It's Personal

Believing you can. Breaking new ground. Saying yes. Or, saying no. You know what “success” is for you, because it’s personal. It’s about honoring yourself and getting to a “you” that’s somehow “more.” More knowledgeable, more grounded, more effective, more focused, more in charge of your own goals and dreams. A better you that you have defined.

The Ohio University Alumni Association’s (OUAA) new alumni success team is offering free career development opportunities to students and alumni to do just that.

“Our value is in making the vast and incredible Bobcat alumni network accessible to students and alumni alike,” says Assistant Vice President of Alumni Relations and OUAA Executive Director Erin Essak Kopp, noting that the effort is part of the University’s strategic investment in OHIO students and graduates. “This team is charged with sparking students’ journeys toward becoming alumni. We walk students through Alumni Gateway and on to deep and valuable career, personal and social connections with other Bobcats across the world.”

Alumni success initiatives are a key component of the OUAA’s strategic plan, unveiled in March 2019 and designed to uphold OHIO traditions while fostering new ways of engaging and serving students and alumni. The strategy’s power is in its metrics, which the OUAA uses to gauge alumni wants and needs before developing programs based on that data. The work – and results – contribute to OHIO’s prominence, too, because peer institutions compare alumni engagement rates.

The Bobcat Network website, which operates in partnership with OHIO’s Career and Leadership Development Center, is the starting point but also a lifelong resource for alumni success by providing student-to-alumni, alumni-to-alumni, career, and industry connections. “We support alumni throughout their career lifecycle, starting from when they’re still students,” says Dori Branch, BSC '13, MED '18, associate director of the Bobcat Career Network.

Via the website, students and alumni alike can create a profile to receive personalized career coaching, become mentors or mentees, and recruit Bobcats for employment. Search an exclusive job board with posts from alumni, for alumni. Offer a project-based experience, or micro internship, to a current student. Learn about webinars on topics like resiliency in the workplace. Engage once and quickly by posting a career question on the discussion board, or sign up for a longer-term connection such as mentoring a student.

Meanwhile, early engagement initiatives, including a pilot mentoring program with the Student Alumni Board (SAB), get students involved and connected with alumni and OUAA programming and resources, helping them establish lifelong support before graduation. Once they’re out of the nest, new alumni are supported with virtual “Welcome to Your City” panels, where, this fall, well-connected alumni in six cities from Texas to New York shared tips and tricks to help new resident Bobcats develop their networks. And the Recent Alumni Microgrant Program (RAMP) provides grants up to $1,000 for continuing education and professional development.

For Dana Wright, BA ’09, MPA ’11, associate director of Early Engagement, the spark for alumni work and relationship building ignited when she was an undergraduate, studying political science at OHIO and serving on the SAB.

“I love the opportunity that the OUAA has to make a positive impact on so many people across our entire Bobcat family – whether by a grant for an individual, or a wide-reaching event,” she says. “We want to serve alumni in ways that are meaningful and that last a lifetime.”

Colleen Carow joined the OUAA in June 2020 as its first director of alumni success. She is leading the OUAA’s comprehensive alumni success strategy.