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How Harvard Business School Creates Organic Connections Between Students and Alumni

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If running successful networking events and mentoring programs were as easy as making an introduction over email, the job of alumni relations and career services offices would be pretty simple. But it's vital that the connections we make between students and alumni not feel contrived.

Finding the line between artificial awkwardness and organic openness can be difficult.

Lindsay McConchie and Kathryn Tripp are Harvard Business School's associate and assistant directors of student & young alumni engagement, respectively.

We asked them to give us a preview of their CASE D1 conference panel, "Close Encounters: Creating Organic Connections Between Students and Alumni."

How UMass Lowell and Emerson College Make Alumni Feel Like Family

As we focus more and more on the quantitative aspects of alumni relations, it's important not to let the qualitative facets of our work slip.

Heather Makrez, director of alumni relations at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and Kevin Fleming, director of alumni relations at Emerson College, do some of their best work on the qualitative side of alumni relations.

This week, Makrez and Fleming are chairing a panel at the Case Division I conference in Boston titled, "We are Family: Making Alumni Feel Part of the University Community."

We asked them how they take care of their extended alumni family. 

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How Student Debt Threatens Alumni Engagement, and What You Can Do About It

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Student loan debt is on the rise. We all know that.

How, exactly, the $1.2 trillion in debt held by students and alumni nationally affects alumni engagement—and how to fix it—is more of a mystery.

American Student Assistance is a financial literacy nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of students and alumni with student loan debt. We spoke with Jonathan Sparling, a campus engagement and education consultant for ASA, to find out what increasing student debt means for alumni engagement.

How The Ohio State University Measures Alumni Engagement

Measuring alumni engagement is one of the best things an alumni relations shop can do to help it improve its engagement efforts. It's also one of the hardest.

Just knowing how to measure engagement is half the battle.

The Ohio State University's Director of Advancement Events Samantha Frost presented on the subject at December's CASE District V conference in Chicago. We asked Frost and Joshua Harraman, Ohio State's senior director of alumni and constituent engagement, how OSU uses the Net Promotor Score as a metric to measure engagement and improve its alumni events.

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How Phillips Exeter Academy Engages Young Alumni

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Independent schools face a unique set of challenges when it comes to young alumni engagement.

For one, their alumni graduate four years younger than their post-secondary counterparts'. It takes another four years for independent school graduates to begin giving in an adult capacity.

It is the task of these schools' alumni relations offices to keep alumni engaged in the interim.

We asked Phillips Exeter Academy's Assistant Director of Student and Young Alumni Programs Michelle Curtin to discuss Exeter's strategy for keeping young alumni engaged.

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How Williams Uses Switchboard to Engage Students and Alumni

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It's no surprise that the college with the oldest alumni association in the country should continuously top the list of schools with the highest alumni giving rates.

And we weren't surprised to see the Williams Switchboard flourish as soon as it launched in August 2014.

In the 15 months since then, more than 1,800 Williams students, alumni, staff, and parents have signed up to post more than 900 asks and offers.

The Williams Switchboard has become the go-to place for Ephs of all ages to exchange advice, look for places to stay, and find rides to and from campus for reunions and breaks.

We asked Williams's Assistant Editor & Social Media Specialist Francesca Shanks about Williams's success.

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