Tony Hulman

BYU-Idaho hoping for thousands of alumni to mentor their students

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• published: 13 Nov 2010
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REXBURG - BYU-Idaho has contacted 73-thousand alumni in attempts to "link students and alumni for good." It's part of their mentoring program that hopes to place students into internships and jobs. While we spoke to the university about it's new program, we learned some interesting information. For starters, the most common job alumni take? Home maker. About half of the students that graduate from BYU-Idaho will end up serving a higher cause than business as they start families. "The biggest job for our alumni is homemaker. I would guess over 50% are stay at home moms. Other than that, they're all across the spectrum from presidents of companies to vice presidents," said Steve Davis, the Alumni Director for BYU-Idaho. That wide spectrum of experience is what the university is hoping to take advantage of in helping current students by signing alumni up as mentors. "It's all about networking. The discovery project is ongoing. Our goal would be to have 1000s of alumni serving as mentors. They understand the spirit of Ricks and that legacy of caring. If they can open a door for a student or provide an internship or provide a connection that would lead to a job or an internship, then that's the spirit of Ricks," said Davis. Davis says the launch of this program will exclusively help BYU-Idaho students compete in an ever competitive business world. There are a total of 165-thousand students that have graduated from BYU-Idaho. And they end up all over the world. But half end up in either Idaho and Utah. Two other states to get between 9 and 11-thousand alum each are California and Washington. Utah 41,932 Idaho 41,886 California 10,691 Washington 9,154 Davis says many of those alums are highly successful business men and women, and that's why they want to connect students to alums in hopes of building up the next generation through internships and mentoring.