Alumni Relations

Alumni Association from Scratch: How Bennington Is Building Its 'Alumni Cooperative'

For years, Bennington College operated without a structured alumni association.

Now they have an ambitious and innovative plan to create a new one with the participation and input of their alumni community. They call the association the Bennington Alumni Cooperative, in an homage to the school's foundational ethos. The Cooperative sets an example for all schools working to adapt the structure of their alumni associations to their own culture.

We asked Bennington's Director of Alumni Programs Marie Leahy and Vice President for Institutional Advancement Paige Bartel to tell us more about their ongoing efforts to build the Cooperative. They presented on the subject at the CASE D1 Conference in February.

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Why Elon University Created a Dedicated Position for Alumni Engagement Officers

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Bridging the gap between advancement and alumni relations can be hard—even when one office is asking something of the other.

To solve this problem, Elon University created a unique hybrid position: the Alumni Engagement Officer. Elon has used its AEOs to increase rates of attendance, volunteering, giving, and retention.

We spoke with Tricia Teter, senior alumni engagement officer, and Jill Hollis, coordinator of alumni engagement and special events, to tell us more about the Alumni Engagement Officer position and the strategy behind it. They recently presented on the topic at the CASE Divison III Conference in Nashville.

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How Gill St. Bernard's School Re-Engaged Alumni After Decades of a Changing Identity

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Keeping alumni invested in their alma mater is hard work.

Gill St. Bernard's School, an independent school in Gladstone, New Jersey, had to work even harder to re-engage alumni after a merger and decades of change.

It fell to the school's development and alumni relations teams to make their older alumni feel welcome again. We talked to Chanelle Walker, director of alumni relations, and James Diverio, director of development, about their efforts to honor their alumni's history without losing sight of the future. They recently presented on their work at the CASE NAIS Conference in New York.

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Marquette University has alumni relations down to a science. Here's how they do it.

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Events? They're on top of them. Mentoring program? Enormous success. Measuring engagement? They have a 16-point model for doing just that.

In short, Marquette has it figured out.

We were fortunate enough to have the chance to catch up with Marquette's Engagement Director, Dan DeWeerdt, after he spoke at the CASE V Conference in Chicago back in December.

We asked him about facilitating mentorship, measuring engagement, and revising your strategy along the way.

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St. Paul Academy on Changing Your Alumni Council's Culture

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Alumni boards and councils are integral parts of well-oiled alumni relations machines. They're our liaisons to our communities, and they put in hundreds of hours in volunteer work every year.

But our hopes and dreams for our alumni councils don't always match reality.

St. Paul's Academy and Summit School, an independent school in St. Paul, MN, has revitalized its alumni council in the last few years to bridge that gap. We asked Jen Jung, director of alumni/ae programs, and Jennie Beadle, director of annual giving, about their efforts, which they discussed at their recent CASE NAIS panel, "Culture Change in Your Alumni Council."

"It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are." —Wendell Berry