Alumni Council Meeting Minutes

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ALUMNI COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Council Members Attending: Jonathan DeLong, Fran Mancia, Laura McHugh, Laura Roenick, Kamyab Sadaghiani, Mary Shirley, Kibibi Springs, and Rebecca Law Stone

Faculty Advisors: Linda Putnam, Karen Myers, Anna Laura Jansma

Call to Order

Linda called the meeting to order. Anna Laura reviewed the plans for the day, including the lunch and Career Day. This year, the biggest challenge in organizing the event was securing the venue. University rules don’t allow departments to reserve classrooms/courtyards until after the start of the quarter. Our usual venue—Phelps—was given to another group. We are optimistic about the new location--HSSB. Anna Laura discussed other changes this year including a green room for the lunch and alumi networking, pro tables (areas of the courtyard designated by industry to enable better networking), and the panels will be a full hour. At about 12:10, Linda will address the group in the green room. She will introduce Fran who will welcome the alumni and talk about the Council to pique their interest in potentially joining. Karen will ask alumni to recognize the donors who have tables at the event. Laura R. will then brief moderators about plans for the panels. The Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences, Melvin Oliver, will address the crowd at 12:45 to open the event.

Updates and General Council Operations

Membership Contributions. Linda indicated that she will accept checks for annual membership contributions. Members also have the option to make the donation online.

Financial Status. Linda gave an update on the Council’s financial status. To date, the Council has in about $13,000 in its account. Contributing to this good financial position is that department’s website redesign was much less than estimated, only about $4,000 rather than $10,000. Linda asked the Council to contribute about $2500 to support Jessica Gasiorek on a summer appointment. She will work on updates for the web site, updates in the Graduate Lab, and other technology functions. The Council approved this request.

Monthly Conference Calls. Because the meeting would be short, Linda suggested the Council jump to the last item on the agenda and discuss the monthly conference calls. The concern is that most conference calls involve only about half of the members. The question is whether conference calls should be scheduled every other month rather than monthly. Committees could convene conference calls as needed. Members were someone mixed in their feeling about whether the conference calls should continue to be held monthly. In the end, several members said that conference calls are not really necessary every month (especially in May and December). For now, the Council will try an every other month schedule, with no call in December. The next conference call will be Wednesday, June 6 at 7:00 a.m.

Branding. Karen talked about the efforts to give the department a consistent image. We are using the department’s logo whenever possible. For example, we are using our logo and the same background on emails to alumni. The Council now has its own letterhead template and members are encouraged to use it whenever they communicate for official Council business. The template was sent to Council members but if you need it again, please contact Karen.

Development

Career Day Donors. Karen reported that we secured 8 participating organizations (sponsors) that made donations to Career Day. Six of those organizations gave $200 each and two were gold-level sponsors contributing $450 each. In total $2,100 was raised, enough to underwrite this year’s Career Day. Karen hopes that from here on, we’ll be able to secure donors each year. Hopefully, some will return each year making sales of the “participations” easier each year.

Development and Partnerships. Karen and Jonathan attended a development workshop given by the Office of Development. The workshop focused on how to “go for the ask,” but it also talked about how you can create initiatives and a story that potential donors will find persuasive. Some donations are essentially loyalty gifts—people give because they feel that they should support the university or department. A potentially more important category of donations are given because people’s passions have been stirred and they want to invest in something that will make them feel good about supporting.

Also as part of his work on the development committee, Jonathan is actively pursuing partnerships with several organizations including Citrix, Lynda.Com, Google, and Deckers. We need to take a cultivation approach-- what we can offer as an exchange? That should start by asking ourselves what do we want to achieve? Many organizations have agendas for giving that are not publicized. We need to promote a variety of programs in our brochure and on our website to attract their interest. (More discussed under Department Brochure.) Perhaps using our alumni connections would be a way to penetrate corporations? Many organizations have employee matching programs.

Jonathan also suggested that he and perhaps others in the Council do not know how to handle “the hand-off.” If they talk to a potential donor who seems like they might be interested, Council members may not know how to proceed next. Linda responded by saying that the Council member should talk to our development officer, Ann Hagan. Ann is the person to get involved at that point.

Alumni Involvement/Giving. Members suggested that we need to work harder to involve recent graduates. We need to stay connected to them and reconnect to ones we’ve lost touch with along the way. We need to connect with them early on while they still have strong social networks with their classmates. They can invite their friends to attend events with them and reconnecting with their classmates will draw them. One way to do this is to be more aggressive with our LinkedIn group. Anna Laura wants to get a professional LinkedIn account that will help her better connect with alumni. We continue to post to our Facebook site. Karen affirms that she will continue to send the “Senior Survey” to graduating seniors this quarter. This is a short survey asking the students for more permanent email addresses, asks them what they would like to receive information about, and tells them we would like to stay connected by sending them notices about events and sending them links to the newsletter. Several members suggested that they don’t fully read emails and we may want to look into texting alumni with quick messages. We also need to look into setting up a Twitter account and using it.

