PhD students need better advice about non-academic career options

The point about PhDs having little incentive to stay in contact with departments if they leave academia and vice versa rings true to me. Thinking of my PhD cohort (in history) a few of us stayed in academia, others went into various fields: heritage and museums, libraries/ archives, digital academic publishing, working for European think tanks, education, humanitarian NGOs. Some contact was maintained via supervisors but there was no sustained or systematic contact, when as the author says this could have been mutually beneficial. Granting former PhDs honorary research fellowships (so they can have a university email and access to library) would be a fairly cheap way of maintaining links. Much the same could be said of emeritus/a staff, who are again something of a resource that departments and universities don't really engage with as much as they might do.