By Diane DeBiase—

Jane McClellan, the Executive Director of Alumni Relations, has amazing things going on behind those doors!

From career networking to business plan competitions, the Alumni Relations department is becoming a prominent face on the New Jersey City University campus.

“The primary function of the Office of Alumni Relations is to reach out to NJCU alumni and keep them connected to their alma mater,” said McClellan. The goal of the department is to create events and programming that not only benefit the students of NJCU, but keeps alumni active in the current NJCU student community. From mentoring to just answering questions about the work force, keeping the alumni active at the school will open more doors for NJCU students in the future.

Since the Alumni Relations department was formed in the early 1970’s, there have been numerous awards given out to past students. Every year the Alumni Department honors a former graduate with a Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award. These awards serve a dual purpose. First it recognizes an alumnus for their outstanding achievements and secondly it exposes current students to the work that a former NJCU student has achieved.

The Alumni Department also honors Distinguished Education Alumni with an award every year at the New Jersey Education Association convention in Atlantic City. This year the convention was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy. However, last year Danielle Kovach, a 2007 graduate and a third grade teacher in Succasunna and Margaret Dooley, a school nurse who supervises 29 Trenton school nurses, both received the Distinguished Education Alumni Award.

Currently the Alumni Department is working on a competition called “Build Your Dream”, “this cross-university committee of faculty and staff is planning an upcoming program at which we will launch a student business plan competition. The competition will be launched on December 10th”, McClellan explained. The goal of this competition is to inspire students to consider entrepreneurship and it will serve as a starting point for students looking to launch their own businesses. There will be a monetary incentive offered to the winner, so they will be able to successfully begin their dream of business ownership.

Those interested in participating are strongly urged to attend the December 10 program. For more information or to RSVP, contact the alumni office at 201-200-3196 or [email protected].