The bond of alumni to their alma mater—Latin for “nourishing mother”—is for life, a connection of learning and loyalty that extends, perennially refreshed, far beyond graduation.
Universities have long depended on loyal graduates to support initiatives—scholarships, faculty positions, research, buildings and programs—through philanthropy. Alumni make their networks available to our students for internships, job placements and mentorships, sharing their success with succeeding classes. They are ambassadors for their alma mater in professional and personal circles, living out its values, elevating society, helping recruit top students and building outside partnerships with valuable academic and economic impact.
Alumni-engaging activities are woven deeply into the fabric of college life: homecoming, reunions, regional gatherings and other social celebrations that took root in a simpler time before dynamic changes that accelerate demands on career, individual and family life, and time and resource allocation. Universities can expand their engagement by supporting alumni in the challenges they face with professional, personal and purposeful initiatives.
With its over 215-year history, Miami University has long engaged its alumni. We know what our alumni can do for us. It’s time we ask what we can do for them. Here, we share some innovative ways we engage our alumni network through professional, personal and purposeful interactions that other higher education institutions might find helpful.
Professional: Learning New Skills from the Old School
Some of our alumni graduated at a time when a degree meant they had acquired the body of knowledge and expertise they would need for success throughout their careers. They might work for one company for decades and retire with considerable achievement—often the point when they became more interested in giving back to their alma mater that equipped them so well. Such slow, incremental change has given way to ever-accelerating creative destruction, overwhelming information stores, artificial intelligence and other unheard-of technologies, and global 24/7 connectivity. In that environment, leaders and employees need agile, entrepreneurial, transdisciplinary mindsets and a host of skills they may not have imagined when they were in school.
The universities that taught them in the first place can continue to meet their educational needs across their career. During the pandemic, when our alumni provided heroic financial and personal support for their alma mater and students, we created an online MiniMBA microcredential program. We provided it to alumni for free as a thank-you for their loyalty and generosity. The program equipped them with an important dimension of business knowledge that is helpful no matter their field—finance, management and other skills applied to any profession. They were still learning from their alma mater without having to travel to campus or pay any tuition. The offering was so well received that we added microcredentials in inclusive excellence, writing and other targeted skills. The university gained a new way to connect practically and meaningfully with our graduates. The alumni gained valuable skills, and many added the certificate badges to their LinkedIn profiles.
Personal: Learning Shared Across Generations
Just as the modern dynamic world has rapidly changed career paths, it has complicated personal connections because extended families are less likely to stay geographically close. Children and grandchildren today more often live across the country or worldwide. Communications technology and social media help them keep in touch at a distance, but in-person opportunities can be difficult to arrange. Many alumni—parents and grandparents—hope their descendants will follow a family tradition of attending their alma mater.
We created a win-win situation by providing both personal and family connections and connections to the university at once. Grandparents College brings together children ages eight to 12 on campus with their grandparents or another older relative for a three-day academic and residential adventure. They stay in a residence hall, eat in the dining hall and attend classes together in STEM, arts and culture or liberal arts and other small- and large-group activities. The memorable intergenerational event strengthens family bonds, shares elders’ wisdom and role-modeling and young people’s technological and social savvy, and it stimulates joy, emotional support and healthy aging. Alumni not only revive memories of their own college experience but get to see the campus through the fresh eyes of their grandchildren. Grandparent College ends with a graduation-style ceremony where grandparents enjoy a preview of their grandchildren perhaps someday graduating from their alma mater—a rich legacy. They develop a habit of learning and growing together.
Purposeful: Learning Empowered by Connection for Life
The college experience is a rich combination of classrooms, labs, socializing, recreation, meaningful discussion, dining hall and dorm room conversations, clubs and a full life shared with others. It is an education beyond grades, degrees and diplomas, a foundation for future success based on habits of curiosity, critical thinking, humility, clear communication and welcoming others who are different. Alumni value it, as they see what a rare opportunity it provides for personal and intellectual exploration in a supportive community of different ideas and common humanity. Where else can they live such a life in the modern world?
Alumni engagement typically reflects one or more of these dimensions of college life: homecoming for sports, reunions for socializing, etc. Some universities add online opportunities, so alumni can enjoy topical lectures by faculty and alumni experts—the academic dimension—in their own homes. We have also created an annual Love and Honor Weekend, named for our values and principles expressed in our habitual Miami greeting, that combines a broader swath of those elements—faculty lectures, experiential learning in a particular location, and networking as well as socializing and celebrating. We bring together alumni, faculty, parents, prospective students and friends from across the country and around the world to a different city each year for connection and personalized exploration. For example, the 2024 event in Nashville included museum tours, a whiskey tasting, culinary experiences, country music and a lecture by a renowned professor of music. Such a setting invites the kind of spontaneous, serendipitous interaction once enjoyed in the dining hall or dorm room, the meaningful connection that sometimes seems lost in the modern world.
We have experimented with many ways to engage alumni in person, and we find this more integrated approach resonates well with the alumni network. The trifecta of a location rich with experiential learning opportunities, faculty lectures that bring the campus to them and engagement with colleagues that builds solidarity echoes the environment where they flourished as students. It affirms the university’s values and renews connection with each other and their alma mater.
We have learned that we can do for our alumni what we have been doing for them since they first set foot on campus as students. We can provide them with the academic tools and expertise they need to thrive in the modern workplace. We can help them build close personal relationships through shared living and learning experiences. We can foster an environment with abundant connections, growth, friendship and solidarity opportunities. We can strengthen the bond between alma mater and alumni at the foundation of our mutual flourishing.
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