alumni futures

Your School: A Flatland for Students

You may be familiar with Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions by 19th century author Edwin Abbott. Flatland is a two-dimensional land populated by polygons, and the story satirizes Victorian England's hierarchical social structure. Of equal interest to many readers is the book's clear articulation of the mathematical ideas behind different dimensions.

The narrator, named A Square, sees A Sphere (a visitor from a three-dimensional place called Spaceland) move through Flatland. But A Square doesn't recognize the visitor as a sphere, because he has no knowledge of the three-dimensional world the sphere inhabits. From A Square's vantage point as a flat observer, the sphere passing through the plane he inhabits looks like a single point that grows into a line. It then shrinks to a point again before disappearing magically (click the illustration from the book to view full size). A three-dimensional object is unrecognizable, and is beyond comprehension to a two-dimensional being. But if he could be lifted up above the plane he inhabits, A Square would see the relationship between the sphere and the plane. 

I think that A Square's plight is analogous to that of many current undergraduate students when they interact with alumni. The students' perceptions are limited in time and space by the very nature of their experience; when an older, experienced alumnus passes through the student's world, context limits their ability to recognize the graduate for what he or she really is: a rich resource, a person with experience and insight that the student could use, if only the student could rise above the Flatland of the insulated student environment and gaze upon it from Spaceland.

Students who thrive in "real world" situations are those who rise up and seek a three-dimensional look at the world outside their campus. This isn't a criticism of students, nor is it applicable to all undergraduates. But as I chatted about Flatland with a colleague recently, it occurred to me that Edwin Abbott's ordering of the various dimensions could be compared to the relative amount of time students and alumni have spent in the wider world. Experience away from campus and from traditional student life expands the viewer's awareness of the world and provides depth that allows him to recognize and understand unfamiliar people and things.

Is this too much of a stretch? Does the analogy make sense?

Related: In July 2008 I asked "do science students really learn science" - or something more?


Illustration from chapter 16 of Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott. In the public domain. Find the book in a library near you using WorldCat.

Time for Minary: Alumni Education in October

Once again the one and only conference focusing on alumni education and alumni lifelong learning is ready to convene. And there is time for you to sign up.

The friendly group convenes October 11 to 14, 2009 at beautiful Fallen Leaf Lake in Northern California. Registration is open until Monday, September 28 (in a few days!) so plan to join the group and make great connections with peers while enjoying stimulating conversation, interesting presentations and one of the most beautiful meeting locations in the U.S.

Conference details are here:

    Minary Conference 2009 Web Site

And here's the Agenda and Schedule:

    Minary Conference 2009 Agenda

The organizers expect some last minute sign ups, so the attendee list will be updated soon with the latest registrations.

Meanwhile you can contact the lead organizers with any questions:

Becky Zrimsek
Director, Carleton College Alumni Affairs
[email protected]
800/729-2586 or 507/222-4206

and

Kevin Conley
Director, Cavalier Travels
University of Virginia
[email protected]

Here's my write up of last year's announcement, with a little more description:

Minary 2008

Search for all Minary-related content via Alumni Futures

Photo of the boat dock at the Conference Center by Andrew Fitzhugh via Creative Commons.

We Should Learn About Network Science

 

Last week I spoke at two events in Europe. First, Illuminate Consulting Group (I'm on their academic advisory board) and the Chronicle of Higher Education teamed up to deliver a day-long seminar for senior university leaders from the UK, Australia, Canada and other countries. Imperial College London hosted the program, titled How the Global Economic Crisis is Shaping Competitiveness Ten Years Out: International Recruiting, Research and Relationships.

 

Second, with Illuminate's founder, Dan Guhr, I spoke at the annual meeting of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) in Madrid. I first spoke at that meeting in 2007. The topic this time was technology's role in changing international student recruiting and alumni relations.

 

 

The presentations generated thoughtful discussion and useful insights (for me, anyway). Here's a brief general treatment of one specific idea for readers of Alumni Futures. 

 

It's Time We Learned About Network Science

Both meetings last week consisted of multiple presentations stitched together by a single thread: how networks behave. Many of the discussions were built almost entirely on the idea of the many networks that hold together the educational disciplines: alumni networks, student networks, academic networks, research networks, business or professional networks – and of course, social networks.

 

This theme occurs more and more frequently in our professions, and that's one reason I write about it here. But mostly, I think it can help us be more effective at maintaining a useful role in the lives of alumni. (I also just think it's interesting.)

 

But only one of the presenters I heard explicitly acknowledged that we were talking about the formal aspect of how members of networks behave, influence each other, and relate. Of course, for decades (centuries, I suppose) we have known that we belong to networks – families, companies, towns, sororities, sports teams, graduating classes, political parties, religious groups, and more. But only recently have the structure, behavior and characteristics of networks under different conditions become a systematic scientific pursuit.

 

The mathematics behind network science is beyond me (which won't surprise anyone familiar with my academic achievements in that field). However, there is a wealth of accessible literature that explains in understandable ways what we do know about networks, and it is past the time for fundraising and other advancement professionals to learn about the simple ideas that underpin network science. Learning about scale-free networks, power law distributions, Metcalfe's and Reed's Laws, and more has completely changed my understanding of what alumni and student networks are, and what their members can do with them.

