Mar 27

Written by: Myra Norton
3/27/2008 9:06 AM

This week I have the privilege of serving as part of the faculty for a conference on Alumni Affinity Groups. The conference is run by Academic Impressions, and is really more of a hands-on working session for alumni relations and development professionals. Yesterday was the first day, and we had a very fruitful morning session on rethinking alumni social networks. We talked about the misconception that social networks = Facebook or MySpace; and that the reality is that social networks are about human relationships that form for a variety of reasons. Facebook, MySpace and other online social networking sites are tools alumni may use to connect; but they do not define the social networks among them.

One of the points we’re continuing to hammer on is the importance of asking alumni about the people who are most important to them – the connections they cherish from their time at your institution. So often, we identify alumni leadership by default – selecting those who volunteer or those who are most visible to the institution. This approach leads to overuse of the same alumni in multiple capacities, and doesn’t foster growth in alumni participation and engagement with the institution.

Brenda Morris, from Baylor University, shared some of the great work she and her team are doing at Baylor to grow the Baylor Network, a wonderful set of alumni affinity groups led by alumni and supported by the institution. Wayne Cozart, from the University of Virginia; and Jeff Schantz, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, are fellow faculty with Brenda and me. I look forward to learning more today about Wayne’s programs for alumni that have grown out of student organizations and Jeff’s programs for alumni volunteer training.

The talented alumni relations and development professionals participating in this conference developed great strategies for building alumni affinity group programming; and I am excited to see them put these into practice!

Tags: