Talk about a blast from the past! I noticed a few weeks ago @GenerationSUNY’s twitter feed talking about the SUNY report card being presented by Chancellor Zimpher and that reminded me about @ub_alumni. It’s a curious condition I’m in. I work for WMU’s Development and Alumni Relations department and here I am talking to my alma mater’s Alumni department. The things I’ve learned here at Western, things I never thought I’d actively use in pleasant conversation all of a sudden are now directly relevant.

So of course the nice people who staff the @ub_alumni account gave me a link to their Alumni connect website. This is exceptionally comic since the system I tried to get into is the same, at least thematically, that we are attempting to bring to WMU alums right here and now. So on I go. I know a few things, mostly my UB Person Number, when your grades are in a list and it’s sorted by this number, you know it. It’s a number that’s as with-me as my Social Security Number is. And I dimly remember my username that used to be on UB’s computer system, which as I remember was a Solaris Unix system. Ah, the geeky stuff you remember. And then I made contact with @ub_alumni on Twitter. They helped me remember my password to the UB Connect site and once I got in I remembered that many many months, maybe even years, yikes, I got a letter in the mail from UB offering UBMail, their email account they offered all alums through Google. This letter, as I remember, came hot on the heels of WMU’s decision to either go with Merit’s hosted Zimbra infrastructure or to go with Google’s infrastructure for email services for higher ed. There was something very deeply satisfying to know that my alma mater elected to go with Google, and that my arguments for Google and against Zimbra were at least backed up by my alma mater’s choice. I remember laughing heartily because my alma mater is nearly the same size, at least when it comes to students, as WMU is. Golly, if it works for Buffalo, maybe it’d work for Western?!? Bah, it’s all water under the bridge.

This left-field connection did get me to wander around SUNY Buffalo’s website, and I even looked at the Giving site and YES, I did think about giving. Before anyone gets all hot and bothered, I’ve given the last two times UB’s Annual Fund called me, my basic $35 donation, so keep your knickers on people. Jeesh. 🙂 But while I was looking at the site my mind started to wander and then I started to remember. At first it was funny odd little stories, things about South Campus, about the goofy city trolley that didn’t go all the way to North Campus because the rich, well-heeled slobs in Amherst couldn’t stand the idea of poor homeless people taking a trolley from the city up into their palatial bedroom community and reminding them about how hard life is, especially in Buffalo. Other memories too, from my house that I rented on Stockbridge Ave in Buffalo, with the people who I lived with, and regretted, it’s one of the few decisions that I made that was honestly really bad. And then the sillier stuff. Like being too drunk to drive, rather too drunk to walk even, and taking a cab from somewhere in the Red Jacket Quadrangle in Legoland all the way back to Clement Hall on South Campus and telling the cabbie that I didn’t have any cash. Then discovering that I had over $40 in quarters in my jeans pocket. That I couldn’t remember that little fact or the giant bulge of coinage in my pocket while the upset cabbie drove away was a memory that did stand out, and still does to this day. I also remember my classes, the halls, and as I continued to let my mind wander I realized just how much fun I had at UB. I met some of my best friends there, and at least one I still am friends with to this day. We met when I was 18, and now I’m almost 36. Oddly enough the funny memories are really quite embarrassing really. Like the rude knowledge of what the LGBT SA offices couch must have witnessed, to how many power tools were confiscated out of that office. Ahem. That sort of thing really stays with you. At least I can say that none of those drills, jigs, or saws were mine. And if you were wondering why such things were contraband, you are too pure and innocent to read any further. 🙂

After I graduated from UB I eventually ended up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and working for Western Michigan University. I couldn’t help but compare the two. One had a covered walkway system from one hall all the way across campus to the other end that kept you out of the weather. The other did not. Now that I look back, one of the smallest things that someone can remember really sticks out. Not having to trudge through a downpour or a blizzard as you walked the Spine really dwells quite prominently in my memory. But as much as WMU has foibles and shortcomings, at least both schools had some rather lame similarities. As you approach UB’s North Campus you see Cook and Hochstetter Halls, they look big and bold and grand and then… the rest of the campus. The two Universities look very much alike. Squat little brick buildings, most starting to age rather poorly. The one thing I do remember quite clearly, and why this sticks out does humor me, is that the chairs at UB were really really good. The chairs at Western are actually impossible to use, at least some of them in the very oldest of our buildings. It’s funny how the little things stick out in your memory like big sore thumbs.

So after I cleared up from my walk down memory lane I tried my hand at the UBMail thing again. That was just as impenetrable as it was the first time I tried to get into it, it’s one thing that UB really didn’t make easy, especially for alums who were out of contact for a good long while and forgot bits like usernames and passwords to student accounts the student didn’t think they’d ever need again. But all is not lost, I was able to contact the UB IT Help Desk and asked for a password reset. I have to admit to feeling quite awkward calling CIT’s Help Desk, only because contacting our own OIT is a fools errand and contacting the Help Desk here isn’t something that is done, really, ever. Oh well, what the hell, so I called the CIT Help Desk at my alma mater and talked to a nice fellow who asked me to scan and email some photo ID verifying my identity and to call back in half an hour. That was fine, and I was impressed, at least they knew what to ask for and used the phonetic alphabet when it was relevant. I wonder if the people who got my email at buffalo.edu notice the wmich.edu address. Yeah yeah yeah, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 🙂 One thing I did notice was that the music on-hold was promotional material for UB and was designed to make you feel proud to have attended UB. Again I can’t help but compare…

All that’s old is new again. Maybe some day when I head back east to visit family in CNY I might make a stop or two on South Campus and North Campus and do a little wandering around. See what UB has done to itself in the intervening years that I’ve been away. Once I get free of my obligations, I’ll likely start giving to UB, at least more than the $35 hush-money I currently give them. *shrug* This is how it happens. Alums graduate and think nothing of where they came from until years and years later and all the good or funny things stick out in your memory while all the unpleasantness is forgotten. You get caught up in so much of those memories that you start to romanticize those memories, and before you know it, you’re writing $2000 checks to your alma mater without giving it a single thought. Huh.