Why should Universities engage with their Graduates

have you ever wondered

why your university sends you a glossy

magazine every year

or why they invite you to swanky events

or these days to zoom round tables

you probably think it’s because they

only want your money

well i’m here today to dispel that myth

over the last 20 years i’ve worked at

five different universities

and each of them has maintained that

they value their relationship with their

graduates

regardless of their intention to give

and yet i’ve spoken to countless alumni

for whom that rhetoric just doesn’t ring

true

and i suspect that part of the reason

for that is because alumni relations

professionals

people like me aren’t always entirely

clear

about why we’re doing it alumni

relations is not

all about fundraising and yet there are

so many ways

in which we would love our graduates to

give the dictionary definition of a

relationship

is the way in which two or more things

are connected

and so by definition alumni have a

relationship to their university

in the way that the ocean has a

relationship to the beach

and yet alumni relations should be more

than that more personal

like the bond with a childhood friend

whose great grandchildren you have every

intention of knowing

now if we think about the relationships

we have that we hope will last a

lifetime

i dare say there are a lot of

similarities

they’re the relationships that we

entered into willingly

even if one person did caught the other

slightly more to start with

and they’re the kind of relationships

that are sustained by a shared vision

shared value couples goals

now universities do invest in alumni

relations

in part for the altruistic benefit of

sharing knowledge with society

and maintaining connections to all those

that we educated

but in a world of finite resources it’s

fair to assume that the university is

doing it for a reason

and what that reason is i’ll come to in

a moment but universities wouldn’t be

doing it at all

if we didn’t think that alumni would

respond to our advances

so what is it that alumni want

take the young alumna i worked with more

than a decade ago on an advisory board

who now holds public office she was

motivated by a strong sense of civic

duty

and a desire to give back to the

university that she felt

had transformed her life chances

focused on her future she wanted to

build her network and make connections

to people already in public life

and serving on the advisory board

allowed her to do just that

watching her hold her own in her early

20s with lords and ladies

captains of industry and household

celebrities

i’m not at all surprised when i see her

on tv now at how well she’s doing

and i’m glad her university was able to

help her achieve that

or take the serial entrepreneur who’s

made his millions but finds time every

year

to judge the university’s dragon’s den

contest

he gets a real buzz from working with

young people

but more than that he wants to play a

part in building an entrepreneurial

ecosystem on his home turf

which should mean that young people no

longer need to up sticks and move to the

usa

as he himself did in order to have those

opportunities

he believes that a partnership with the

university is the best way to do that

or take the alumni in malaysia who for

decades

have been running public speaking and

essay writing contests

in local high schools in the name of

their university

they want to raise aspirations and

demonstrate the benefits of an

english-speaking education

along the way they’ve made friendships

business connections

and welcomed countless generations of

students back to malaysia

universities have hundreds of thousands

of graduates

and there are as many possible reasons

for connecting as there are graduates

which brings me back to the truth that

many in my profession

are uncomfortable to acknowledge alumni

relations

is not about treating all graduates

equally it is

about treating all graduates well and

then prioritizing those alumni

that want to build a relationship with

their university

about finding a sweet spot between what

alumni want

what the university needs and what

resources there are

to support this so

what is it that universities want

well they’re facing very similar

challenges right now

financial sustainability global

geopolitics

widening participation student

satisfaction demonstrating the impact of

research climate change

the list goes on and alumni can

and will help with all of those things

if only universities are clear about

what they need

and systematic about how they take

advantage of those offers of support

take the australian university for

example that realizes

realized they needed to do something to

transform their student experience

so they worked with literally thousands

of their graduates

to create a mentoring program to give

those students access to a money comp

network of people ahead of them in their

careers

or take the university in the republic

of ireland that set about connecting

local alumni in the business community

to students from economically and

socially disadvantaged backgrounds

in order to introduce them to the alien

concept

of workplace norms

neither of those programs appeal to the

entire alumni community

in the same way that you wouldn’t expect

every one of your friends

to like every one of your facebook posts

but what they both did

was identify things that alumni cared

about and match them with things that

the university needed

and was able to support

now the thing about alumni relations is

that you don’t see the benefits quickly

you certainly won’t see them on the

first date when a student attends an

open day

and you won’t see them at the engagement

party on the first day of the first term

of first year

you won’t even see them at the wedding

ceremony on graduation day

am i stretching this relationship

metaphor too far

i don’t think i am because as with all

good long-lasting relationships the

point of alumni relations

is that that it needs investment and

time and commitment

from both parties in order to realize

its full potential

i firmly believe that alumni are the

greatest untapped resource of our

universities

and i think we should be confident to

ask our graduates to support us

and i think that we should be confident

to admit that although we are proud and

supportive of all those that we educated

we do place a special value on and owe a

desk of gratitude to

those alumni who choose to be in a

relationship with us

who choose to give us their time talents

and treasures

to support our missions

alumni relations is different things at

different times to different people

but at its core the point of alumni

relations

is to engage our graduates with purpose

in advancing the mission

of our institutions so the next time you

receive the alumni magazine

or an e-bulletin and you think i could

help with that

don’t be a stranger get in touch and

let’s see what we can achieve together

thank you