ECLA Alumni Building Network on ‘Curiosity,’ ‘Friendship’ and ‘Creativity’

Alumni contacts at ECLA have been strong since the first class left the campus in 2000: former students from all programmes have used email groups, small reunions and the ECLA web site to keep in touch with the closely-knit community they participated in at ECLA. To take this project one step further, alums Siret Paju (Estonia, AY03, PY04), Martin Zickendraht (Germany, AY03, PY04) and Florian Hoffmann (Germany, AY03, PY04) decided to establish a true alumni network for the college. “The goal is to create an institutionalized framework for alumni relations at ECLA,” says Hoffmann. “We’re using three questions to guide our project: How can alumni find out about other alumni? What can ECLA do for its alumni? How can alumni contribute to the project of ECLA?” These three questions are associated with ‘Curiosity’, ‘Friendship’ and ‘Creativity’ (respectively), and will be used to guide development of the ECLA Alumni Website and the creation of alumni posts for each class (such as Class Secretaries), according to Hoffmann.