After commencement, time and miles create a natural distance between alumni and their alma mater.
Campus life seems far removed from daily life and it's easy to feel that one graduate from one year is no longer important to the college.
This site is a reminder that every graduate is vital to Doane.
Alumni are Doane's strength. At any given time, roughly 3,600 students strive for Doane degrees. But you are part of more than 15,000 thousand faces who currently represent Doane to the world.
Your support and involvement has a direct impact on the quality of the college and the students and faculty who live, learn and work here. Through your participation in the Doane Fund and other giving opportunities, you provide immediate support where needs and opportunities are greatest.
This year provides a wealth of examples.
Consider a few of the things Doane could not have accomplished without your help:
We invested in student-centered facilities and student life programming built on intellectual engagement and healthy living. Recently, Jane Goodall visited campus. Students heard her inspiring message of challenge and hope face-to-face.
This year, Doane students enjoyed a new gathering space in the Common Grounds Coffeehouse. They'll soon compete or cheer for our softball and baseball programs on the new Jose M. and Elizabeth Ledon softball and baseball complex and track and field throwing competition area on the east edge of campus.
Next fall, students from nearly every discipline will take courses in the new Chab Weyers Education and Hixson Lied Art Building, a place that will inspire future teachers and artists.
Students will also return to a renovated fitness center four times its current size.
The list of future improvements is long and ambitious. It includes new academic and technology spaces as well as renovated dining areas and residence hall rooms.
But the changes go beyond physical improvements. In order to remain true to our mission and our tradition, Doane seeks to broaden and strengthen its core liberal arts and sciences disciplines and skills curriculum. We added new majors in biochemistry and journalism. We want to continue to attract top-notch people, from students to faculty to staff.
When alumni lend us their strength, students continue to learn from professors, not graduate assistants.
Thanks to you, our students continue to travel. This year, many of them returned to New Orleans to help rebuild homes and lives. Others taught in elementary classrooms in Thailand where they gained as much knowledge as they imparted.
Doane students continue to travel abroad, to win Fulbrights and All-American student athlete honors. They continue to have the leadership and service-learning options that create holistic students who contribute to their world.
We won't be able do any of this, though, without you.
Your support, along with other alumni and friends, truly makes Doane possible. By contributing, you make a statement to other donors, corporations and foundations that a Doane education is invaluable.
So please, explore this site, see what's happening at the place you once called home.
See what we've accomplished together.