WSU Alumni Membership

The WSU Alumni Association is the oldest and largest support organization for Wichita State University. Founded in 1913, the alumni association is the network through which the university and its alumni communicate with and serve one another.

The primary intent of the partnership between the association and the university is to ensure the continued excellence of Wichita State. But this serious mission certainly doesn't mean the association isn't serious about fun, too. Scores of exciting Shocker opportunities to participate in programs and events geared for fun prove this point every season. 

Membership dues help support the following enterprises:

Alumni Records

Alumni records are at the heart of all association and many university programs, projects, publications and events. In short, alumni records bring – and keep – Shockers together. Staff members working in the association's Alumni Information Center maintain an incredible 9,570,000 fields of information within a vast computer database, track address information on 110,000 alumni and are responsible for more than 25,000 biographical files that preserve news releases and articles, correspondence and photographs of alumni, faculty and notable university friends.

Alumni Magazine

Alumni publications keep news and information flowing throughout the Shocker community. The association's magazine, The Shocker, is the only university publication that annually reaches all WSU alumni. With its mission of "celebrating the life of the mind and those who seek to enrich it by sharing stories about WSU and its alumni, faculty and of the university as a whole and examines issues of interest in the Wichita State community. The magazine is mailed three times a year to association members.

Shocker Groups

Alumni chapters and professional societies serve as the backbone for alumni support of Wichita State. Group involvement offers many ways to maintain constructive ties with WSU. The specific purposes and goals of alumni clubs are as diverse as their geographical settings or professional specialties. Yet each group shares the common objectives of strengthening ties and building loyalty among alumni, faculty and staff, students and university friends through programs such as alumni recognition and scholarship development. The association also supports student groups at WSU such as the Student Ambassador Society.

Shocker Events

From the association's annual alumni-recognition gala to for-fun-only activities that run the gamut from fifty-year reunion activities to Shocker baseball pavilion parties, there's truly an event for every member of the Shocker community. Favorite events are the Shocker Auction Party (which typically attracts the most attendees), the annual golf tournament, the family-oriented Spring Fling and the baseball cookout on Coleman Hill.

Alumni Awards

Alumni recognition ceremonies are a Shocker tradition. Every year since 1955, WSU and its alumni association have spotlighted the achievements and service of extraordinary alumni, faculty and staff through the WSU Alumni Awards program. Educators, administrators, scientists, artists, soldiers, physicians, entrepreneurs, diplomats, athletes, musicians, writers, corporate executives, philanthropists: all of these and more are represented in the ranks of alumni award honorees.

Shocker Travel

Alumni travel programs help Shockers tour the world. Destinations range from the exotic to the comfortably familiar, from cruising the Caribbean to mountain climbing in Switzerland to exploring the Southwestern charms of Santa Fe.

Shocker Programs

Many traditional university events, such as Welcomefest, Commencement and Spring Open House, are supported by association dollars and volunteers. Two WSU initiatives that rely on alumni participation for their success are the Career Network Experience and the "Drive Your Pride" WSU License Plate Program. Career Network is a for-credit student mentoring program. A joint enterprise of the association and Cooperative Education, the program pairs students with alumni professionals in their fields of study. The license plate program offers alumni the opportunity to sport WuShock on their official Kansas tags and support student scholarships at the same time. The tag program pours thousands of dollars into WSU's general scholarship fund each year.

Career Services

The association -- along with project partners Wichita State, Sedgwick County, the City of Wichita, The Wichita Eagle and the Wichita Chamber of Commerce – has helped create the Wichita Network, which promotes Wichita as an affordable and vibrant place to visit, live, work and learn. The network's flagship is Career Central, which brings together for job hunters a variety of career development resources. One key aspect is the association's Career Network, a job search engine designed to connect alumni with jobs in the Wichita area. The Career Network's resources are free and open to everyone.

Heart of the Matter

For all the concrete programs and projects the association initiates and sponsors in support of higher education at Wichita State, the true measure of this alumni association lies in the collective power of its individual members – their thoughts and actions. In a very real sense, every single student, every educator and every supporter whose life paths brought them to the university atop Fairmount Hill are WSU and its alumni association. As former English professor Geraldine Hammond '31 explains: "Institutions do not actually exist in themselves but are only abstractions of whatever the people in them at any given moment do and are; and all the continuity or meaning institutions can ever have is whatever is recorded and remembered of what the people in them did and were while they were there." WSU's rich past  stands guardian to its future, while the association chronicles, with pride, our present.

Won't you join us?

For more information on membership, please contact the Alumni Association, (888) 316-ALUM, (316) 978-3290.