• Baylor We Are: A Family

    The Baylor familyIf your mother is like mine, from the time you left home, she has urged you to call more often, write more often, visit more often. It’s not nagging; it’s because she loves you. (Parents, perhaps now you relate more to the mother than the child.)

    “Alma mater” means “dear mother,” and given the way Baylor alumni interacts with the university and one another, it seems especially fitting here. There’s a reason we refer to ourselves as “the Baylor family.”

    And like any mother, the university does its best to keep the family connected. As part of Vision 2012, Baylor leaders a decade ago placed an increased emphasis on “enhancing involvement of the entire Baylor family,” and that desire is repeated in Aspirational Statement Four of the draft strategic plan.

    Thanks to the increased efforts of the last decade that continue today, the Class of 2012 graduates who walk the Ferrell Center stage this weekend will immediately have far more ways to stay in touch with Baylor than previous generations.

    The Class of 2012 — and all alumni, as long as Baylor has updated contact information — will of course still receive traditional printed pieces in the mail. Baylor Magazine goes out to approximately 120,000 addresses every three months, carrying university and alumni news, and President Ken Starr sends his letters to the Baylor family throughout the year.

    The Baylor Alumni Network takes Baylor on the road, holding regular gatherings and special events like watch parties and send-off gatherings across Texas, all over the country and even internationally.

    And online, sites like baylor.edu/alumni, baylorbears.com, and (naturally) Baylor Proud join Facebook and Twitter in keeping alumni informed on happenings around campus and among the Baylor family.

    To the Class of 2012: As you head out, keep in touch with your old alma mater. Come back every once in awhile — Homecoming is just six months away! — and drop us a line every now and then to keep us and your classmates up to speed on how life is treating you.

    Sic ’em, Baylor family!