It is no secret that, at the heart of every Alumni Community, lays the shared experiences that connect each alum with one another. Nostalgic stories about teachers, athletic games, dorm events and classes are commonplace during conversations at Alumni Events. That said, as schools are looking for the best and most innovative practices to engage their alumni communities, it is incredibly powerful to consider sharing key on campus events that they know their alumni community will be able relate to.
I can proudly say that my alma mater, The Taft School, does an incredible job at this with their creation of short, entertaining videos to announce “Headmaster Holidays” to current students. These holidays are a tradition where the Head of School creatively announces a day off from classes usually once a semester. I still remember all of my Headmaster Holiday experiences: the anticipation, the build up, the often times hilarious way the students were informed by either Mr. Oden and Mr. Mac, then, of course, the celebration among the students! This is a perfect example of a tradition that all Taft alums can relate to, because we all had our own incredibly enjoyable Headmaster Holiday moments that stay with us today.
As you’ll see in the videos below, Taft took the tradition to a whole new level by partnering with notable Taft Alum and actor/director/producer/writer, Peter Berg ’80 to help make the announcement. Although they are initially directed at current students, they have gone viral among the entire alumni community. Taft has not only done a great job of getting these videos out to our community by way of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, they have also encouraged their alumni volunteers, like myself, to share the videos with our former classmates. I, like a lot of alums, give back to my alma mater because I had a collection of amazing experiences when I was there. Videos like the ones below remind me of those experiences and keep me and my fellow alums engaged. ENJOY!
2012 – mark Wahlberg
2010 – Robert Pattinson (Of twilight)