alumni futures

Keeping an Eye on Facebook's Use of Data

Fred Stutzman recently commented on Facebook's use of data, saying that he happened to see

an accepted manuscript in the Journal of Public Economics entitled The Old Boy (and Girl) Network: Social Network Formation on University Campuses....*

The article used data from Facebook to examine racial segmentation in the social network. Stutzman continues,

All of this made me think back to a post I wrote a few months ago. In it, I documented Facebook saying "we certainly aren't selling your information to ANYONE. That's yours". When I went back to check on this page, I found it missing (though the Internet Archive has versions of the page containing the text). I wonder if this means a policy has changed, or simply if this page was swept up in a redesign. Perhaps I'm the only person who cares.

Stutzman should not be the only person who cares. Maybe there's nothing for us to worry about. But anyone using third party platforms to connect alumni should have a very good idea of what each site's privacy and usage policies allow. And if you have an official group on Facebook, LinkedIn or elsewhere, it is a good idea to link to those sites' privacy policies from your own web site. This provides cautious alumni with an opportunity to preview the external sites' policies before they register - and they won't be able to say they didn't know your site's policies were different from the commercial networks'.

* If you're a staff member on a college campus, you can use your library privileges to retrieve the article online.

Alumni Futures on Inspired Annual Giving

Blogger Dori Sonntag was kind enough to let me talk about collaboration between alumni relations and annual giving. Click the link below to visit her interview with me on her site

Inspired Annual Giving

And while you're on her site, be sure to subscribe, either by email or RSS.

Congratulations to Dori on her first three months of blogging about higher ed advancement.

One Day U Gets Copied: Back to College for a Day

In February and March I wrote about One Day University, a program designed to put the general public in touch with faculty from prominent institutions. A non-credit adult education program, One Day U now has competition: Back to College for a Day.

A local colleague shared some information with me about the program, which is based for now on the West Side of Los Angeles. Every program features lectures by professors from area schools and the program kicks off on October 27, 2007.

Interestingly, College for the Day first recruited speakers from a private college and then offered the alumni office there 10% of revenues from the session. The alumni association is a potentially powerful marketing partner:

• It represents the lecturer's institutional brand, and
• Has direct access to almost all the school's alumni.

Is 10% a fair number to begin a discussion like this? Should Back to College for a Day have talked to the alumni office first, and then recruited the speaker? Or does the company owe the college the courtesy of any contact at all?

The topic of faculty making public presentations for for-profit "back to school" packagers came up a few times at the Minary Conference on Alumni Education earlier this month. I'll post some additional thoughts as a follow up to Minary in the coming days.

Iowa State U. President: Alumni Association Not Really Separate

According to an article in the Des Moines (Iowa, USA) Register, Iowa State U. president Gregory Geoffroy says the Alumni Association there should be subject to the same so-called "sunshine laws" that the public university is. These state laws require transparency with regard to certain activities, such as contractual agreements.

Association President Jeff Johnson, a university employee, disagrees. The question arose when the Register asked the Alumni Association for copies of its contractual agreement with affinity credit card issuer Bank of America. The Association did not comply, but the school's central administration did, sending over to the newspaper its own copies of the same contracts.

The Register closes its article by saying

[President] Geoffroy said he has followed up with alumni association officials to make it clear that he believes the association should follow the open-records law in the future when asked about documents pertaining to university business.

Guess who is likely to get the last word?

Legally, the Association is a separately incorporated not-for-profit corporation, and therefore may be shielded from the sunshine laws. But its employees work for the university, a state-run public organization which is subject to those laws. It sounds like a technical explanation supports the Association in this case. However, the Association exists in order to support the school, and splitting legal hairs seems to violate the spirit of their relationship.

Then there is the whole question of why alumni associations might not want the terms of these agreements made public in the first place.

Meanwhile...Is it just me, or are there more and more stories in the news about alumni organizations  and the law? The increased scrutiny of college administrations in general - especially in financial matters - has dual roots that reach back to Sarbanes-Oxley in one direction, and Andrew Cuomo in the other.

It's time to add a new Category for Alumni Futures postings: "Legal."

Blackwater's Corporate Alumni Association

Embattled U.S. government contractor Blackwater has started an alumni association. [Note: If you allow pop-ups in your browser, this link may launch an automatic download of a PDF file from the Blackwater website. This file is their alumni newsletter.]

The alumni web pages read like those of many corporate alumni groups:

The Blackwater Alumni Association is attempting to reach those who have trained here, those employed here and those who were once employed here and left in good standing....

As the Blackwater Alumni Association grows, you will find programs and opportunities to be involved [sic] including projects of good will and the chance to participate in alumni-exclusive events.

OK. Another employer using good alumni relations practice (and, unfortunately, poor proof-reading) to pursue many of the benefits mentioned in my June posting about corporate alumni relations.

But the next sentence caught me a little off guard - so to speak:

In the near future, an annual Blackwater Alumni Association shooting tournament will be announced, limited to association members.

Given recent media coverage of Blackwater's activities overseas, this struck me as ill-conceived - at best - from a public relations standpoint.

I guess shooting is something many of their contract employees need to know how to do, given their work assignments. But there are an awful lot of other competitions the company could sponsor. It almost makes you long for a golf tournament.

