Survive from being good only – a case for Alumni network

I won’t try to define Alumni as to me, it is slightly more than a definition. It is a sentiment, a gratitude, a relationship with continued interest, interaction and involvement with one’s Alma mater. Where they have benefited from the association, they usually do recognize and cherish the relationship and often, constructively participate in the making of a community with a shared bonding. They stay connected with the fellow alumni, teachers, the institute itself and also benefit from a variety of privileges like activities, events, professional and educational meets and connections, programs, career options and networking opportunities. The belonging foster the growth of healthy fellow-feeling, promote common interest and maintain the feeling of unity.

When someone takes a pride of belonging, the phenomenon is multi-faceted and multi-directional. There are four major pillars of the phenomenon, The Institute (tangibly represented by the present authority and top management with their vision), the faculty, the current students and of course, the alumni, who often provide the much-needed pull-effect to the Institute and the students. Reputation of alma mater and the increasing equity of their diplomas are key motivators for connectivity for a large section of the alumni. They seek to connect through career, social, and business networking provided by the alumni forum and so, are also interested in learning more about their institution’s academic strengths, how it educates graduates for careers, exciting developments in student-faculty collaborations and research, and opportunities to be exposed to new things and be prepared for a complex and changing world

Without the pull effect, even Harvard would not have come this far or the IIMs would not have made this name. In most or nearly all major technical or management Institutes all over the world, alumni factor was one primary factor for their vault in the big league. Even the economic factor, in some cases, were huge. Harvard gets huge amount of endowments from their alumni (a 2009 survey showed 67 of the top guy, Chairman / CEO, of the fortune 500 cos. were their alumni), other Ivy league Universities follow suit. Even some of our IITs have got significant funding for noble purposes, the Vinod Gupta endowment for IIT-KGP is one example. In Harvard, the alumni association (the collegiums for the elation of many important functionaries) have a role in the management, control and development of continuity and perpetuation of the name and traditions, strengthening the tie between the old and the new. They have their own office in the campus itself.

While the pride of belonging is a primary reason of being in any alumni association, being in the core of the ol’ boys network is an obvious benefit and is often a big factor of personal success in the industry. It is quite true that more businesses are acquired or given at the clubs rather than the offices also point to that principle and the culprit network. The result or rather the potential strength of such a community support will be evident if you look at the Parsi community or the Doon school Ol’ boys network.

But it needs a conscious effort on the part of the Institute too. Unless it takes a justifiable pride in the achievements of their children, the feeling slowly becomes mutual and the path is separated (beside only fulfilling the practical personal needs of networking or being in touch with the batchmates). An Institute must understand that it is the people who build the connection to the Institution and not the other way around and the people need active nurturing and encouragement, not the high-handed laidback neglecting welcome. Nurturing a bond, starting with the young alumni (students are would be alumni really), leads to consistent and increased philanthropic support over time over the life-cycle relationship with the alma mater.

Some alumni associations, (like the Jadavpur University one), have established branches in different parts of the country, and even in other countries. IITs have joint alumni association branches in many countries and they are pretty active in all aspects. They sometimes reunion parties, sports, cultural events, conferences etc. and often fund-raising take place to help their alma mater in certain aspects, e.g. loan scholarships for brother students, helping them connect to the industry, giving pull-effect for campus interviews, helping the management with visionary suggestion, funding special needs for the Institute infra-structure or special extra-curricular training needs of the students etc. The best thing about even the most active associations will be if they do not transgress the boundary of participation and authority.

The best of the Institutes always take a special care to nurture the alumni network and create a strong bond. They create or patronize the alumni association, create interaction points with alumni leaders, improve alumni involvement and support, reach donor among and through the alumni and set a code for a mutually respectful and beneficial relationship. Some Institutes, as I have heard, even arrange for surveys (by the Consumer survey organizations which often have some alumni at the top) regarding alumni satisfaction and often use community analytics software (another BI tool and a variant of the Customer analytics software) in tracking the results and the progress of the continuing initiatives. This sort of endeavors also create a more healthy atmosphere with checks and balances that can work as a counter-weight against outside or governmental interventionist policies and provides more and true autonomy for the Institute.

The mutually beneficial relationship dynamics of the Institute and the alumni increases in an interactive and incremental manner. The more famous and respected the Institute becomes in the marketplace, the more benefits the alumni derives in the industry circles because of the name. In my personal experience in the HR consulting side, I have seen that the name matters a lot in the CV or in an interview. At the same time, the more the alumni rise, the Institute gets tremendously benefited because of the association. A case in point is the heydays of the Razabazar Science college and it’s students in the Ashok Ganguly or S.M. Dutta days in Hindustan Lever (now Unilever).

But this kind of relationship needs active nurturing from all the pillars of the phenomenon. Students must understand the potential benefits of the association (and the current students don’t often show much the kind of maturity or attitude for the same) or the Institute must also understand that being good (or even the oldest) don’t matter much in the new world order of the cut-throat competition of the Institutes, where the philosophy is (from the management parlance borrowed from Jack Welch) “If you are not the Champion, or the challenger, you can f__ off”. It certainly needs an X factor that pushes the boundaries of the Institute and the students (who really become the brand ambassadors of the Institute of the industry by their knowledge, their manners, their philosophies, their attitude, their work culture and everything else). The teachers, who tend to get a bit tired and cynical over the years, also need to be taken along if the inspiration has to be there.

In the end, it is that inspiration, that matters..