Last week, we had a little get together of TC alums in
Thailand (Teachers College, Columbia University) and it was another
opportunity to have some good lessons.
The party was initiated by TC Alumni Relations to have ‘Global
TC Day’ every other year in July with the help of locals like me and
another TC alum as Thailand coordinators for TC.
The Alumni Office at TC has several staff members who remind
us of the time to organize a party. They also help identify in-country
volunteer host and have the RSVP system.
Like the previous get-together, they sent signage,
sign-in sheet, pins and pens. What I found most amazing this time was talking
points for the two coordinators to share with the group…..very organized
and systematic na ka.
The talking points included messages like how far the
fund raising campaign has been doing. It has surpassed $200 million with the
hope to reach the target at $300 million! How the donation has been spent
was tabled out as well ka. We were also asked to share pictures on social media TC has to offer. I just noticed that right now, we all can have 'TC Gmail for life' too ka.
My learning:
·
To make alumni relations work, investment is
needed for continuity of communication, which would need some tools and
promotional materials
·
Local coordinators help manage the
network and because the network itself is a high quality one, all have
benefitted from the get-togethers
·
Could our Thai universities get some good
practices and adapt to fit in with our own contexts, perhaps caring for
networks (not too focused on those seek-for-future favors/strings types of network),
wealth of human and academic resources and experience over fund raising?
On the whole, 8 out of 11 who confirmed the attendance were
there and we were very pleased to have some time to link all up and know more
what each has been doing. This is another quality group that makes me
feel so fun to be with….because of their intellect, deep thinking, and
passion.
We, the two coordinators, agreed earlier that it wouldn’t
be just a meet and eat event so we asked one of the alumni to share with us
about her book being sold at Amazon. The book is about education
reform in Thailand dated back to our history to analyze our thinking and ‘borrowing’
of education systems that form our education today ka. We were all fascinated
with her passion in research and love of learning plus naturally the
synthesis abilities.
My learning:
Our education has some more hope with them around ka!
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