The PIE: Do you think alumni relations are more developed in the US or in the UK?

GD: For the last 100 years this industry-of-sort for higher education has been building over time. Being a member of an organisation, being a member of a church, being a member of a professional group, being a member of the PTA or you know, being a member of one’s town committee, that kind of thing is engrained in the culture of the United States, people easily join up.

“It’s culturally built into the fabric of the experience”

The alumni relations office has been working tighter and tighter alongside student services, student activities, career services on many campuses. The alumni association is often saying “congratulations” to students when they graduate and are right there during the graduation saying “you are now a member of the alumni association of XYZ college and here is your lifetime ticket to stay involved”.

Its culturally built into the fabric of the experience, and sometimes people choose universities based on reputation and they know that ‘once I become an alum of a particular university I know I am going to have a much easier time trying to find a job’ because of the strong network…

The PIE: Yeah, that’s interesting. I guess in my perspective I have never considered my British university in that context, I have to say.

GD: But British universities are moving into that context. What happens is that, in the United States we have institutions that differentiate themselves based on market forces. They use media, they use advertisements, they use alumni, there are all these different ways to differentiate one school from another.

The PIE: So you see a strong alumni network useful for domestic recruitment as well as international recruitment if it can help build a brand.

GD: Absolutely, there’s no downside.

And strong international alumni relations programmes help internationalise the university experience and internationalise the campus. A student will seek a study abroad opportunity because they know that there’s more than just a new campus, a new city, they know that there’s going to be, ideally, a vibrant network of international alumni who will engage with those students and be part of that experience.

The PIE: Where are your main clients? Is it just the UK and North America or do you have clients in other countries..?

GD: I’ve worked around the world from Finland to Hong Kong and from the United sStates to the UK to Italy and I’ve also worked with the US State Department’s Fulbright Program.

The PIE: At Tufts did you see an increase in international students applying to Tufts as a direct result of your alumni engagement?

“There are over 3000 volunteers, spending time with prospective students”

GD: The answer is yes, and the answer is yes because at Tufts we have a large global group of volunteers who were interviewers for something called the Tufts Alumni Admissions Program. There are over 3000 volunteers around the world, spending time with prospective students, interviewing them and staying in touch with them during their application stage.

We supported international alumni to be volunteers for the admissions office and I also encouraged them to do more community work and to have more programmes for current students, prospective students, the alumni and the family, so we built out stronger networks. In Korea we were doubling and tripling our number of applicants and in Turkey we did the same thing.

The PIE: Did you offer a financial incentive to those alumni?

GD: Our alumni were not at all agents for us; they were volunteers with a pure perception of making sure that prospective students had a realistic and a thorough view of the university. They could provide that in their own perspective but they also wanted the university to have a very good perspective of the candidate and so they would write up character references, complete the forms and send it in.

They were optional interviews, but you know what, I think it really gave the home institution a chance to see the applicant through another person’s eyes.

The PIE: That is really interesting..

GD: The nice thing about this opportunity, is that its time-sensitive. We know that students are applying between October and December and it’s important to the alumni they know that they have a short-term volunteer commitment of a few hours, to do a few different interviews.

“It really gave the home institution a chance to see the applicant through another person’s eyes”

They’re investing in that process, they want the best quality students to be going to the school from which they graduated. That programme was highly coordinated with the alumni relations international strategy and we were able to build out a cadre of brand ambassadors that were able to speak out for the admissions office, and that is one of the ways we were able to increase international student enrolments in general.

I built very valuable relationships with families across the international networks as well because we knew that they were going to speak highly of the universities in their own circles.