AUS NAVAL commander an Atlantic yachtsman and an explorer following in the footsteps of Shackleton are among the readership for the new worldwide magazine for UCD graduates, which was launched in Dublin last week.

UCD Connections, 40,000 copies of which will be distributed to UCD alumni in the coming weeks, is the latest effort by the university to stay in touch with its estimated 80,000 to 90,000 graduates worldwide. The magazine will be published twice yearly.

Among those readers will be Kevin Maloney, who attended- the US Navy officer school- after graduating with a BA in 1978. He became a commanding officer in the US Navy and is currently working in the Bureau of Naval Personnel.

Someone who may have to wait for a while before settling down with slippers and a pipe to read UCD Connections is John Bourke, a BE from 1958 who is part of the seven-man Antarctic expedition team tracing the footsteps of Shackleton's 1915 rescue of 22 companions from Elephant Island.

Similarly engaged is Cormac McHenry, a BE from 1959, who crossed the North Atlantic singlehanded in a 31-foot sailboat last winter and is currently in the Caribbean, having arrived in St Lucia on February 12th with only one orange to his name.

About 55,000 UCD alumni in over 100 countries have been traced since 1987. They include one US naval commander, an English teacher in --a remote village in Malawi and a number of explorers and adventurers.

"Communication is really what it's all about, communication with graduates and especially with those abroad, for whom the Irish mother acts as our GPO," says Fiona Keogh, alumni officer in UCD.

Launching the new publication, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Alan Dukes (BA 1966, MA 1967), remembered the "gourmet meals" served to UCD students in Newman House on St Stephen's Green and recalled- cajoling money from the Athletic Union Council to fund the fencing club.

Dukes described the magazine as a "very fitting addition to the university's contact with its alumni".