April 13, 2019
My alumni club is interested in recruiting and keeping
members. Their goals are sort of fuzzy, but they include vetting potential
students, getting together with fellow alumni for kicks, and hosting an
intellectual talk or two just to keep their hand in. I think.
The club holds a yearly event, and would like to plan a
couple more. They are trying to increase interest in membership. I had some
ideas that were listened to politely, and then died, so I’m listing them here, just to get them
out of my system.
At one get-together I met a woman who had been written up in
her local paper for developing an education program. She was understandably pretty
proud of it, and sent me the link to the article. At the next committee
meeting, I suggested that we let people tell us what they’ve accomplished, and
we send out a quarterly e-mail to the local chapter, listing those things. It
would be a great networking tool. And it would make people more interested in
joining, because, really, who doesn’t like to brag?
I also suggested that we do some service projects, as some
people really like them. They are family-oriented, so people could teach their
kids about good citizenship; network with other alumni; and make the school
look good when we sent pictures in to the local paper. So, people who like the
idea of volunteering, and of staying in touch with alumni, would get a two-fer;
and the school would get some recognition and local exposure as well, which is
good for recruitment.
I thought that an outing to a local sculpture park would be a great way to attract alumni with families. It has
art to satisfy the intellectuals in the crowd; it has woods to walk in for
people with kids; you can picnic there; and it’s free, which is nice because
not everybody who graduates from college lands plum jobs with hefty salaries; and
people with families can’t always afford pricey admissions fees. (Alternative destination: Grant’s Farm, because I still
haven’t been there.)
As far as recruiting goes, why not hold an event for kids
your school is recruiting, not just the ones who have applied? Some excellent
students may be afraid to apply because they’re afraid that they wouldn’t fit
into the Ivy League scene. (Although they’re too young for “Law & Order”, I
vividly remember how often Ivy Leaguers were portrayed as almost inhuman snobs;
and what regular kid wants to deal with that sort of grief?)
A service project would be excellent for putting potential
students at ease, because everybody dresses in grubbies, so that would take
away one source of stress. And once the recruits found out that not all Ivy Leaguers
are horrible snobs, they might be more tempted to apply.
So, get a list of recruits from your college’s admissions
department, and invite them to a low-stress encounter. Catch them before
they apply somewhere else.
And that pretty much concludes my Brilliant Ideas for the Alumni Club.
