Just a few months before current Pipers returned, Hamline welcomed back a 2018 alum. In July of 2023, John Stoltz joined the staff as the Associate Director of Alumni and Employer Relations, a new role that emphasizes connecting past, current and future Pipers to possible internships and job opportunities.
Stoltz graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in philosophy. Hamline called to him initially because of the politics, as the campus is only a ten minute drive to the capitol, and being in such close proximity is what captures the interest of political science students. During his time here, he was elected president of Hamline Democrats and was captain of the swim and dive team.
Stoltz’s academic career had not originally begun at Hamline, as he spent the first semester of his first year at UW-Eau Claire. After a rough first semester, Stoltz discovered Hamline through a search for schools with smaller swim programs, and with both this small program where he could find his niche and the politics of the university, this was the clear choice for Stoltz.
As a result of his work with Hamline Democrats, he landed his first internship with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) in 2014. However, after this internship, he realized that this line of work was not for him.
“It’s what I thought I wanted to do early on in college, and about a month into the internship I found out that it is the exact opposite of what I wanted to do,” he said, “It takes a very special kind of person to work doing campaign work, and I definitely was not that.”
After graduating from Hamline, Stoltz went on to get a master’s from Newcastle University in international politics with an emphasis on critical geopolitics. Higher education will not always go the way one would expect it to, and Stoltz’s experience is a clear indication of that.
After figuring out that he wanted to stay out of politics, Stoltz dabbled in plenty of jobs, such as working in Como Park, holding several roles around nonprofits in the Twin Cities and working as a part of the annual giving team at Brown University.
“Go with the flow, take things as they come,” Stoltz said. “If you would have told me my senior year that I would be back in five years as the Associate Director of Alumni Relations, I would have said woah, that is not what I was expecting.”
Thanks to the style of education Hamline provides, Stoltz could embrace the discomfort of the unknown and the reality of the twists and turns of post-graduate life.
“The beauty of a liberal arts education is you get a well-rounded education. So, it is not so cut and dry that you graduate, then you get a specific job, and then you climb up the ladder. It is not a straight path and you kind of have to embrace it,” Stoltz said.
Within Stoltz’s work, he has spent his time making more opportunities for students to connect with alumni and build these valuable connections and relationships: one of the aspects of Hamline that continuously draws him and alumni back to campus. As a result of Hamline’s small student-to-faculty ratio, Pipers are given chances to build bonds with professors that impact careers for years to come.
One particular Hamline professor Stoltz recalls having many memories with is the Department Chair of Sociology, Dr. Ryan LeCount. He and one of his closest friends during his time as an undergraduate took over five classes with LeCount.
(Possible quote from LeCount, I emailed him and am waiting to hear back.).
Hamline has begun to offer more chances to students to interact one-on-one with alums, such as the Etiquette Dinner hosted by the Career Development Center (CDC) last Thursday, March 21. He has also been able to promote other events targeted specifically towards alumni.
One of Hamline’s many Alumni related opportunities is Leo Lectures, an event Stoltz describes as, “A super easy and cool way to keep alumni engaged with the University because it promotes that life-long learning where it’s like when you graduate, it’s not just over unless you really want it to be.”
