The most enduring measure of an institution is not what it says about itself, but who its people become.
Alma Mater
✳︎
Be True To Your School
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Go, Team!
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Homecoming
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Hail! Hail!
Alma Mater ✳︎ Be True To Your School ✳︎ Go, Team! ✳︎ Homecoming ✳︎ Hail! Hail!
What did your college or university give you?
Who did you become there?
What people, places, moments, traditions, opportunities or experiences remain with you—and, looking back now, why does that place still matter?
Love Letters to the Places That Made Us is an institutionally agnostic collection of open letters from alumni about the colleges and universities that helped shape who they became.
These are not institutional testimonials. They are not fundraising appeals. They are personal stories about the places that mattered—and the people we became because we were there.
Higher education is often discussed in terms of cost, outcomes, rankings, politics and institutions. Those conversations matter. But there is another part of the story that can only really be told by the people who lived it.
This project exists to tell that story.
What is a Love Letter?
A Love Letter is an open letter to a college, university or other place of learning that helped make you who you are.
There is no required length or format. A few thoughtful paragraphs can tell a remarkable story; a longer reflection is welcome, too.
You might begin simply:
Dear [Institution],
And then tell the truth about what that place meant to you.
You do not need to write a history of your time there or catalog every accomplishment. Think instead about what remains.
The professor who saw something in you. The friends who changed you. The building you can still picture. The class that redirected your life. The traditions you did not fully appreciate until later. The mistakes you made. The confidence you found. The opportunities you were given. The version of yourself who arrived—and the person who eventually left.
Most importantly, tell us what the place gave you and why you still care.
“Education can change the trajectory of a person’s life in ways that are difficult to see while you are living them.”
Brett Eden, Brigham Young University ‘01
“More than anything, NDSU taught me my own value. It taught me that I can do hard things.”
Madison Quamme, North Dakota State University ‘14
“I came to Utah knowing what I wanted to do. I left with a much better understanding of who I wanted to become.”
Kenneth Scott, University of Utah ‘15
Why Love Letters?
Because institutions are more than their buildings, brands or databases.
Alumni possess something no marketing campaign can manufacture: the ability to say, from lived experience, “This place mattered to me. Here’s why.”
No single institution owns that story. It becomes more powerful when we tell it together.
Love Letters welcomes stories from graduates of community colleges, liberal arts colleges, public universities, private institutions, HBCUs, religious institutions, technical colleges and universities of every size and kind.
This project does not ask us to pretend that every college experience was perfect—or that the institutions we love were or are perfect.
Love can hold complexity.
A place can challenge us, frustrate us and still matter profoundly. An institution can be imperfect and still contain the professor who changed the direction of our life, the friendship that lasted decades, the opportunity we never imagined for ourselves or the experience that helped us discover who we could become.
At a time when higher education is continually asked to demonstrate its value, some of its most meaningful evidence lives in the people who experienced it.
So we are collecting Love Letters.
To the classrooms and residence halls.
To the staff and professors.
To the friendships and traditions.
To the opportunities, mistakes and discoveries.
To the places that challenged us, welcomed us, surprised us and changed us.
To the places that made us.
Share Your Love Letter
1. Write your letter
Write an open letter to the institution that helped shape you. Write in your own voice and tell the story only you can tell. Perfect prose is not the point. Your experience is.
2. Find a few photographs
Choose 3–10 photographs that help tell your story.
They do not need to be beautiful or professionally taken. Old snapshots, dorm-room pictures, campus photos, graduation pictures, photographs with friends, scanned prints and terrible early-digital-camera images are all welcome.
Look for the pictures that make you stop and think: Oh, I remember that.
3. Tell us who you are
Along with your letter and photographs, include:
Your current city/state, profession or another brief identifier, if you would like
Any context that would be helpful for understanding the photographs you submit
Your words and photographs will be thoughtfully presented as part of Love Letters to the Places That Made Us and may be shared through this website and associated social platforms.
Institutions may also be tagged when letters are shared, giving them an opportunity to see, celebrate and join the conversation.