The Engagement of Alumni Enhances the Whitman Experience

The support of Orange alumni is critical to the success of career and experiential learning trips. We’ve recently expanded our offerings to include an innovation immersion trip to Silicon Valley. Alumni like Frank McFarland ’94, founding partner of IEQ Capital, have helped make the experience transformational for students.

The list of Whitman alumni entrepreneurs is long and impressive. Our Syracuse Samplings showcase featured some of our many inspirational Orange alumni founders, like KoraLynah Abelard ’15 of Orijin, is one of the most heavily attended events on campus during Orange Central.

This year, we launched the Young Whitman Advisory Council/Goodman Leaders Academy Mentorship Program. Through this program, 20 high-achieving sophomores were paired with accomplished young alumni for one-on-one advice and insights on majors, industries, networking and career preparation.

The 2023 Defense Comptrollership Program reunion was highlighted by a toast to program director, Irma Finocchiaro ’91 MBA (center), Kathleen Miller ’94 MBA (left), Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller for the U.S. Department of Defense, and Diane Randon ’96 MBA, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, U.S. Department of the Army.

We also added Boston to our list of new cities for career trips this year. Boston was one of two trips planned especially for MBA students. The other was NYC. While in Beantown, students visited Reebok, Whoop, EY and Bank of America to learn about several industries and functional areas.

New to our schedule of career exploration excursions this academic year was Washington, D.C. The spring break 2024 trip included a visit to AstraZeneca hosted by Aaron Kroft ’05, ’11 MBA as well as stops at Booz Allen Hamilton, NBCUniversal, Meta and CBRE.