While JC’s current enrollment is 829 students, over 8,000 have already graduated.

In an attempt to keep these alumni connected with the school, an official alumni association has recently been established.

“I’ve always treated the whole alumni base as my alumni association,” said Director of Alumni Relations Sue Greig. However, an official association was not formalized until this year.

“When I first came [into the job] 14 years ago, we did attempt to formalize,” said Greig. “But what we were finding was that our alumni were still young. They found it very difficult to be involved because they were busy raising families.”

However, Greig issued an audit of alumni relations a few years ago which made it clear that there was a need for a formal association.

Greig decided to ask Beth Siemek, class of ’78, to chair the committee, as she had always been an active alum volunteer. Greig herself, also class of ’78, became the treasurer.

“Just about a year ago, we started meeting, formalizing, and sending out emails for people who want to get more involved,” said Greig.

The first meeting was held in March, with a kick-off for the association planned for June. The kick-off took place at Looney’s Pub in Bel Air, and all interested alumni were invited.

Around 65 alumni attended the event, according to Greig. “[The large number] got us really motivated to see that these 65 people came out to hear our plans and wanted to be more involved.”

Still, Greig did not want to pressure the alumni into a huge commitment. “We wanted to allow participation in whatever amount they wanted,” she said.

After the kick-off, all were invited to a meeting to draft the by-laws of the association.

Before an official alumni association was created, alumni relations was just for communicating with past graduates. Now, the association works to keep alumni involved in the everyday life of the school.

There are five committees within the alumni association: recognition, social/spiritual events, student life, fundraising/development, and communications. “Within each committee, they have their own goals,” said Siemeck.

For example, the student life committee is responsible for “engaging the alumni in the life of the school community,” said Siemack.

“The goal of the fundraising committee is to assist the school with fundraising and annual campaign efforts,” said Siemeck.

The recognition committee focuses on scholarships and alumni recognition, while the social/spiritual events committee organizes alumni gatherings. The communications committee works to make contact with JC’s large alumni base.“One of the main goals this year is communication. One of the emphases we have is helping Sue [Greig] work with the database [of graduates],” said Siemeck.

Of the 8,071 JC graduates, only 3,000 emails are stored in the database.

According to Greig and Siemeck, cleaning up the database is the job of the communications committee. Class representatives serve on this committee and are responsible for trying to locate and get in touch with their high school classmates.

For now, Greig remains hopeful for the future of the association. “I’m encouraged by the participation of particularly our younger alum, who are so anxious to come back and be involved in the life of our school,” said Greig.

Charlotte Hagerman can be reached for comment at [email protected].

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