Enhancing Our Brotherhood
(This article originally appeared in the Belen Jesuit Magazine, winter 2019 edition.)
Former Belen teacher Carlos Bravo ’86 had certain goals in mind when applying to be the Belen Alumni Association’s next executive director, a position formerly held by Mariano Loret de Mola ‘58 for six years. Bravo knew the only way to take the Association to the next level was to work towards a revamped alumni website, where the main priority is building meaningful connection with the school and the brotherhood. The wait is over.
The new BConnected alumni website will debut in the first quarter of 2019. The URL will remain www.belenalumni.org but the overall look and functionality of the website is completely new. This evolution of belenalumni.org was put in motion by a committee created by the alumni board consisting of IT professionals like Javier Mariscal ‘86, Peter Montadas ‘76 and Jose “Pep” Lopez-Varela ‘87, BITS (Belen IT Section) chairman, working in conjunction with Director of Advancement and Alumni Relations Phil Fernandez ‘94, Director of Technology Carol Vila, Director of Communications Teresa Martinez and Bravo.
"I came full circle when I was asked to assist the Alumni Association in their selection of software to further enhance the brotherhood and to strengthen the connection to their beloved alma mater," said Vila. "I say this because most of the Association’s leaders had been my students and now I am honored to be working with the fine men who are assisting the school to better serve our alumni."
STAYING CONNECTED
Both Montadas and Mariscal are optimistic that this new site will satisfy the individual needs of our alumni, past and present, to get the most out of what the Association offers all
on one platform.
“With the new platform, Belen alumni with businesses or in large corporations can provide job opportunities specifically to Belen alumni,” said Montadas. It is also good for “college-bound students interested in searching the alumni database to see which alumni attended different schools.”
“Our alumni association was in need of a social meeting place online that was dedicated just for us,” said Mariscal. “We were looking for an online software…that included a feature set that is similar to common social platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter but dedicated to our
association.”
association.”
Antonio “Tony” Castro ’86, president of the Belen Alumni Association, says connections between members of the Association are what will make the new alumni social platform relevant. He is leading the Board in making a strategic effort to increase communication and involvement from members.
“A couple of years ago we amended the by-laws to do away with the [alumni] dues… [because] the most valuable thing…, more than just a hundred bucks which we did before, [is] to stay connected,” he said. “After much thought, we replaced that measure of a member in good standing with a new one: ‘Members in good standing are responsible for maintaining and annually updating their contact information and profile with the alumni office.’”
The new website will make that process easier and more efficient, says Castro. He wants to encourage all alumni to keep their information as current as possible as a way to pay back the great effort that the committee and the board have made to create the new site.
Teresa Martinez, Belen’s Director of Communications, says the timing of the new alumni platform launch could not be better because she’s seen a huge increase in alumni and community member interactions on the Association’s social media accounts.
“The reaction by us reinvigorating the alumni social media has been tremendous,” said Martinez. “Just with that alone you can see there was a thirst for information; there were people that wanted to tap into what we’re doing.”
MENTORING
The Alumni Association 2017-2022 Strategic Plan, which seeks to seize “opportunities to improve and promote our brotherhood,” listed “communicate more effectively” as a principal goal. Father Willie made this idea of “Enhancing our Brotherhood” one of the four pillars in his 2017-2018 President’s Report.
The Alumni Association 2017-2022 Strategic Plan, which seeks to seize “opportunities to improve and promote our brotherhood,” listed “communicate more effectively” as a principal goal. Father Willie made this idea of “Enhancing our Brotherhood” one of the four pillars in his 2017-2018 President’s Report.
“Belen Jesuit recognizes that its greatest resource are the alumni. The Association has worked tirelessly to launch a mentoring program where older alumni are paired with younger alumni. Helping promulgate these relationships and introducing alumni to each other in places far away from Miami will not only benefit Belen Jesuit in the long run, but will also have a more immediate benefit for the alumni themselves,” he said in the report.
Lopez-Varela believes this new site is the answer to that 4th pillar—Enhancing Our Brotherhood—and will boost the Association’s efforts to pair alumni to each other in different
ways.
