Alumni e-Networks:
Using Technology to Engage Net Generation Alumni
by Holly Peterson
If I want to find my college or study abroad classmates, what do I do? I don’t call them or write them letters. I log into my email, type their names (not their email addresses—the technology does that for me) into the address line of a [blank] email message and send it off. Usually it’s less than four lines, and often it includes a smiley ☺ somewhere in the message. Does this mean I have less meaningful, in-depth conversation with my friends than if I wrote them a letter or called them? Maybe. But it means that I keep in touch with friends I would have long lost were it not for the ease of communication. And I’m not even a member of the millennium generation. (Peterson and Roberts 2006, ¶1)
As educators and their institutions ponder the effect of technology on their ability to teach the Net Generation, they must also examine how technology changes the ways in which they interact with other constituents, including alumni. This article examines one organization’s use of technology to reach alumni by presenting a case study of how World Learning is strengthening alumni relationships via Web-based technologies. These efforts have been especially targeted towards younger, Net Generation alumni, whom the organization had the hardest time engaging. These are new alumni, almost all of whom are under 25, who use Internet technologies frequently, if not invariably, for communication.
NASSP 2008 Annual Convention & Exposition
This September over 800 alumni, parents, friends and students will join across the United States and London to do community service as part of The College of Wooster’s Scots in Service — National Volunteer Day.College of Wooster alumni from coast to coast proudly displayed their school colors and their volunteer spirit in 26 cities across the country at the seventh annual Scots in Service Day. From Atlanta to Minneapolis and Boston to San Francisco, more than 800 Wooster graduates turned out to participate in a wide range of community-service projects.
ENCOURAGING YOUNG ALUMNI TO STAY INVOLVED at Wartburg College (Iowa) has presented a thorny challenge for Todd Coleman. Coleman, the school’s director of alumni and parent programs, would love to see recent graduates take advantage of all the school has to offer them, but many of the approaches used for older alums aren’t relevant to the younger generation. “They don’t want to sit down for long dinners and listen to speeches. They don’t want propaganda thrown at them, and they don’t have the time to take off for golf outings or other events,” he says.