by Danny Eckardt
Staff Writer
The University Relations Office is in the process of initiating the “Alumni On-Line” Web site, due to be completed this summer.
The purpose of the “on-line community” is to allow ULV alumni the opportunity to maintain communication with university faculty and students and other alumni through various interactive and information-based systems.
“I think it will be a wonderful way for alumni to keep in touch with each other and what is going on at La Verne, and at the same time we [University Relations] will offer special services through the community-through special interest bulletin boards and list services,” said Vice President of University Relations Jean Bjerke.
The on-line system, which will be for alumni use only, will feature access to the Alumni Directory database (for a $19.95 fee), career services (job postings, resumes, mentoring, etc.), a permanent e-mail address and personal home page, real-time interactive alumni discussion and business yellow pages for professional listings of other alumni (for a fee to be determined in June).
The idea of having an alumni database for ULV originated from Director of Development for the College of Law Frank Perron, who, according to Bjerke, was “very resourceful” in getting in on the ground floor of the whole program.
Perron was able to attain a free special charter from the Bernard C. Harris publishing company in order to create and update the “Alumni On-Line” in conjunction with the ULV administration.
“We have been wanting to offer some of these kinds of services for several years, and we identified it as a goal, and then we learned the Harris company was developing a program we could benefit from,” said Dr. Bjerke.
The on-line community, which will require an alumni name and password to enter the community, can be located at the University’s of La Verne’s home page (http://www.ulv.edu/).
Alumni may receive their password for the on-line program by contacting University Relations.
The alumni directory service portion of the system will list the name, graduation year, city, state, country, occupation, job title, and employer of each alumnus.
“I think it is going to be an outstanding program,” said Bjerke.
The University will inform alumni of the on-line community service through the annual spring newsletter and the ULVoice magazine.