 

We constantly talk about "the alumni network" but I don't think we have a very good idea what a network really is, how it works, what its potential value is, and how networks evolve. Even common sense observations seem to be beyond some (otherwise sensible) people's ability to understand. For example, people often blame the network when they don't get results – in a job search, a business deal, or a simple referral. I've heard this from people who had recently joined LinkedIn, expecting job offers to appear with no effort on their part. One speaker in London said, "Networks don't fail. Network members fail." With a few specific exceptions, I think this is generally true.

 

Below are links to some general resources that you can use to get started thinking about networks. If you have your own favorite sources of information on this topic, or constructive criticism of the ones I've listed, please share links or citations in the comments.

• Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
• How to Build Your Network by Brian Uzzi (Harvard Business Review)
• Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan Watts

In future postings I'll mention a few other ideas I absorbed at last week's interesting meetings. And I'll also talk about what might influence the success or failure of alumni networks in particular.

 

 

Photo from the EAIE meeting in Madrid by Andy Shaindlin, all rights reserved.

Educational Travel Conference 2010: Rhode Island, USA

If you work – or want to work – on educational travel programs for your educational organization, you should know about the annual Educational Travel Conference (ETC). Now in its 24th year, the 2010 installment will take place from 3 February to 6 February in Providence, Rhode Island (USA).

The early registration fee of $595 for travel planners (such as alumni association staff members) includes "most meals," according to the organizers. That fee applies to those booking their lodging for the conference at its official hotel: the Westin in Providence. And the hotel rate is discounted too: $119 single or double, per night.

And with budget constraints in mind, ETC is offering up to $100 savings on successive registrations from one institution.

Registration will be available very soon (during September), so keep an eye on the web site:

Educational Travel Conference, 2010

And sign up early. The early registration deadline is 9 December, 2009 (savings of $30 on registration). The discounted hotel rate of $119 at the Westin in Providence will be available until the ETC block sells out (typically by November).

Mini Overview of Conference Content:

• Three session tracks: strategy, operations, and marketing.
• Agenda spanning social networking to consumer and marketing trends to innovative programming.
• New sessions (including pre- and post-conference workshops) on topics from creative marketing to strategic planning, to hands on workshops to e-mail and web marketing.
• Part I of ETC’s curriculum on the fundamentals of mitigating risk and vetting safety issues for your travel programs.
• Post-conference time to recap the best take-home ideas and develop an immediate action plan with travel planners like yourself.

If you haven't attended ETC, then you should also know that there are always interesting outings that get you away from the conference hall and hotel. For example, Providence's unique Waterfire program is on tap for ETC 2010.

A personal note: I lived in Rhode Island for 12 years, including seven years in Providence. It has a ton of history, an incredible art museum, interesting architecture, and excellent Italian food. And Pastiche, the best dessert and pastry bakery in New England (if not the country). For the curious traveler, Providence is worth the visit.

Meanwhile - for specific questions, you can email ETC's organizers at [email protected]. See you there.

Alumni Villains, Real and Imagined

Bear with me for a minute. This post will take us in a couple of different directions, one serious, one not so serious.

The serious part is an admonition:

Monitor your institutional brand online to the greatest extent possible.

In the past few months I have posted alumni-related comments from Twitter, and it would actually be easy to fill an entire blog with nothing but examples of people making comments about their alma mater or fellow alumni on Twitter.

I'm resisting that temptation, but I still have to share this one. I saw this on Twitter a few weeks ago and for some reason, saved it:

Later the same day I saw yet another tweet referencing high school alumni. It used the word "infamous" and here's what I saw when I clicked the embedded Wikipedia link:

Something tells me that Kevin, the "Youtube Comedy Star" listed here, may have had a hand in editing his high school's list of notable alumni. Nonetheless, it just illustrates that keeping an eye on institutional references is a good idea.

Meanwhile (here comes the less serious part), a blog called io9 follows all things science fiction-related. And a posting this weekend asked the important question, "What are the top schools when it comes to producing super-villains?"

...it's time for students to turn their thoughts back to school and classes. But what if your area of study is supervillainy? We look at the top schools for aspiring supervillains.

You may have your own schools to add to their list of 15 institutions of evil learning (which includes DC Comics' Legion Superhero Academy, whose grads created an alumni affinity group known as the Legion of Supervillains). But I laughed when I saw one commenter's almost-too-easy suggestions for expanding the list:

"Yale? Harvard?"

Survey: Benchmarking Alumni and Parent Relations

[Updated 2 September: Please answer questions 3 and 4, even if your own campus has more than 1,000 undergrads! Survey will remain open til further notice.]

If you work in U.S. higher education, in alumni relations or parent programming, will you please help with a modest benchmarking project I'm conducting for a small college?

This brief unscientific survey will ask for your opinion about 

• who has the best small college alumni programs, and 
• the pros and cons of combining or separating alumni programs and parent programs.

Click to access the quick four question survey

Thanks very much.