AU seeks alumni for oral history project
Jul. 23—ANDERSON — Officials with Anderson University's alumni office are hoping hundreds of its 35,000 former students will be willing to share their experiences while on campus through a special oral history project.
"We're always looking for ways to engage our alumni and tell their stories," said Jen Hunt, AU's vice president for advancement.
Modeled after Wagner College's "In My Words: The Oral History Project," the stories from AU alumni will be collected orally for another month or two for an audio file vault then compiled into a similar book published by Publishing Concepts Inc. The project funded at no direct cost to the school but through pre-sales of the book, which already number in the hundreds.
The book will be made available only to alumni.
"I'm always amazed. We have all kinds of alumni in a variety of fields," Hunt said.
The project is important because it will help keep alumni connected to the university, she said. Seeing how graduates have excelled in a variety of fields, including business, technology and nursing also will be encouraging to current students, she added.
"I think people get a lot of satisfaction from sharing how their lives were shaped by AU," she said.
AU's Director of Alumni Relations Trent Palmer said the hope is to capture significant people and events in the history of the university.
"We really expect this to be a comprehensive history through the stories of our alumni," he said.
Alumni are being reached through postcards and email.
Follow Rebecca R. Bibbs on Twitter at @RebeccaB_THB, or call 765-640-4883.