Alumni Database. One of the biggest problems is maintaining an up-to-date alumni database. The one that the Development Office uses (that we use for our email blasts) is not well maintained. When we get new contact information, Karen forwards that information to the Development Office so that they can update their records, but their records aren’t always updated. We don’t have a good system for maintaining our alumni database internally. Members suggested a CRM tracking system might help. It allows us to track prospects. However, but it’s a job to keep it maintained. Could an intern help with this? Not sure because the university has rules indicating that we cannot give students access to alumni contact information. We’re also not allowed to use an external database system.

Connecting at Regional Meetings. Members suggested that we could also look into participating with the UCSB Alumni Association at its regional meetings. Regional meetings attract 30-50 people. Perhaps we can contact alumni before those events to directly invite them?

UCSB Capital Campaign and Department Brochure. UCSB is launching its second phase of the big capital campaign on May 12. The university is encouraging departments to get involved. Part of that effort will involve several regional meetings. Alumni will co-host regional gatherings with UCSB development personnel. One COMM alumni has been slated to co-host an event—David Bork at the San Diego gathering (date not set). To play a part in the capital campaign, we have been encouraged to put together collateral materials that our development officers and David Bork can use in talking to potential donors. Our brochures can be tucked into the larger UCSB capital campaign brochures that will be available at capital campaign events. The brochure also should be put in PDF form and prominently featured on the department’s website.

To evidence the need for a brochure further, Karen recently met with one of our regional development officers—Bethany Innocenti. Bethany agreed that in order for her, Ann or anyone else to effectively talk about our program to donors, we have to have collateral materials. There must be something that the development person can put in the potential donor’s hands. A brochure that gets potential donor excited about investing in our research and student education is an absolute TOP priority.

Karen solicited brochure suggestions from the Council. Members were given: a) a copy of suggestions that the Council members had given during the fall meeting when a considerable amount of time was devoted to discussion of the brochure, b) a copy of the text that was a result of that meeting and those suggestions, c) some revised brochure text, and d) a list of programs (centers) that faculty would like to create but for which they need funding. The programs include a center for health, communication and emotion; aging and society; children and contemporary media; and a speaker series linking communication and technology. The list of programs would be included with the brochure with the belief that these programs might generate interest of potential donors.

Members gave their feedback. They asserted that the text must be “donor friendly.” Avoid academic jargon. The members also suggested that the text on the giving list was too long. Instead, the giving list should have punchy research questions that the centers hoped to answer. The longer text should be placed on the department’s website. Karen will work on cutting the text back considerably with the idea that longer text will be placed on the department’s website. The brochure will have the URL for the department’s website and also the QR code.

Events

Next Alumni Council Gathering and Fall Internship Workshop. The next face-to-face Council meeting is scheduled is for Saturday, October 13. The internship workshop will be that afternoon. The internship workshop invites local employers to participate. The event would involve a talk describing internships, benefits, how to select and secure them. Then, they will be given guidance on how to polish an elevator speech and will be given opportunities to practice it and receive feedback. We would like to have more interaction between the students and employers. The plan is to have one employer per three students. Alternatively, alumni groups of two or three could lead groups of five or six students. We may want to limit the number of students participating. 60? Kibibi volunteered to design the meeting and plan for the day. Laura M. volunteered to plan the workshop. Where would this event be held? Corwin Pavilion? One format would be to have 25 alumni/employers looking for interns. We could also invite non-profits to participate, many of which could benefit from interns.

Jonathan asked who oversees internships in the department and on campus? Who gives credit for them? Anna Laura said she was the official person in the department. Only a handful of students receive credit for participating in internships. When they do receive credit, they must combine the internship with a class that she teaches in the spring. On the campus, Career Services monitors sign ups and gives certificates for completion. Jonathan said that some organizations feel uncomfortable hiring interns. They wonder what the legal requirements are and worry about breaking labor laws. We certainly could provide them with information and criteria from the Bureau of Labor’s website. That might help.

Communication Association Internship Workshop? Anna Laura suggested that the Communication Association already puts on a type of internship workshop in February. Since there is so much work involved in putting on the event, should the Council consider shifting its efforts toward assisting the Communication Association in its February event rather than putting on its own? The Communication Association is receptive to the idea. However, Lauren (the Communication Association incoming president) said that the Communication Association will still need our help in securing employers for the event.

Timing of the event is an issue. The Communication Association holds their event in February to prepare students for summer internships. It would be difficult for them to hold the event in October. Students are just returning to campus and there would be no time to organize it. Therefore, they would like to continue hosting the event in February. This may present a problem for the Alumni Council. The problem is that Council meetings are not well attended when the meetings aren’t held in conjunction with a student event. Since the Communication Association’s event must be in February, how will this affect attendance at the October meeting? The idea of moving the October Alumni Council meeting to February was quickly dismissed since the April meeting in conjunction with Career Day would likely continue.

Fall Alumni Council Meeting. In the end, the Council decided to support the Communication Association’s taking over primary responsibility of the internship workshop. It will be held in February. Members of the Council may get involved in recruiting organizations and alumni to participate. They also opted to continue holding Council meetings in October. In order to attract Council members and other alumni, we will hold an alumni social/networking event following the Council meeting. Council members will be assigned roles and tasks associated with the social event.