The basic aim of this blog is to help anyone who wants to set up and run a WordPress blog for graduates. It is intended to be a resource for those involved in alumni blogging, a place where we can share expertise, opinions, ideas and experience.
So far blogs have been set up for graduates who studied Media Production, Nursing, Public Relations, Psychology and Social Sciences. They are in various stages of development at the moment, but they are all expected to grow rapidly. Continue reading
Sadly, my contract relating to alumni blogging has expired, so in theory this blog is redundant too. However, you don’t get rid of me that easily! I’m now working on the University’s new Public Engagement blog with David Sleight, Dean of Public Engagement. So far it has been an eye-opener for me; I just hadn’t realised how much public engagement goes on, and has been going on since we moved to Lincoln.
Actually one minor point has recently arisen which is possibly relevant to alumni blogs, especially relating to their value as instruments of marketing and recruitment. It’s about the colour you select for your links. The University has four corporate colours which are required as part of its Corporate Branding policy for print and web publications. Two of these, dark blue and grey are classed as “primary colours”, and two others, teal and magenta may be used as “accent colours” – for highlighting mainly.
If you accept the argument that you alumni blog has a marketing value, then it seems quite reasonable to me that we should stick to these colours as much as possible, even if one part of me baulks at restricting our choice on aesthetic grounds.
So, just to illustrate the point I have changed the link clour here to magenta – and I quite like it it, unlike the teal, which to me has a very cold feel to it.
To change your link colour, go to the theme options page on your dashboard and look for [link colour]. You will see a box with some code in it and a small patch of the current colour. Copy the code for either teal or magenta from this page: http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/abouttheuniversity/press/identity/colours/. It’s marked “Hex”, short for hexadecimal. So for instance, the code for this blog is now #CC3366. To activate the change, paste this code into the box and save the new setting.
The LSM in in the process of widening the scope of its alumni blog to include stories generated within the school, without reducing the number or quality of stories by and about alumni, and media industry news, including jobs and internships. Continue reading
I have been asking myself why some schools are finding it difficult to find alumni stories.
In the LSM perseverance has paid off over the years; new stories and contributors still appear and existing contributors send us career updates. Jane Crofts has had similar success with her Public Relations alumni blog. So why are other schools having problems? Continue reading
I came across this rather interesting definition by Keele University of “alumni” which includes graduates, students who did not graduate but completed one semester, and former staff:
“Alumni is a Latin word derived from the verb alere, which means ‘to bring up or to nourish’. The term was used to indicate “one who is nourished by a person who is not a natural parent.” The word also referred to abandoned children, who were sheltered and raised by foster parents. Therefore, alumni are students who have been intellectually nourished at an educational institution outside their usual family circle. In the 17th century the term began to be applied to graduates of a school, college etc. . A male is correctly an alumnus, a female is an alumna and in the plural they can be alumni (males or mixed genders) or alumnae (females).
At Keele, we use the term ‘alumni” to include a wider group including graduates, honorary graduates, staff and students who completed at least one semester of study at Keele – including international and exchange students…… We prefer to use the term alumni instead of graduates, “old boys” or “old girls”, or former students because not all who have been nourished by Keele are graduates and some alumni are former members of staff…. so alumni is the most inclusive term we could find!”
I think we should take the same view, and make it clear on our school alumni blogs. What do you think?
In case you missed the broadcast, the transcript of Professor Mary Beard’s “Point of View” Radio 4 talk last Friday is well worth reading. She questions the current preoccupation in HE with student surveys, both national and local, and suggests:
“………maybe the right time to be asking someone about what they got out of their course at university is not when they are still in it, or as they are just leaving it, but five, 10, 20 years later, when they’ve got some perspective on what difference it made to their lives.”
Just what alumni blogs do? Continue reading