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