​Summaries
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Session 0 – The Why
Why Alumni are important for HEIs?
Pedro Dominguinhos, Polytechnic of Setúbal, Portugal
Anita Straujuma, Riga Technical University, Latvia
Corey Morris, Aarhus University, Denmark
As we develop and grow our alumni relations programs, we first need to understand and define WHY we engage our alumni. Furthermore we also need to clarify WHY our programs are relevant to our alumni as well as to our colleagues in the schools and other departments within our institutions. The panel discussion will provide participants the opportunity to view different perspectives on WHY alumni relations is relevant to our institutions.
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Session 1 – Launch
Essentials for creating an effective alumni office
Claire Kilner, University of Manchester, UK
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Launch of International Alumni Programme
Barbro Kolbjørnsrud, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
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Alumni relations is a people-powered industry and very few institutions have enough alumni relations staff to service all of the programmes we’d like to offer. It’s normal to have an ambitious ‘wish list’ but also have a small team (maybe as small as one person!) and limited resources.
Claire and Barbro will draw on their experience of working in alumni departments in the UK and Norway to highlight strategic approaches to creating and developing a successful alumni office and launching an international alumni programme.
This session will explore some of the basics of alumni relations, what the essentials are in delivering an effective domestic and international alumni relations programme and what a good alumni relations team looks like in starter, growth and mature stages. We’ll also be looking at how collaboration can boost your programmes without increasing your resource needs.
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Session 2 – Locate & Communicate
Engagement through technology
Polly Akhurst, United World Colleges International Office, UK
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Online networking platforms are becoming increasingly popular tools for engaging alumni. Yet introducing a networking platform can be a daunting task, and ensuring that you launch a platform that engages your alumni successfully is a whole other matter. In this session, Polly will tell the story of the development and launch of the UWC Hub, a web and mobile platform that aims to connect a UWC's community of 60,000 alumni around the world. Polly’s presentation will contain insights and recommendations on gaining institutional buy-in, assessing alumni needs, finding the right vendor and adapting the product to fit your alumni demographic.
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Teele Arak, University of Tartu, Estonia
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Since higher education institutions are becoming to understand that alumni are their ambassadors and free marketing tools the ways of building a tight-knit and loyal community is becoming a key to success in all communication aspects. Teele will introduce the alumni platform of the University of Tartu that aims to build an online community of 70 000 UT alumni. University of Tartu stands out as the only university in Estonia that produces 99% of all Estonian doctors, 90% of all lawyers and 100% of Estonian judges. This means that the alumni brand is very strong, it just needs innovative ideas and a great platform for technical support. Building your community often means meeting people where they are, as opposed to expecting them to come to you. Teele will introduce the launching process of the UT alumni platform, the most difficult tasks surrounding the first year of its functioning and how to engage the alumni in a two-way communication that benefits both counterparts.
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Session 3 - Engagement I
‘Stop thinking, start feeling’ when it comes to engagement
Richard Gillingwater, Independent Brand and Engagement Consultant, Oxford, UK
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Richard’s opening talk on day two is designed to Inspire and Inform but, most of all, to get us all out of our heads and more aware of our Feelings! Engagement isn’t just about the number of emails, events, newsletters or websites we produce. Richard says, 'it’s about how we make people feel through these separate and collective moments of contact that really count. It’s about creating deeper ‘emotional’ bonds between your organisation and people. Bonds that mean people will give more of their time, money and support.' He will look to inspire us all by sharing how, in the world of brands, organisations are getting their customers to ‘fall in love’ with who they are and what they stand for. He will share insights and models to understand our subconscious motivations and what makes us want to give more of ourselves to organisations. And he will get us tapping deeper into our feelings, to find practical steps that mean we can be more aware of our own emotions and the impact our engagement activities are having on our stakeholders.
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Session 4 – Engagement II
Engaging alumni: at home and abroad
Corey Morris, Aarhus University, Denmark
Leasa Weimer, European Association for Int. Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
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Understanding the fundamentals of alumni engagement requires the ability to not only grasp the big picture but also appreciate the challenges and opportunities that go along with putting an engagement plan into action. Against the backdrop of “why” we should engage our alumni, Corey and Leasa will explore the “how” of engaging alumni and demonstrate through practical examples how this can be achieved with alumni at home and abroad. During this interactive session, you’ll have the chance to to reflect on your own institutional needs, share with likeminded colleagues and return home with actionable ideas ready to be explored.
After this session, you will:
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Understand the strategic significance of alumni engagement
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Appreciate the holistic nature of alumni engagement
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Learn how to engage alumni abroad
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Session 5 – The Ask
Fundraising
Fernando Soares, Nova School of Business & Economics, Portugal
The idea of this session is to discuss who we can move from strategy to action in a fund raising strategy (perspective from a global business school, based in Portugal).
Examples of topics to be discussed:
• The ask - the importance of building a story
• The role of alumni representatives
• Events and Comunication
• Tools and systems
• Engaging internal & external stakeholders and regular school activities
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Mentoring
Lina Slavickaite, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
​Mentorship is an important modern way of education, which proved to be very efficient and useful for personal and business development in the ancient times. Nowadays many world's universities have established mentorship programmes that are used for education of quick thinking in a broader framework, transfer of acquired knowledge or facilitation of integration in the new academic, social, and cultural environment. In different countries these programmes function on a different principle, have a different title and different types of mentors, however their purpose is almost identical – development of young people. A person, who has a mentor, is able to adapt more quickly and successfully, to reach higher achievements and to not repeat the same mistakes.
Mentorship programme is active at Kaunas University of Technology since 2014. This novelty provides students with a possibility to have their own personal teacher and authority, who appreciates the student’s achievements, who listens to the student, gives advice, teaches the student to study more efficiently, to think critically and creatively, develops capacities that are necessary for a career.
Session 6 – Recognize & Nurture
How do we recognize Alumni?
In this, the last session before the feedback and summary session, we will create a 30 minute interactive opportunity for our panel and attendees to share and discuss how they have recognized and nutured their communities. Each panel member will bring their own unique perspective and real life experiences so we can all reflect upon our approach to this critical stage in alumni development.
The panel will be:
Anita Straujuma, Riga Technical University, Latvia
Diana Aguiar Vieira, Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal
John Arboleda, Noyo, Spain
Sandra Rincón, Emojiee, Netherlands
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