June Gudeman

Bradley, When it comes to deciding on 'benefits' for our graduates, we need to think like an alumni. What would be a benefit to me? It might even be a worthwhile activity to poll some of your grads and find out what they view as a 'benefit'. In this economy any offers in the area of career services would be an obvious plus to offer your grads. June Gudeman

Bradley, This is a challenge for every institution. I think you have chosen a couple of really good places to start and areas that lend themselves to clear outcomes. June Gudeman

Kathryn, Great! Glad to hear you have some specific people in mind to add to your board! June Gudeman

Kathryn, This sounds like a great starter event! June Gudeman

Kathryn, It sounds like you have some good direction for your situation and have thought through what it might look like for you to have an alumni program. I certainly agree that it is good to decide the 'direction' of your program before you begin. It might be helpful to include some of your graduates, staff, administration, even current students, to come together and help you with that process. This group might even turn out to be your future advisory board? June Gudeman

Suellen, I like your creative solution to the financial obstacle of creating a dedicated website. Wordpress has some incredible components that would give you an opportunity to including many services that would benefit your grads, as well as a place to share your success stories. June Gudeman

Suellen, It sounds like you've clearly thought through your process of including a variety of advisory board members. It's good to gather members from a variety of areas of interest. I'm curious why you'd want to include graduates who haven't graduated to offer advise on services to offer graduates? June Gudeman

Bradley, Great thoughts! I would agree your alumni mission statement should have a connection to your institution's statement. You have an interesting point about the school possibly needing to adjust their mission statement to reflect your new alumni organization. I hadn't thought about that before. June Gudeman

Debbie, Are there other benefits you could offer your alumni? Do you offer, for example, free refresher courses? Could you provide free Transcript Request services or do your offer Career Services after graduation? June Gudeman

Gail, How will you provide opportunities for your alumni to provide referrals and how will you keep track of those numbers? June Gudeman