event incorrectly “Students vs. Alumni.” In no way did I set the expectation that there would be a comparable number of Alumni. This would just be impossible. Everyone needs to realize that the Alumni that were there left work early and many actually took vacation days. Many others wanted to be at the kickball event but just could not get off of work. The Alumni that were there had a great time. I think it is important to remember that all alumni are volunteers and I think we have some really good ones. I look forward to working with the students in the future to sponsor other great events. I am open to any and all ideas.
This success in my eyes carried over to the Mentor Breakfast the next morning. I made it clear to everyone that the mentors can not be expected to take a vacation day. However, I personally invited each one and they all wanted to be in attendance. Five mentors showed up: Luis Valbuena, Paul Horn, Michael Bruckart, James Andrukaitis and myself. All of which are willing to receive emails from any student. I have offered this up but still no additional students have reached out to us. The offer still stands. Carlton Jacobson was traveling that morning to make the rest of the events that day but unfortunately could not make it to the breakfast. However, he really wanted to be in attendance. Steve Pipino traveled the whole way from Orlando Florida on Thursday so he could make these events. He started to feel ill the night of the kickball game but still got there. However, on Friday morning he woke up feeling more ill. He started to feel this way even though he went back to his hotel room shortly after the kickball game. I commend Steve for still making the remaining events on Friday even while being ill.
I wanted to thank Caroline Furey for all of her hard work with the SRA Club and this mentor program. The College has talked about a mentor program for years now. I am so honored to be a part of its early success. I receive many emails from students and mentors commenting on what a positive experience that they are having. I never thought that I would be able to get 30+ mentors to go along with the students that Caroline provided. I am looking forward to it growing in the future.
Myself and the rest of the Alumni Board are really looking forward to working with the students in the future. I attended a Presidents Meeting last Friday and all other college’s expressed that they are challenged with relating to current students and young alumni. This is where we thrive. The other presidents could not believe that we were doing things like a kickball game and mentor program. Nor would many of them understand this website.
I think this site is great. I hope that it is success. It allows students another channel to express themselves. I think those that do should still try to do so appropriately and honor the relationships that have been created between Students, College (Faculty/Staff) and Alumni. The College and Alumni truly care about the students. As I take over as Alumni President, I also am now a member of the IST Advisory Board. This Board is made up of industry experts and executives. I met with them several times this weekend and they commented on how unique these relationships are.
I will not be posting again. All students are more than welcome to contact me directly. I will be happy to answer any questions and to address any feedback. I encourage all feedback both positive and negative. We are trying to grow and imporve as a society. My email address is PeterJLechner@psualum.com. I look forward to all active students participating in our Alumni Society upon graduation. We had a great Alumni Meeting on Friday and have filled all of our open positions with terrific alumni and soon to be outstanding graduating students. We also have a new commitment from the college which was evident this past week. I truly feel as though we have a bright future.
Peter J Lechner
President of the IST Alumni Society (03)
Apr 22nd, 2008
Stephen Carman
@Peter Lechner: Tl;dr
Apr 22nd, 2008
Dan Augustine
Neat site. Tough audience and mission for it. Good luck with it. Be careful :).
Here is an interesting bit to parse…I am an IST Alum (class of 2004). I was the ISTSG president in my senior year. I didn’t even know about this Mentoring Program, which surprises me, as I was very active with the program and IST community during my time at Old State. It is possible I missed something, and its also possible that word wasn’t spread well enough to get more people engaged.
This is a new Alumni society, it’s only been around for a few years. Give it a chance to get better. A lot of people who came out of IST a few years ago are still settling into ‘real-life’ and it can take some time (myself included). Those of us who were involved in some capacity in our undergrad years should get involved…its good for the current students and for the betterment of the entire program (which helps alumni in return due to school recognition).
I for one will be working with the new Alum Society Board members to help out where I can, and I will almost certainly become a mentor in the near future.
Apr 23rd, 2008
Matt Maisel
@Dan Augustine: The mentoring program is new. It actually started this semester as a joint venture between the SRA club and IST Alumni Society. That is probably why you haven’t heard about it during your time at Penn State.
Apr 23rd, 2008
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