Letters from the Presidents
ALUMNI NEWS MAGAZINE | Spring/Summer 2021
As we close an academic year unlike any other, I hope this message finds you well. On behalf of the alumni family, I want to extend a warm welcome and congratulations to the almost 2,000 newly minted UNB graduates who received their alumni pin and joined our ranks at this spring’s Encaenia and Convocation ceremonies.
This summer marks the end of my two-year term as president of UNB’s Associated Alumni. It has truly been an honour to serve in this role and I look forward to continuing to represent your interests on UNB’s Board of Governors. While it has been an unconventional and eventful period due to the pandemic, we adapted to meet the unexpected challenge. Above all, the support and pride of our alumni have remained strong. Despite not having had the opportunity to meet as many of you in person as planned, I am extremely proud of the Associated Alumni’s accomplishments, which have established our strategic position for the future.
I want to highlight a few of these important milestones. We successfully onboarded a new executive director and launched our new strategic plan through to 2025. We introduced monthly e-newsletters and refreshed this Alumni News magazine to continue to celebrate our alumni’s many achievements. We’ve profiled several of them in this changemakers’ issue, including Brent, Krista, Li, Tracey and Victoria. We tailored our professional development and virtual services to our alumni while continuing to provide much needed financial support to UNB students, a group that has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic.
Thank you to our talented and dedicated councillors for their work on these initiatives, along with many others. I also would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the Alumni Office staff who implemented these programs so effectively and produced many successful online events this past year to connect our alumni and students virtually. All of this while having to navigate a new remote work reality of their own.
I’m pleased to welcome two-time UNB graduate Jill Jeffrey (BPE’82, BEd’83) as our incoming president, effective July 1. It has been a pleasure getting to know Jill over the past few years, and I know she will be an excellent leader and supporter of our alumni community. I hope you will have an opportunity to meet her soon.
I’ll leave you with a few thoughts as to why I remain so #ProudlyUNB. UNB has impacted and shaped my life in many profound ways. Not just a seat of higher learning, UNB is a multi-generational community of alumni who, together with the student body, provide the heart and soul of the institution. No matter your age or the year of your class, we share the UNB experience. If you have ever considered giving back to your alma mater through our association as a mentor, volunteer or councillor, I highly encourage you to reach out as it is a very rewarding experience.
A moment that will always stand out to me was attending my parents’ 50th golden grad reunion at Homecoming 2019. It was wonderful to hear their classmates, proudly donned in red and black, recount stories of campus life in the late ’60s and describe the impact UNB has had on them.
I know that we will all savour our next opportunity to connect and reminisce in person. When that can happen safely, I look forward to seeing you there.
Sincerely,
Peter Syroid (BScEng'98, D-TME'98, MBA'03)
UNB Associated Alumni President
