A new proposal from GUSA leaders hopes to erase a generation gap that exists between present and past Hoyas.

In a bid to fulfill a campaign promise, GUSA President Brian orgenstern (COL ’05) and Vice-President Steve de Man (COL ’04) in conjunction with Sylvia Robinson, MBNA Career Education Center executive director, and Monica Shutte, alumni career services director, have been actively pursuing ways to create a more student-friendly career network that would bring Georgetown students in contact with Georgetown alumni.

“There is some progress being made with regard to increasing student-alumni interaction, and there are some new initiatives concerning student opportunities for jobs and internships,” Morgenstern said.

Robinson said she is optimistic about the opportunities such a network would provide.

“We want to see what alumni can do to help students,” Robinson said. “We’re looking to address that in three ways: by strengthening and enhancing the current system, making it more up to date and creating easier access.”

Morgenstern’s specific plan would be to create an online site where alumni can post job openings specifically for current Georgetown students.

“I believe strongly in a cohesive and well-networked Georgetown community. Students should not only earn a great education here, but also membership in something that is larger than our campus,” Morgenstern said. “I hope to see a network comparable to those of some of our peer institutions, which provide terrific connections so that students and alumni are never without some kind of lead towards a career-oriented opportunity.”

Emphasizing that such a network does not yet exist, Robinson said that they still have not figured out the logistics or feasibility of such a system.

Another network that operates according to the “six degrees of separation” principle is also being investigated. Some schools such as Stanford and the University of Washington have successfully applied this concept to career and internship searches; Yale University and Middlebury College are currently working on similar networks.

Robinson said that while Georgetown is researching a similar system, it is most likely cost prohibitive.

Because of that, no specific dates have been set for completing these projects, but Morgenstern said that he hopes to see an improved online network as early as spring semester.

“Other projects may be on the horizon as well, but ultimately, improving our alumni network is a largely philosophical and long-term goal that I think a lot of Hoyas are working toward,” he said.

The current network, Hoyas Online, consists of around 11,000 alumni and serves more as an information system than as a place where students can find job and internship listings.

Robinson emphasized that while talking with alumni about the fields they work in, students often come across such opportunities, but that is not the specified purpose of the network.

The MBNA Career Center also regularly hosts large companies who come to recruit workers from the Georgetown ranks.

Companies that send recruiters include such varied enterprises as Abercrombie and Fitch, Citigroup, the State Department, Morgan Stanley and the Census Bureau.

According to Robinson, however, all the companies that come are generally large businesses that have a budget substantial enough to support a recruiting staff and can predict future hiring needs.

She said that the current alumni network is better for getting contacts at smaller firms or those with less predictable hiring such as Sony Music or Sotheby’s Auction House.

Robinson also spoke highly of the recently organized Georgetown Entertainment and Media Alliance, which is composed of about 200 Georgetown alumni in the Los Angeles area working in the entertainment and media industry.

GEMA’s honorary board includes distinguished members such as former ABC Entertainment President Anthony Thomopoulous (SFS ’59) and NBC broadcast journalist Maria Shriver (CAS ’77).