“The site has a very robust mentoring engine that will serve as a great way to match mentors to mentees. It is woven into the platform from registration to ensure we capture those that need help…” he said. “The other enhancements are to connect Alumni by interest, both those related to Belen, like affinity for specific sports like football or cross country, and those unrelated, like folks interested in playing golf, fishing or dominoes.”
It is particularly important for the Association to not lose contact with young alumni and make sure they remain active. In addition to spearheading the creation of the BConnected website, Montadas has led the effort to create LinkedIn profiles for juniors and seniors since 2015, which he views as the best way for current students and alumni to network outside the Belen community.
“Classes of 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 have been enrolled and with the approval and help of Principal Jose E. Roca ‘84, we now have a repeatable process in place and are getting ready for the class of 2019,” he said. “We currently have over 1700 Belen Alumni on LinkedIn, over two times as many as we did before in just the last four years. We had predicted that we could be at over 2000 in five years after rollout so we are still on target.”
Montadas implied that being on one social networking site is not enough nowadays. While LinkedIn is a great platform for growing an external network, it doesn’t check off all the boxes for the Association to stay connected to a rapidly growing membership.
BConnected will help the Association to better address the needs of younger alumni, now the largest demographic of our membership.
“This is a great way to engage since over half our alumni consist now of classes from 2001 on up, which means we have to move forward,” said Bravo. “The site will allow you to play a meaningful role in helping younger alumni with career readiness.”
Castro believes that mentorship is a key way for all alumni to benefit from the Association. “For the younger alumni, there’s a benefit to share in the experience and professional development the older alumni have, whether it’s mentorship or an internship or lo que sea,” he said. “And there’s a tremendous value for the older alumni as well because [of the] satisfaction in being able to pay it forward [when] so many of us have gotten so much from those that came before us whether it be our parents, classmates or older Belen alumni.” Alumni Delegate Rafael Cariello ’15 is hopeful that the new social platform will allow younger alumni to better engage with established alumni in their fields for career advancement. He believes the platform will also help keep his classmates connected to Belen after graduating from college.
“The class of 2015 is a digital class; our communication happens through social media and group chats with our friends, especially since we’re now in our fourth year of college and still all over the country,” he said.
Alumni Delegate Eric Diaz Padron ’13 also agrees that the new site will help alumni stay in contact with each other. “[It] will be a vehicle to make the whole alumni base stronger and more tightly knit by making it easier to group people together by interests regardless of their class,” he said.
INSIGHTFUL AND INTUITIVE
Bravo, Castro and some committee members highlighted some of the innovative features alumni can expect after registering on BConnected, which is powered by Graduway.
Bravo, Castro and some committee members highlighted some of the innovative features alumni can expect after registering on BConnected, which is powered by Graduway.
“From job postings, [interest] groups, to mentoring features, event information, and on and on, the BelenAlumni.org site will deliver a truly enhanced online experience for all alumni,” said Mariscal.
“The new name, BConnected, is meant to inspire Belen grads to get connected with the alumni association and strengthen the connections for those already in the network,” said Bravo. Bravo explained that it will be user-friendly and simple to navigate and find specific alumni. He said alumni will also be able to create events on their own and invite members of their class and members of the different groups they are a part of on the platform.
“If you’re looking for a college for your kids, you can search who went there or who’s there right now so they can tell you about it and help your kid with the application process,” said Castro.
The recurring theme here is staying connected— connected to the school and to each other—and the most effective way of doing that is through a social platform just for Belen where we can stay up to date and interact with members of our Belen community.
Father Willie believes technology plays a key role in enhancing our brotherhood. It allows him to stay in contact with all the alumni the Association recently visited around the country as part of the Alumni Tour to inform them about how much the school has progressed in recent years, create a stronger network, and remind alumni how important it is to give back to their alma mater.
“In the old days, when Fr. Dorta-Duque started the Alumni Association, he did it all with index cards and a landline. Now we have access to digitizing everything, posting things on social media, and spreading the word on events and reunions at the click of a button,” said Fr. Willie. “As an alumnus, I am aware of the guys who graduated with me and maybe a couple of years ahead and a couple of years behind. A program like the new belenalumni.org website will help me know alumni who graduated decades before me or decades after. It completely opens our scope of accessibility to people who share at least one common, unifying factor… Belen.”
Click here to read the PDF version of the winter edition of the magazine.
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.