May 8, 2014, by Malvika Johal
International round-up, the story so far…
Written by Hannah Curnock, International Alumni Manager (Russian and Slavonic Studies, 2004)
2014 has been a busy year to date with six alumni events already in the bag and another two coming up. We’ve been in Bangkok, Delhi, Bangladesh, New York, Saudi and Shanghai and here’s a flavour of what we’ve been doing:
In February our Assistant Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Asia, Professor Michele Clarke, and Assistant Director and Head of the Asia desk in the International Office, Helen Foster hosted events in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Delhi. Both events were really successful with a good mix of alumni, offer holders and academic staff from partner universities. We had 30 alumni attend in Bangladesh and a further 40 in Delhi. Our alumni networks in both India and Bangladesh are very well-established, but we have lots of plans to grow them further, particularly in India where we will be extending our network of ambassadors beyond Delhi and Mumbai.
We also hosted a great alumni event in New York in March; hosted by the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor David Greenaway, 35 alumni and guests gathered at the Norwood Club in Manhattan to hear from the Vice-Chancellor about the University’s developments both at home and abroad and the work of FUN America which supports the University with fundraising and informal events throughout the US. Our alumni ambassador, Yinka Sho, also attended and did a fantastic job with helping organise and promote the event. Alumni enjoyed reminiscing and reconnecting and we received lots of offers to help support our alumni work in the US, including e-mentors, social media support and offers to help Yinka with additional activities for the New York community.
April saw the first alumni event ever to be held in Saudi Arabia. Hosted by the British Ambassador, Sir John Jenkins, at the High Commission in Riyadh, our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Middle East and Africa, Professor Farouk Shakib, and two members of staff from the International Office, hosted three tables of alumni, for a meal and after dinner networking.
Finally, we h
osted a 100-strong alumni event in Shanghai in mid-April. This was hosted by a number of University staff from a great mix of departments, including the Vice-Chancellor; Nick Miles, Provost at our Ningbo campus; the Asia Business Centre; the Campaign and Alumni Relations Office (both UK and Ningbo), and more! The room was buzzing after dinner with lots of good reminiscing and networking and plans for future alumni volunteering opportunities. Watch this space.
If that wasn’t enough, we are about to deliver alumni events in Cyprus and Washington DC in June. Our Cyprus event is a collaboration between the central Alumni Office, the University’s Business School, the International Office and our wonderful alumni ambassador for Cyprus, Iro Demetriou. We also have exciting plans for events in Chicago, Washington DC (again!) and Hong Kong. We’ll keep you posted!
No comments yet, fill out a comment to be the first
Leave a Reply