Reaching Out To Graduate Alumni

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Graduate School Dean Sanjeev Kulkarni

Sameer A. Khan

What’s on the minds of graduate alumni? During this academic year, Graduate School Dean Sanjeev Kulkarni has talked with alums in six cities, and the transition to the working world is a major concern.

“Helping our students develop professionally and be better prepared for a competitive job market is an important issue,” Kulkarni said in an interview after conversations with alumni in Denver, Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Houston, Austin, and Dallas as well as in Princeton. 

Other topics that graduate alumni bring up: what’s changed at the Graduate School, trends in graduate education and funding pressures on the national scene, housing for grad students, and what the University is doing to make them “more a part of the community,” Kulkarni said.

Graduate alumni make up about 30 percent of Princeton alumni, he said, and the University is working to strengthen its ties with them.

Kulkarni said he urges alumni to stay involved by attending regional events, interviewing applicants as part of the Princeton Schools Committee, developing internship opportunities at their workplaces, and returning often to campus.

Attendance by graduate alumni at Reunions has been growing, he said, noting the success of offering a location with a “real tent” similar to the headquarters of major undergraduate reunion classes and a focus each year that rotates among the four academic divisions and the Wilson School (this year it will be the natural sciences).