Late at night on a recent Thursday, a large crowd of Yale students and alumni assembled on campus at the Rose Alumni House, but not for just any regular party. They were mingling for a purpose — to welcome the inaugural committee volunteers of Students and Alumni of Yale (STAY), a new program that will bring together Yale undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students with alumni through service, mentorship, and social activities.
This central purpose — bringing Yalies together across classes, generations, and degree programs for the benefit of the University, the community, and the world — makes STAY unique among Yale organizations. STAY’s creation also makes Yale a pioneer among the Ivies in student-alumni service and programming, notes Steve Blum, senior director of strategic initiatives for the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA).
Contact Brandon Levin (brandon.levin@yale.edu) or Stephen Blum (stephen.blum@yale.edu) with inquiries about STAY and its programming.
“Here in one place — at close to midnight on a weeknight — more than 130 students and alumni from six different decades of Yale, past and present, came together on just a few days’ notice,” says Blum, a determined supporter of the STAY concept over the past year and a member of the STAY Executive Board. “No one had to do this. They did so because they saw a chance to make history at Yale — to assemble shoulder-to-shoulder teams of students and alums for the betterment of Yale and the communities that Yale serves here and around the world.”
In 2011, there was a surge in joint student-alumni programs and events at Yale. The AYA actively supported this effort, with sponsorship and support from alumni and students, as well as campus partners such as Yale’s graduate and professional schools, residential colleges, and Undergraduate Career Services (UCS).
These activities attracted many alumni and students who had never before participated in Yale-related alumni programming or events. STAY was born out of the desire to develop a permanent organization that would continue to build a stronger community between these two groups.
STAY is overseen by a nine-member executive board comprised of Yale undergraduate, graduate, and professional students and alumni, as well as staff from key strategic campus partners: AYA, UCS, and the McDougal Center at the Yale Graduate School. Members of the STAY Executive Board include Brandon Levin ’13, president of the Yale College Council, and doctoral student Emily Stoops, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate.
Levin, who is also serving as STAY’s founding president, believes that STAY will “truly transform the way students and alumni engage at Yale and across the globe by providing the infrastructure for meaningful interaction.”
Events and initiatives will be planned by the over 150 student and alumni members, who serve on seven different committees (outreach and membership, mentoring, career panels, marketing and public relations, networking, service, and social), along with several additional working groups.
This semester, STAY is already collaborating with the AYA, UCS, and graduate and professional school career offices to host a dozen career panels and networking events featuring alumni from various industries. One career panel already planned, on “Environment and Sustainability,” is co-sponsored by Yale Blue Green; another recent panel, “Careers in Law,” attracted (and was filmed in front of) a packed student audience in William L. Harkness Hall. In addition to local alumni-student events, STAY will connect students with local Yale clubs, student interest groups, graduate and professional alumni associations, and other organizations for special programs.
Stoops, STAY’s vice president, notes that STAY “represents a great leap forward for Yale in terms of collaboration and interaction between the undergraduate college and graduate and professional schools, and their representative alumni. Together, these groups can, and already have, created great events and lasting connections through STAY.