Juliana U.J Adie

My Role as an Alumnus to my Alma Mater and Alumni Association
Written by: Written by: Juliana U.J Adie (Yellow House, 2007 set)

“No matter how high a bird flies, it must always come down to drink water” (African Proverb). This is mostly used by politicians with the selfish mentality that one only needs to go to his roots when he needs “a drink of water”. This world would be a better place if birds came down when they want to dig a well, or, at the very least, serve their tears as a river if that is all they can afford to contribute to those down there.

An Alumna is a female past student of a school which, from the day of her exit, is referred to as her “Alma-Mata”. The plural of Alumna is “Alumnae” while the masculine is “Alumnus”. As an Alumna, I owe my Alma-Mata a major duty of effectively utilizing the values she has endowed me with, over the years. I can achieve this by flying high like the bird with the stamp of her badge on her forehead. This does not stop at just the fact that I would make her a proud producer of a complete woman by so-doing, but goes further to make the world know, through me, the beauty of her duty.

My role as an Alumna goes further into my ensuring that the standards of my Alma-Mata do not depreciate nor remain stagnant, but grow. This can be achieved if I stop thinking like the high-flying bird and cultivate the habit of frequently landing, even if all I have to offer is a pool of tears of my experience for the younger generation to learn from; whereas, “experience is the best teacher” (African Proverb). This throws a challenge to all the alumni to always play a role, no matter how small, in the development of their Alma-Mata as much as their abilities can reach.

Aside my Alma-Mata, I also, as an alumna, owe my Alumni Association my full participation and contributions to the actualization of target projects as adopted by the leaders. Amongst the roles of an Alumni Association are the responsibility to keep up the academic and all-round pace of their Alma-Mata and the duty of promoting the name of the school everywhere they go. With all these burdened on the neck of my Alma-Mata, as an Alumna, the least I owe my Alumni Association is a share in the common vision.

In conclusion, every formally learned person has, at least, one Alma-Mata, and owes her, at least, one duty which is to contribute towards making her a better and more conducive learning environment. He also owes the Alumni Association of his Alma-Mata a share of their common goal, and, in the case where there is no existing Alumni Association, he owes his Alma-Mata the duty of setting up one, after which he begins to carry out his duties to the Association as well.