Slide 2: Introduction
- Homecomings offer people an opportunity to reconnect with the traditions and the developments of a place they once called home.
- Educational institutions offer great homecoming events that are filled with nostalgic moments. Besides the reconnection with colleagues, the alumni also get to catch up with the latest developments and traditions of their former college.
- Indiana University (IU) celebrates its Homecoming week every fall. The weeklong event features an exciting homecoming parade where alumni clad in the university’s iconic crimson color.
- The event brings together close to 580,000 IU graduates in forums that enable the alumni to support each other, the institution, and the community.
- The university community holds events such as a homecoming parade, a charitable event called the Nearly Naked Mile Clothing Drive, a football match and more than 18 other events.
- The homecoming event creates powerful networks among the alumni by reenergizing events, webinars, fun events, traditions, and scholarship programs.
Slide 3: Video showing the 2014 events
- The YouTube video shows a collection of the events that transpired during the 2014 Homecoming event.
- The video shows is a collection of clips of alumni celebrating in the street parade, the football game, the field events, the barbeques, and the campus streets among other places where the university’s alumni congregated.
Slide 4: Benefits of the Homecoming events to the community
- The Homecoming week promotes tourism in Bloomington and Monroe County. The university collaborates with the Bloomington government (where its largest campus is located) as well as tourism officials and local businesses to create an environment of excitement on the campus and in the community.
- During the homecoming week, visitors spend thousands of dollars in restaurants, hotel rooms, shops, and tourist attraction thereby benefiting the local economy. The money benefits the local economy and opens a chance for the visitors to plan other visits in future.
- The local business community gets a chance to advertise their businesses as they advertise IU’s homecoming events through stickers, posters, coasters, and banners.
- The great interaction between members of the Bloomington community and the IU alumni promotes Boyer’s Principals of College communities.
- Boyer stated that a college should promote openness, justice, discipline, care and celebration in the community
Slide 5: Benefits of the Homecoming events to the community and to alumni
- The parade is a celebration of the university’s heritage and traditions
- IU’s celebration of games, parades and other activities shows its adherence to the Boyer principle of college being a celebrative environment since the major reason why the alumni congregate is to have fun and celebrate being former students of that college.
- Boyer stated that college should be a place where the students and the faculty celebrate. The stakeholders celebrate the heritage of the institution. The students also get to celebrate the traditions as well as the new changes.
- The presentation by IU’s Professor Beth Cate on “voting rights and wrongs” proves that the campus upholds Boyer’s principle of an open community that protects that freedom of expression and affirms the civility of individuals.
- Beth Cate’s talk offered insights on race, redistricting, and the issues surrounding the Voting Rights Act. IU’s acceptance that a speaker can talk to the alumni and all attendants about the country’s voting rights proves that the campus upholds Boyer’s principle of an open community. Boyer noted that a college campus should be a place that protects that freedom of expression and affirms the civility of individuals.
Slide 6: Benefits of the Homecoming events to the community and to alumni
- The Distinguished Alumni Service Award awarded to outstanding alumni in different fields promotes Boyer’s principle of college campuses being purposeful community where students and faculty share academic goals and work harmoniously to strengthen learning and teaching on the campus.
- The visitors to the DeVault Alumni center received a gift at the door during this year’s homecoming thereby proving that Indiana University is a caring community.
- The center, located in the College Administrative Building offers alumni an opportunity to register and obtain briefings on the progress of the institution. In addition, alumni who visit the center get to network with their colleagues. The new alumni can also get leads for jobs and other issues necessary for life after college.
Slide 7: Benefits of the Homecoming week to IU
- Indiana University benefits by creating awareness of its programs to the Bloomington community. According to Ernest Boyer a college campuses should be places where students and faculty share academic goals and work harmoniously to strengthen learning and teaching on the campus. The award schemes that are presented during the Homecoming week go a long way in promoting academic performance by Bloomington and other IU’s campuses
- The institution also supports worthy courses in the community such as clothing the needy through the Nearly Naked Half Mile Event where the students ran through the campus shedding clothing that was donated to the United Way.
- In addition, the institutions offer opportunities for its new graduates to network with older alumni and get jobs and mentorship in varying disciplines.
- The University also strengthens the traditions that set it apart from other institutions and uphold its pride and dignity.
