Presidents and committee members of NTU alumni associations explore and discuss the cultivation of alumni relations.

Mr Anthony Teo, Secretary to the University, affirmed the importance of a university's alumni and reiterated the critical role that alumni associations play in linking and uniting the alumni of NTU. This came in the inaugural Dialogue Session with Presidents and Committee Members of NTU Alumni Associations held at the NTU Alumni Club on 26 January 2008 in the presence of more than 40 presidents and committee members from 14 alumni associations.

The half-day event, organised by the Alumni Affairs Office (AAO), saw briefings from Mr Soon Min Yam, Director of NTU Alumni Affairs Office and Ms Marina Tan Harper, Director of NTU Development Office about the roles and initiatives of the AAO and its future plans as well as NTU's fund-raising objectives respectively. It also included a presentation of the findings from an alumni survey conducted in 2007 bv Mr Lim Cher Siang from XpressWorks.

As the discussion got underway, the participants raised topics which concerned them and as they drew on their diverse experience and expertise, interesting ideas also surfaced.

Mr Sarjit Singh, President of the Nanyang Business School Alumni Association, highlighted that in order to engage the alumni effectively, the process should start while they are still students on campus.

He said, "I am very encouraged by the level of commitment shown by NTU and AAO. We need to make the students aware that alumni are very important. I've always encouraged our senior alumni to go back to NTU and give talks and share experiences with them."

Mr Jackson Tan, President of NTU Motoring Club Alumni, suggested consolidating the various publications that were sent to alumni, in order to gain better focus from the reader. He also went on to propose that in order to encourage more alumni to attend the university's and AAO's events, the respective alumni associations can rally support from their members and persuade them to attend the events in groups.

The attendees were very encouraged by the constructive sharing of information among the other alumni associations and the AAO. There appeared a strong willingness to work constructively together.

Mr Vincent Chan, President of the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Alumni Association, said he went to the dialogue session to find out more about what the AAO does as well as to network with the presidents and committee members of the other alumni associations. "I now have a better understanding of how our association can work with the AAO and also how we can improve our own association's activities," he noted.

Mr Lim Peng Hun, Honorary General Secretary of the NTU Alumni Club, also welcomed the opportunity to hear what the university is doing for the alumni associations. He said, "From the NTU Alumni Club's point of view, we were interested to find out more about the survey results - what alumni are interested in and how we can work with the university to reach out to even more alumni."

While acknowledging the commitment of NTU towards cultivating strong alumni relations, there was also a common consensus among session participants that there is a definite need to continue such dialogue.



© Alumni Affairs Office