Professor Desta,
Asayehgn
April 15, 2010
Over the last
eight decades, the Queen Sheba School of Adwa, Tigray,
Ethiopia has produced a number of creative, innovative, and well-rounded
graduates. Over the years, a number of
alumni have given various forms of donations to their former School. For this they need to be saluted in
acknowledgement that their contributions are valuable to the success of the
School. Recognizing their desire to donate
will help to inspire other alumni to be as generous as their peers, which in
return gives psychic satisfaction for benefitting their School.
Though
not significant, either because of altruism or donors
seem to want the psychic satisfaction that accompanies recognition from their
former school or reciprocity—acknowledgement
that the person’s contribution is valuable to the success of the school, over the years, a number of the alumni of
the Queen Sheba School have given various forms of denotations to their former
school. For this they need to be saluted. Also, either because of the desire to denote
or because social
pressure motivates donations, it is expected that those who have not denoted up
to now are likely to give in the future because their peers or predecessors
have been generous. After all, it is a blessing on those who had the
opportunity to attained one of the finest schools and have a responsibility of
paying back to maintain its quality. .
What
is alarming at the moment is that because of the limited budget allocated to the
School by the Federal and Regional governments, the Queen Sheba School is plagued
by innumerable financial and educational crises. A number of the graduates have
not been able to pursue higher education.
Those who graduated from vocational programs are either incapable of getting
productive jobs in their areas of specialization, or have not been able to start
their own businesses because their programs have failed to emphasize
state-of-the art internship programs, or have barely indulged in experiential
learning endeavors .
However, when I speak with alumni of the Queen
Sheba School in the Diaspora about the various problems the school is facing, I
get the impression that they want to give back to the school to support the new
generation of students. In addition, they go one step further to tell me that
they would like to reform the existing Alumni Association in such a way that
graduating students can form bonds with faculty, administrators, and other key
staff while they are attending the school to begin building and planning the
alumni relationship during the student’s educational experience. By doing so they can develop programs together
to transform
current students into generous alumni after their graduation.
Interestingly, it needs to be highlighted that patterns of
alumni contributions vary widely and are not always predictable. Therefore, it has to be underlined
that the Queen Sheba School needs a breath of fresh air with an alumnus who can
invigorate a tired system with new ideas and bring a fresh outlook on a dignified
institution. Just as the Queen Sheba School students should expect to be
challenged, so should its alumni as major stakeholders. The alumni have the greatest responsibility to
reciprocate for the efforts made to nurture and train them to be what and who
they are in today’s global community. As benefactors they have a moral
responsibility to give back to the School that furnished them with a solid educational
foundation. After all, paying back to an
alma mater is not a charity but a blessing.
The existing
alumni associations need to bring in driven and innovative alumni members The
focus of the role expected of the Association Members is to create strong
members of the Queen Sheba School Alumni movement who will continue to participate
in the development of their alma mater by ensuring financial support, assisting
in defining priorities, and implementing projects needed for the sustained
development of their earlier school. In short, the existing committees of the
alumni associations need to be restructured to represent a broad range of
interests and skills. No single good idea should go untapped. They need to be a
spirited group of alumni who are dedicated to and knowledgeable about the
School. In addition, as stakeholders, every participant has to be encouraged to
bring a variety of visions of the school’s future to the table and has to be
ready to engage in productive debate.
At
this juncture, I would like to commend and salute the Seattle Chapter of Queen
Sheba Alumni for initiating the tenth anniversary events in Seattle, Washington,
from July 2 to 4, 2010. I have no doubt
that it will be a landmark annual celebration of our great Association. I am very optimistic that at the end of the
occasion meaningful suggestions will be offered to move our Association and the
Queen Sheba School forward. To make the annual anniversary educationally
instructive and build caring and generous alumni, it needs
to be emphasized once more that under
their stewardship, the existing Alumni Association Chapters a) need to build a
sense of ownership among members in order to maintain their attachment to the Queen
Sheba School in the future, b) to instill
a strong sense of commitment in all members of our beloved the Queen Sheba School,
and c) to bind alumni to each other in
order to maintain academic and fraternal relationships with the Queen Sheba
School administrators, faculty, and
staff members.