June Gudeman

Hi Sharon, Since this particular Advisory Board will function to help you set up an Alumni Program, you may also want to include some of your staff. It may be helpful to include an instructor, a representative from your administration, as well as career services. Basically, you'll want to find people who are passionate about your graduates. June

Hi Dillon, First, there are several content management systems that allow you to build your own website with some pretty cool functionality (Joomla, WordPress, etc). You might be surprised at what you can do on your own with minimal cost. Second, I'd definitely include in your website a place for grads to share their success stories. You can capitalize on those stories in many ways to benefit your institution. Just a couple thoughts, June

Dillon, Career services is the number one draw for grads to come back to their institution. You may want to poll some of your alumni to see what other services may be of interest to them? June

Hi Dillon, Those who volunteer certainly should be the motivated ones. Remember that people like to be asked. So if you can think of a couple individuals that would provide good leadership on your team, ask them first. June

Hello Jeff, I like your thinking - putting actually faces to your institution is really important. We must constantly be thinking about how we can maximize our contact in the community via happy and successful alumni. June

Jeff, This sounds like a great event - drawing in both graduates and employers and giving them an opportunity to connect. Do you have a way to get feedback after the event from both alumni and employers? This will be important in helping you organize future events. They may give you good ideas you hadn't considered. June

Hi Jeff, I encourage you to, not only keep an accurate count of the number of graduates who attend your event, but to think through a plan of how you will be able to measure/track their: - current employement info, - connections with these employers, - future job placements that occur as a direct result of your event. This will give you a concrete ROI. June

Jeff, It appears that you have a pretty clear idea of the direction you want to head and the goals you want to accomplish via your Alumni Association and your mission statement clearly communicates that. Good job! June

Randy, I'm glad to hear your eyes have been opened to all that's involved in setting up an alumni program. There are certainly many barriers that need to be faced and then addressed, but I hope you are also seeing the incredible benefit of developing and maintaining a relationship with your graduates. Our alumni are of GREAT value to our institutions. It sounds like your job will be to sell that to others at your institution. Good Luck! June

Randy, I'd like to encourage you to think as a graduate. What would "benefit" you? Continuing education is a great example. Think beyond that. What, for example, would draw you to an alumni website? What would make you want to be involved in an alumni association? We tend to think of things from the perspective of what would benefit our institution. Our "relationship" with our alumni needs to be a mutually benefiting relationship. June