Meanwhile, Blackwater should probably include something about alumni in future issues of its alumni newsletter. [PDF download]

UMass Alumni Association a Target for Boston Globe

Recently the Boston Globe published an article pointing out that at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Alumni Association, membership has been slipping and now stands at 3% (presumably of addressable alumni). The author writes:

The paltry membership pales in comparison to that at most universities across the country and signals a sharp divide between UMass graduates and their alma mater's campaign to further involve them in university life.

He also comments that for a long time the state government supported the institution, and

private fund-raising was not seen as a priority, many graduates say. As a result, the college made only halting efforts to keep graduates involved and alumni drifted away.

This description could fit many public universities. In fact, it's not too different from last Thursday's posting here about community colleges, now turning to alumni relations to support nascent development efforts. But, as I wrote on Thursday, the key to growth for membership associations is to fill alumni needs, with relevant programming that alumni cannot get elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle reports that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick will be requesting $2,000,000,000 for higher education spending. Maybe he can drop some of that on UMass to help beef up alumni outreach.

Special thanks to Rochester's Kevin Wesley for bringing the Globe article to my attention.

Community College Alumni Relations & Development

According to Inside Higher Ed, community colleges are paying more attention to fund raising, which means trying to reconnect with alumni and build relationships. Using Lord Fairfax Community College (in Virginia, USA) as an example, the commentary quotes the college's president, John "Ski" Sygielski:

[W]e never really understood the need [for alumni relations] until fund raising became important. We need to connect with our alums because some who go on to four-year colleges really have nothing to do with their two-year colleges. They forget about us. It’s still a novel concept to raise money for community colleges.

New Hampshire Community Technical College president Steven Budd adds

The fastest growing area in community college development right now is in the alumni affairs area. Alumni programs all over the country are really being beefed up.

Declining state funding means increased reliance on solicitations to alumni, friends and others. This should sound familiar to public university advancement professionals everywhere.

Sygielski points out that

alumni work within community colleges is brand new. That’s what we are just starting to tap into.

The environment for alumni and development work in these two-year schools is similar, in some ways, to that in overseas institutions where education has until recently been government-funded for almost every student. And like overseas schools, American community colleges should think about what alumni need, and which of those needs they can fill most effectively. This will create relevance to alumni, which will allow for relationship-building, which - in time - will enable more effective fundraising.

Judge Orders Alumni Group Reinstated

[Updated October 11, 2007 with link to article about University "emergency" meetings behind closed doors.]

[Updated October 6, 2007 to clarify difference between the original Alumnae Association and the Administration's recently-created Alumni Association. See also reader comment to this effect.]

[Updated October 5, 2007 with link to Inside Higher Ed commentary]

According to the Chronicle, last spring the president of the Mississippi University for Women tried to dissolve the university's Alumnae Association. Now a state judge has ruled that MUW President Claudia A. Limbert acted illegally in severing ties with the group.

The Chronicle explains that the independent association and the university

had been at odds for several months before that action. In March, the alumni group sued Ms. Limbert and the university's governing board, criticizing the president's efforts to control alumni affairs and seeking to block her efforts to dissolve the association.

Ms. Limbert later countersued the alumni group, seeking to block it from using the university's name.

The judge said the president acted in "bad faith;" the president says that now the University has no way to ensure that the association will work to further the school's goals. No university with a legally independent alumni association can guarantee such a thing, and yet almost every one of them manages to accomplish it anyway.

The institution's leadership appears to have let things slip quite far without intervening organizationally - before things led to legal action. It seems clear from older reports on the conflict that the original lawsuit didn't materialize out of the blue.

If the original 118-year old Association really is independent, then it's possible President Limbert did not feel she had anything but legal recourse. On the other hand, she probably wasn't counting on being slapped down in court. Other than an appeal of the countersuit (is that allowed?), what next step might the school's administrators have? How far down the road does their strategy lead?

The original conflict, it seems, stems from concern over declining enrollment. And despite its name, Mississippi University for Women has been co-ed since 1982 - hence the Chronicle's preference for "alumni" over "alumnae."

Re-constituted Association's web site (check out the FAQ)

April 2007 coverage of the original MUW dispute via the Chronicle

2002 item on co-education and the pros and cons of a name change at MUW

[Update:] Inside Higher Ed overview of alumni-trustee governance issues

[Update] Local coverage of closed door meetings at the university

Web 2.0: Just Let It Go

Higher ed web editor/blogger Karine Joly has arranged with CASE* Currents editor Liz Reilly for temporary open access to an article titled Fear and Loathing in Web 2.0. Normally only CASE members have access to online articles, but thanks to Karine and Liz, non-members of CASE can access the article until October 31, 2007.

Author Andrea Jarrell summarizes the content thus:

Letting go isn’t as scary as you think. This feature explores the challenges and opportunities at the heart of the struggle taking place as campuses get on board (or not) with Web 2.0 technologies. What's at issue is not necessarily the technology, but the idea of giving up control of the message.

The article has ideas and observations relevant to those in communications, alumni relations, information technology and even the academic side of the house. Check it out.

Thank you to Karine and Liz for making it available. (And note that Karine is quoted in the article along with higher ed blogger Andrew Careaga - and yours truly.)

*Council for Advancement and Support of Education