Open Roundtable Discussion<\/strong><\/h3>\nManaging and scaling engagement initiatives<\/strong><\/p>\nHow to manage something like the Lincoln initiative above (including a level of personalized partnership matching support) with high numbers of constituents? Can this be achieved with less staff time requirement? Aluminati is actively exploring how this would scale and will report back to the attendees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHow best to communicate with \/ engage final year students?<\/strong><\/p>\nSome teams have limited communications to students, e.g. only one email six months prior to graduation. These were some of the ideas and strategies that institutions were considering to help with increasing these for better engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n\n- Focus on developing channel with student reps, unions and faculty leads<\/span><\/li>\n
- Partnership with the Careers services<\/span><\/li>\n
- Asking alumni chapter leaders to record a 30-second video and send to leavers to \u2018welcome\u2019 them to the alumni community<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The group discussed the merits of \u2018flipping\u2019 the model of engagement on the platform: <\/strong><\/p>\nIn this model, students request help and alumni approach them rather than the status quo of vice versa. These are the merits considered:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- Makes the alum feel that they are proactively helping and empowered, and reduces the issue of keen alumni volunteers not being contacted<\/span><\/li>\n
- Gives students the opportunity to decide who to connect with, and stops programme feeling over-managed<\/span><\/li>\n
- This could overcome some other issues, like students lack of proactivity or social anxiety<\/span><\/li>\n
- Volunteering can be a two-way street – students can support older alumni that may be quite isolated<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
It emerged teams are now taking more time to review their platform and online projects, as it is now a key way to build community and maintain engagement.<\/strong><\/p>\nThere was a focus on final year students and how to transition them into the alumni community smoothly, without physical graduation ceremonies and how to manage expectations in times of crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n\n- One institution is looking at doing digital ceremonies, whilst another did mentor matchmaking sessions online<\/span><\/li>\n
- For delayed graduation, the word \u201cPostponed\u201d is used to avoid huge disappointment across the student population<\/span><\/li>\n
- Create online alumni committees to plan videos and welcome initiatives for recent graduates<\/span><\/li>\n
- Another institution had the idea of getting students online to create own motorboard & gowns<\/span><\/li>\n
- A Vice-Chancellor is facilitating health professional graduations so they can join the pandemic effort<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Who is a key influencer in your institution that may now support digital engagement projects due to the circumstances? Who wields the power?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- An example cited, Financial Director\u2019s concern about falling admission<\/span><\/li>\n
- However, attendees generally did not report noticing any significant shift in influence due to the pandemic.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Session Feedback<\/h3>\n
This was a friendly, relaxed virtual roundtable of engagement professionals. All attendees confirmed they had found it useful and were keen to have dates set for future events. Aluminati will shortly be sending invites to the next two roundtable events. If you want to be kept in the loop please join our Community Builders network below.<\/p>\n
\nAluminati’s COVID-19 Support Packages<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nAluminati have created two initiatives to support the short term emergency response requirements of the education sector:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nStudent Admissions Retentions Platform: <\/span> https:\/\/www.aluminati.net\/offer-holder-solution\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
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