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
I have been pretty busy since September. My first job was to get the Psychology alumni blog up and running, working with Leslie Allinson. That was the easy bit; now there’s the slog of finding more graduates and engaging them as active blog contributors.
Social Sciences have experienced problems finding graduates, so recently I had a very useful meeting with Jacqui Briggs, the new Head of School, who is determined to breathe new life into their alumni blog. One immediate outcome is that Dr. Andrew Wallace has agreed to take on the task of finding alumni stories to publish. We have had a couple of meetings and he has wisely decided to concentrate on story leads provided by colleagues.
I have also started working with Michael Blackburn, who is a WordPress blogger himself and teaches on the M.A Creative Writing course. We hope to create a dedicated course blog which will combine several functions, such as course management, alumni / student networking and publication of original work. It’s at the ideas / planning stage just now, but we aim for an early 2013 launch. Continue reading