ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT | The Pride, a networking and mentoring platform exclusive to LMU, is launching this week to all faculty and staff. The Pride makes it easy for alumni, students, faculty and staff to connect (and reconnect) at a time when networking and connections are more vital than ever to assist with job searches and career advancements. As a partnership between Alumni Engagement and Career and Professional Development, Lisa Piumetti Farland, executive director, and Branden Grimmett, associate provost, explain the platform.
What is The Pride?
BG: The Pride is a way for the LMU community to easily connect to find mentorship, networking opportunities and career advice. Users can search for fellow users by region, affinity group, LMU clubs and organizations, major or industry to boost professional development and support new alumni and current students as they embark on careers during a time of significant unemployment and underemployment. Users can also use the discussion page of the platform to ask questions and get advice from The Pride community, and join or create groups related to their affinities and interests.
Why Now?
LPF: Our alumni are 100,000 diverse leaders in every industry, impacting their communities around the globe. More important, the Lion family is a compassionate, caring group with a desire to do more, and that includes supporting each other. Our most recent alumni have graduated at a time of intense job uncertainty. Students are at risk of losing valuable internships due to more businesses working remotely. Now is the time to support fellow Lions with career advice and provide them with a strong professional network.
How does The Pride help faculty and staff?
LPF: Alumni are our best advocates for the university. They’re willing to step up and speak out on behalf of their education and experience at LMU. Faculty can leverage The Pride to help identify potential speakers and industry experts for their classrooms and panel discussions. Staff may be interested in using The Pride to find event or program volunteers. We encourage all users of The Pride to find value in its purpose as a way to strengthen engagement with the university and each other.
When is it available?
BG: The Pride launched in July to all alumni and already boasts more than 2,000 users on five continents representing 19 industry areas of expertise. Faculty and staff can join now by going to thepride.lmu.edu. The Pride launches to current students in October, at which point we expect to have a robust platform filled with alumni, faculty and staff eager to help them on their journey as future alumni.
