By Alumni Magazine staff and Christina Lee
Everyone knows Tech students think big. So it should be no surprise that now, more than ever, there’s a growing awareness among the student body that a Tech degree is made even more valuable by connecting to the alumni network before graduation.
That’s something that the Alumni Association has known for many years. And so the Association has invested time and resources to build students into loyal alumni while they’re still on campus.
That investment is embodied in three student organizations that the Alumni Association operates: the Student Alumni Association, Student Ambassadors and the Georgia Tech Student Foundation, which was recently named the nation’s Outstanding Organization by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
“That tradition of involvement with students has benefited Georgia Tech and the Association for decades,” said Joe Irwin, President of the Alumni Association. “If you look at the volunteer leadership rosters for Tech alumni boards, they are filled with past members of the Association’s student organizations.”
Ensuring solid leaders for the future is just one benefit of engaging with Yellow Jackets before graduation. It’s also crucial for alumni giving, which allows both the Institute and the Alumni Association to thrive. This year, Tech received $118 million in donations, the second highest total ever, and more than half came from alumni. Tech alumni give at a nearly 50 percent rate—about twice the national average.
“It’s this kind of support that helped Tech reach No. 24 in the London Times’ annual rankings of the world’s greatest colleges and universities,” Irwin said. “Through their activities and programs, these three student groups help Tech students learn how to succeed on campus and in the real world after they graduate.
“The groups are sophisticated, accomplished, highly visible and respected operations that serve both Tech and her alumni. And that’s at the heart of the Alumni Association’s mission.”
But how do these student groups work, and what do they do? The Alumni Magazine shadowed the leaders of the Student Alumni Association, the Student Ambassadors and the award-winning Student Foundation to get a closer look at how they’re helping to shape the Georgia Tech alumni of tomorrow.
It’s fitting to begin an introduction to the Alumni Association’s student organizations with the Student Ambassadors (gtambassadors.org). After all, the Ambassadors essentially serve as the face of Georgia Tech, hosting prospective students and other visitors on hundreds of campus tours and maintaining a presence at dozens of public events each year.
One such event, the third annual Legislative Day, was held the morning of Sept. 17. President G. P. “Bud” Peterson had invited a couple of hundred legislators, department heads and other state administrators to the private reception in appreciation for their ongoing support.
Zachary Higbie, president of the Student Ambassadors, knew that he and his fellow Ambassadors would be the only Tech students the visiting alumni and government leaders would talk to, so it was crucial that the Ambassadors fully embody Georgia Tech tradition, spirit and pride.
Higbie joined the group after noticing, as a freshman, that a lot of the student leaders he admired—the Student Government Association president, members of the FASET Cabinet and the Interfraternity Council president—were Ambassadors, too.
“At first I didn’t really know what an Ambassador was,” he said, “but then I connected the dots, whether it was a big group of them in the same Facebook picture together in their white polos, or just hearing about some of the things they did.”
Each of the 61 Ambassadors must be available to host at least four events, tours or ceremonies per semester, where they connect with alumni and other important visitors. Though their schedules may be hectic, Higbie said the Ambassadors seek motivated and often busy campus leaders.
“People who know the most about Georgia Tech are ultimately involved in other things. Everybody’s pretty busy, and they have their own time commitments,” Higbie said. “But at the same time, we don’t specifically want people who are just going to work their four events and be done. We want people who are committed to the organization.”
Among those campus leaders who have joined the Student Ambassadors is Jacob Tzegaegbe, who is also a Rhodes Scholar semifinalist, a former member of Tech’s swimming and diving team, senior class president of the Student Government Association—and current president of the Georgia Tech Student Foundation (gtsf.gatech.edu).
Founded in 1986 with a $100,000 gift from the late J. Erskine Love Jr., ME 49, the Student Foundation has expanded that initial endowment to a current total of more than $825,000 through the investment decisions made by the group’s Investment Committee.
