At GS we believe our small size allows us
to be innovative and to foster more effectively the “friends and family” spirit
that is so evident throughout this issue of The Owl.
It is this sense of community that is the guiding force behind the development of a
new GS website.
January of 1998, Brian Woods, Director of
Alumni Relations, received an e-mail from GS alumnus, Matthew Weymar, that expressed
persuasively his conviction that an essential part of any community is communication, and
that the World Wide Web offers unlimited potential as a tool for increasing communication. Weymar and Woods, along with GS Marketing
Coordinator Curtis Rodgers, have spent the better part of the past year investigating
sites such as those created by Princeton, Harvard and MIT to determine how to build a
website that would best serve the GS community.
GS is now in the process of creating a
site that is cutting edge, has fresh content, and will serve as an information hub for the
GS community. The new GS website will leverage the potential informational, networking,
and marketing opportunities provided by the Internet.
The GS community consists of prospective students, current students, faculty,
administrators, and you, the alumni/ae of GS.
How does this benefit GS Alumni?
The alumni section of the website, the
Alumni Online Community, will be interactive and secure.
Several features of the site will be accessible only to alumni of GS. Some of the exciting services include a GS Alumni
Directory, listservs that will enable alumni to share ideas about subjects of interest, an
online mentoring program, and career services center.
The Alumni Online Community will also include important communication tools such as
address updates, class notes, and information pertaining to upcoming alumni events. These features and others will produce the most
attractive and functional alumni website at Columbia University.
Look
for the new GS website to be completed in mid-March.
The next issue of The Owl will provide more information on the new services that
the GS website will offer.
