Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/124472
make sure farflung alumni still feel that close connection. "Today about 35 percent of our students and 30 percent of our faculty are from outside the U.S.," says Danos. "When they come here, they all have the same basic experience, so we want them to have the same basic experience after they graduate, even if they move far away." Danos personally helps maintain that connection by traveling frequently to cities where alumni congregate. This spring, for instance, he was scheduled to appear at alumni events in D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Munich, and Zurich within a few weeks. The school has also set up regional advisory boards—one in Europe and one in Latin America— designed to strengthen relations with alumni and aid in recruiting new students. The school plans to launch a new regional board in Asia this year. Similarly, INSEAD makes an effort to reach widely scattered alumni by planning events in various cities around the world. Not only does this allow alumni to connect with each other regionally, it allows them to meet across generations, which many find appealing, says Shoveller. She adds, "Our intent is to offer a suite of activities, so alumni can have reunions that are regionally based, reunions that are class-based, and other networking events. Providing that multidimensional interaction has been very successful." New Metrics, New Goals While business schools must constantly come up with fresh ideas to make connections with alumni, it's clear that they also have to devise ways to measure how success38 May/June 2013 BizEd As burgeoning social media outlets make it easier for alumni to stay in touch independently of their alma maters, every alumni relations office must re-examine its raison d'etre. ful they've been at making those connections. Thus, more alumni relations departments are becoming more analytical, even fanatical, about tracking alumni engagement. For instance, Monaghan wants to know who's gone to a dinner, who's written a check, and who's mentored a student—and how those activities have led to higher student recruitment and more job offers. "I'm trying to paint the whole picture," he says. "Ultimately, like any organization, we have to be able to show the return the institution is getting on what we're doing." To this end, he tracks attendees at all of the school's approximately 100 annual events and cross-references them against the alumni database. "This allows us to see how many attendees were young alums—gradu- ates from the last ten years—and how many were from different regions or colleges. Our year-end goals list not only overall engagement, but young alumni engagement, as they are the future." Rode also spends a lot of time pondering ROI. She says, "One thing we're thinking about is, what defines engagement? Are alumni engaged if they come to a reunion? If they visit campus once every five years? If they go to one event in their home cities but never come back to campus?" While she considers LinkedIn an "amazing vehicle" for helping the school stay in touch with alums, it also provides a way for classmates to keep in touch with each other without Wharton's intermediation. "I have 70 independent alumni clubs that are holding events and communicating with my alumni, and sometimes I don't even know about it," Rode says. "So we could have alumni who never come to campus, and who hire five Wharton graduates every year, and they feel very connected—but we don't know about them. I would love to figure out how to capture that data." As burgeoning social media outlets make it easier for alumni to stay in touch independently of their alma maters, every alumni relations office must re-examine its raison d'etre. Monaghan thinks that's a good thing. "All of us are asking ourselves, 'What's our value? What do we bring to the table?'" he says. "We're forced to be more creative in our programming and really provide value to our alumni. We're forced to focus on what's in it for them. We're forced to be better at what we do."