TU/e wants to give graduates an alumni gift that says ‘proud to be from TU/e’, says Ingrid de Kort of the Communications Expertise Center (CEC). The new gift will replace the well-known baby blue fleece scarf graduates received until only recently. 

Designer and TU/e graduate Fiona van de Geijn developed three concepts, of which the tube received the best feedback by both a brainstorm team and the Advisory Council for TU/e alumni. It’s a steel tube with a powder coating in two colors: ‘TU/e red’ for the slash, and black for the stand, which can be considered either the shadow of the red tube or a tie. A small box containing the rolled diploma (or a copy) fits inside the slash.

According to communications consultant De Kort, it’s always a challenge to come up with a gift that appeals to all. “Some people care about a gift more than others, anyway. There may be people who’d prefer the scarf over this tube, but we believe this gift does justice to being an alumnus.”

For this year, TU/e has ordered 1,250 of the diploma gift (at fifteen euros a piece). Some three hundred master graduates and PDEngs who graduates in the last months of 2014 will also receive the new gift. Since the university was out of the blue scarves and didn’t feel like ordering new ones, these graduates received a voucher for the new alumni keepsake.