Tzegaegbe, a fourth-year civil engineering major, said his interest in the group’s financial component that initially led him to join the Student Foundation in fall 2009. Now, while he remains involved in the group’s investment side and in encouraging students to give, much of his energy is focused on the ways the Student Foundation can ensure its impact on campus—and on the world outside Tech—is as big as possible.
The Student Foundation gives about $15,000 per semester to student groups on campus to meet a variety of needs. They’ve helped fund a student magic club that wanted to perform bigger illusions, purchased a telescope for the astronomy club and provided funding to Tech’s Engineers Without Borders chapter to help develop clean water supplies in Third World countries.
“There’s no other organization that’s trying to get students to give back but also has this hand in managing investments, the development of future leaders in philanthropy at Tech and also in so much around campus,” Tzegaegbe said. “No other organization is really that dynamic or diverse.”
Tzegaegbe has employed a collaborative approach to building the Foundation’s board of trustees, reaching out to academic advisers and others across campus in order to scout new, fresh perspectives to add to the mix.
The biggest new collaboration the Student Foundation has forged is one with the Georgia Tech Student Alumni Association, which encourages student giving and involvement.
The aim of SAA (gtsaa.com) is to teach students the value of the Georgia Tech Alumni network, the importance of philanthropy to Tech and the pride in the traditions of the Institute.
After being inactive for several years, the SAA relaunched in 2010, and within the academic year recruited more than 2,000 members, making it the single largest student group on campus.
Members each make a $10 gift to Tech, and in turn receive access to career advice programs plus hundreds of dollars worth of discounted goods and services.
Of that $10 gift, half goes to the Student Foundation for the Roll Call annual fund; the other half goes the SAA Gift to Tech, which SAA members vote on each year. In 2010, the SAA voted to give more than $20,000 to the Office of Solid Waste Management and Recycling to support recycling and sustainability on campus.
On Sept. 15, the SAA’s second-year kickoff took over Tech’s campus with seven stations offering info on the SAA, sign-up initiatives and free food. Leaders from the SAA, Student Ambassadors and Student Foundation worked side by side with Tech alumni to recruit students to join the Association.
By the end of the day, more than 1,600 signed up for membership. (As of press time, 1,925 students had joined SAA, working toward a year-end goal of 2,500.)
That night, more than 600 new and returning SAA members ventured to Tech Tower Lawn for an SAA kickoff party, enjoying food catered by the U Restaurants of Riccardo Ullio, CE 90, MS EnvE 93, the well-known restaurateur behind local digs Sotto Sotto and Fritti.
SAA members then mingled with dozens of Tech alumni representing companies such as Coca-Cola, MailChimp, Ridgewood Venture Capital, Waffle House, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola and, of course, Georgia Tech itself.
Justin Rowland, president of the SAA and one of its founding members, knows the value of interacting with alumni leaders—and knows his fellow students do, too.
“Involved students don’t want weekly requirements; they want something really easy to join—a low-involvement, high-impact kind of thing,” said the biomedical engineering student. “Freshmen say, ‘How can you connect me with alumni? How can you help me right now?’ … We say, ‘Hey, this is what we did, this is what helped me, and maybe it’ll help you too.’”
The Alumni Association enlists alumni to as keynote speakers, hosts of Dinner Jackets (a series of dinner events with alumni and students) and participants in the Mentor Jackets program, which pairs alumni and students as mentor and mentee for an entire year.
This year it’s anticipated that more than 800 students will be connected to Tech alumni through Mentor Jackets. (Those interested may sign up at gtalumni.org/mentorjackets.) The SAA also connects students with Tech’s history through its Tradition Keepers program, an ongoing celebration of Tech legends.
At the end of the 2011 SAA kickoff, students walked away knowing that Georgia Tech alumni aren’t just nebulous figures floating out in the world—they’re real people with strong connections to their alma mater, and with experience and knowledge aplenty to share.
And alumni, too, learn something important when they interact with members of any of these three student groups. They see the amazing efforts that Georgia Tech students are making as they work together to make the Institute a better place.
They see that Georgia Tech’s future is in good hands.
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