Connect with Students
Ensure today's Raiders benefit from the welcoming campus community, spectacular educational experiences, and all of those impactful Ship moments that shaped us.
Offer Insight & Experience
Alumni can provide advice and insight to students as individuals who have walked the path before them. Share your knowledge and connect with students as they prepare to become alumni.
Guest Speaker in Classrooms & Student Organizations
Faculty seek alumni for their classroom to provide information on real-world applications on the knowledge and theories taught in the classroom and to share information on education and career paths taken. Additionally, student clubs and organizations look for alumni speakers to share insight on topics from interview skills, job searches, entrepreneurship, career paths, how to network, and so much more. Alumni speakers are utilized for both weekday and weeknight times with an occasional weekend opportunity.
Participate on a Panel
Departments and offices across campus often create programming for students that include bringing alumni together to participate in Q&A style panels. These are often held weeknights, but may also be held weekdays.
Ship Connects Network
Our Ship Connects Network makes it easy to leverage the power of connection across the Ship alumni community. Students can connect with alumni when they filter on academic major, occupation, region, or segmented groups. By signing up and activating your alumni profile in the Network, you make yourself available to be 'found' by students searching for alumni to connect with. Initial connections by students to alumni are sent via a built-in email. You'll receive the student's question in your inbox and you can reply via the Network or continue your conversation in your personal inbox, thru phone calls, Zoom, or in-person.
Become a Mentor
The role of the mentor is to provide insight and guidance for the mentee based on personal experience in career and academic pursuits. Mentoring can be both structured and unstructured in nature. Unstructured mentoring can happen after making connections in the Ship Connects Network. For the Ship Connects Mentor Program, mentoring is a structured, one-on-one relationship that focuses on the professional development needs of the mentee. After you create your alumni profile in Ship Connects, agree to participate in the Mentor Program. The Career, Mentoring and Professional Development Center will match mentors and students for optimal fit and will provide professional development resources for mentees and mentors to discuss in person, on the phone or via video conference.
Be an Alumni Expert/Resource for Questions
Do you have in-depth knowledge on certain topics or have a keen interest in anything from collectibles to current events? Be a part of our alumni experts/resource list. We are often tasked with identifying alumni who are knowledgeable on certain topics or in a specific career field whether it be to talk with a student about a career path or occupation, to provide a reference for an article in the SU Magazine, or to assist with a question/project for a class assignment or university initiative. Let us know what your knowledge base and interests are.