Students in their final year at Saint Vincent face a number of sign-up opportunities – at job fairs, in admissions offices seeking post-graduate interviews, and ultimately, to enroll for commencement exercises.

Now there’s a new one – BearcatsOnline - our new online community and social networking site for current seniors and our 12,000 alums.

Over 525 alums have signed up and we have only completed two days of registration! At the end of last week we began notifying Prep School and College alums (people who received at least 30 Saint Vincent credits and are not current students), alumni of the graduate programs, and current faculty and staff. The response has been fantastic. To avoid overloading the system at the beginning, seniors will be eligible to sign up in early ’09, so they won’t have to wait long.

Here’s the web site’s description of how BearcatsOnline (http://bearcatsonline.stvincent.edu) works:

“Alumni and students will set up an individual profile page, which will include the opportunity to post photographs, link to their Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn member pages, and post blogs on their interests. Alumni will be able to view other members’ photo albums, participate in discussion boards, use online chat and reconnect with their classmates and Saint Vincent.

BearcatsOnline provides alumni with the opportunity to serve as mentors to current seniors. Current seniors are able to contact alumni in all areas of interest to them, such as by careers, geographic location or corporation name. This will be a very helpful tool for seniors as they begin their job search.

Alumni who would like to receive information on BearcatsOnline should contact the Public Relations Office at Saint Vincent College at (724) 805-2010 or email bearcatsonline@stvincent.edu. Alumni will be provided with a unique identification code and instructions to log on to the site.”

I like this exciting new development in the life of Saint Vincent College and her graduates for a number of reasons.

First, the Career Center permits seniors and alums who are looking for a job to post their resume and search for a mentor by geographic location or profession. In my travels across the country to meet with successful graduates, I frequently hear offers to extend the helping hand they once received. BearcastsOnline will allow them to help launch the next Herb Boyer (co-founder of Genentech and former cover boy of Time magazine , Class of 1958) or Herman Dupre (father of artificial snowmaking and former owner of Seven Springs Resort, Class of 1953).

Second, it builds bridges between Saint Vincent alums and wires them together while bringing the College’s alumni outreach into the 21st century.

Third, it allows our alums, Saint Vincent College community, and seniors to post suggestions on the Message Board on how we can improve the College.

I welcome feedback from the Saint Vincent family because without critical review we can become complacent. As we invite your thoughts and commentaries on the direction of the College, I want to make clear that this web site will not permit anonymous postings. Individuals with deep convictions should be secure in their beliefs and stature as a member of the Saint Vincent community and be willing to stand in the light of day, and not in the shadows of dark anonymity, and share an opinion and defend it. One of the problems with anonymous postings is summed up well by T.S. Eliot: “It is…easier to destroy than to construct…” The courage of your convictions should fuel the willingness to put your name behind your opinion – even a controversial one.

In my view, dissent is very healthy for an academic community. The College will not grow into what God wants it to be – a flourishing Catholic, Benedictine liberal arts academy - unless there is a free exchange of ideas and opinions.

As you would expect, BearcatsOnline seeks to extend Benedictine hospitality and welcome to all who enter the electronic portal. In posting comments or material on this site, members of BearcatsOnline can disagree without being disagreeable, and it has been my experience after scores of Saint Vincent gatherings that our alums, faculty members, staff, and seniors will not hesitate to speak their minds – and do so respectfully. Read the “member conduct” section of the “terms and conditions” tab when you log on for the first time (and also the “privacy policy”) for more information. We modeled this language after what is common to other social networking sites and made sure it reflected our Benedictine ideals.

This new era in communications owes to the hard work of a lot of people at Saint Vincent. Thanks to the leadership of Fr. Paul Taylor and Eddie Dejthai and in particular, the excellent work of Joan Davis in Institutional Advancement and Cindy Hoffman in Information Services, BearcastsOnline is already a success - and we haven’t even begun to promote it.

You can get there directly or link from the College’s web site.

Please be patient as we work out any kinks in this new system. We had 30 of our most active alums from all decades of the College test the system – they loved it. They searched the online directory, checked out the class photographs that are posted, and built their own personal pages. “Instant notes” were sent from day one and we expect this feature to be particularly popular.

Seniors, stay tuned. Your sign-up day fast approaches! Alumni, faculty and staff of Saint Vincent College: select your username and password and join the fun!