Director of Alumni & Donor Relations

From the Director of Alumni & Donor Relations

The Webb Connection

BY LEXUS BEAMAN ’08, DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI & DONOR RELATIONS

Last year I had the privilege of standing next to my best friend as she said “I do” to her now husband. At their reception I told the story of how we became friends, better known as The Bagel Story. It was our freshman year at Webb in Jones dormitory and the story involved bunk beds, late night hunger, lots of laughs, and – you guessed it – a bagel. Since that night, we’ve been through college on opposite coasts, relationship ups and downs, many jobs, and countless moves. Through it all, the one thing that was constant was our friendship.

Since joining the Alumni Office staff at Webb, I have met dozens of alumni who have shared very similar stories with me, albeit without a bagel. Through these conversations, we share a common understanding of how those experiences shaped our lives and still affect us to this day. I can meet an alum from any decade, and we instantly understand and feel a kinship with one another. This immediate bond is better known as the “Webb Connection.”

It is the Webb Connection that binds us together as a community. It begins to form while you are a student, going through day-to-day life together, sharing meals and helping each other learn. It continues to build with those who you may not have shared time with as students but who you met later through events or chance encounters. It forms in the smallest of moments, in what may seem insignificant at the time, but becomes the lasting story you share at a wedding 17 years later.

The Webb Connection was on full display at our latest alumni event in Los Angeles. Alumni from eight decades were in attendance, from our most recent graduating class of 2022 to a gentleman who

I can meet an alum from any decade, and we instantly understand and feel a kinship with one another.

graduated in 1951. It was wonderful to see alumni sharing their Webb experiences with each other, finding common ground even though they were on campus decades apart. For example, an alumnus from the 2000s wanted to learn about the current sports program so he asked the recent 2022 graduates, sparking a lively conversation about athletics at Webb. Another alumnus from the 1960s told stories from “back in my day” to alumni from the 2010s who asked what was the same and different in those years.

Some of my favorite Webb Connection stories occur in the most unlikely of places. Stories have been shared where an alum sees a person wearing a Webb shirt or jacket in an airport or foreign country, thousands of miles from Claremont, and asks if they attended Webb. Instantly, a connection forms. Nothing else drew these people together, except Webb.

This connection has also helped alumni network with others in their field and gain internships and full-time employment. When an alum sees an applicant has attended Webb, they know this person leads with distinction and acts with honor and moral courage, without ever having met them. It’s the Webb Connection that gives alumni a professional advantage.

The Webb Connection is what brings classmates and friends back together each year at Alumni Weekend. Whether you’ve seen someone recently or not since you graduated five, ten, or even fifty years ago, you pick up where you left off like no time has passed. It keeps you reminiscing all day before dancing the night away to some of your favorite high school jams.

In my role as Director of Alumni & Donor Relations, I hope to foster the Webb Connection within the alumni and greater Webb communities, so it grows stronger with each graduating class. I invite each of you to find new Webb connections and strengthen existing ones.

• Text a friend just to say hello. • Reach out to a classmate you haven’t spoken to in a while to reconnect.

• Offer to be a mentor to young alumni just starting out in the workforce.

• Introduce yourself to someone wearing a Webb shirt no matter where you are. • Attend a Webb event and strike up a conversation with an alum from another era.

You never know what small encounter or occurrence will turn into the story you tell for years to come. Together, we can – we will –make the Webb Connection the strongest it can be.