To the Editors:

Finding out what’s happening on campus is easy while you’re a student, but it has been something of a challenge to get timely information after graduation. In the past, the college has largely depended on mailing letters and the Oberlin Alumni Magazine, as well as scheduling appearances by the president, faculty, and staff members periodically around the country. In these days of Internet communications, it’s much easier to keep alumni abreast of campus developments and to connect students to alumni who can provide helpful career and job-search advice.
Many students may not be aware that the Oberlin Alumni Association’s web page is known as ObieWeb. Simply by surfing to www.oberlin.edu/alumni, you can find out about alumni events happening all year from coast to coast, get access to contact information for tens of thousands of alumni — including 600 career mentors — read profiles of some prominent alumni and use a career services section where alumni can post and search jobs.
The Communications Committee of the Alumni Association is now studying how to improve this site. We’d like the ideas of students and others in the college community. We know that most of your attention is focused on current studies, but many of you will be joining our association within four months and the rest of you not too many years later.
What might you want to see on our Web site? In addition to the database of alumni, would you be interested in a live chat feature? Message boards? Instant messaging? We want to respond to your current and future needs as alums in an increasingly technological world. As many of you know, our alumni have a wealth of experience to share with younger (and older) generations.
We are seeking better ways to do this. For example, at a recent committee meeting, we talked about not only broad communications concepts but also practical steps, such as making it possible for interested students and alums to be notified by e-mail when an alumni career mentor has newly volunteered in a specified professional field. Of course, the communications between students and alumni aren’t all career related. We want to make current students and alums of all ages more aware of our programs of educational, social, and public service activities in many cities.
Because of some contractual considerations, we must decide in the next few months on what changes might be feasible to make early in 2004. So now is the time to make any suggestions on what you think would be most useful. Your comments need not be limited to Web sites. We also advise the college on the alumni magazine and other communications to graduates. Don’t hesitate to message me at tgest@sas.upenn.edu with any thoughts.

—Ted Gest, OC ’68
Chair, Communications Committee
Oberlin College Alumni Association