A very busy fall for Alumni Relations!
I’m pleased to report that this fall has brought hundreds of thousands back to campus and provided many opportunities for the Mendoza community to connect with its 46,000-plus alumni. Here are several areas where we saw the most alumni impact:
Community Building
With football games back to pre-pandemic levels, the challenge this fall was to create organic, meaningful collisions between our alumni and Mendoza’s faculty, staff and students. I’ve been very pleased with the success of our Weekend Welcome events, because they have brought the College community together and allowed our alumni boards, recruiters, prospective students and campus leaders to connect with Mendoza. I look forward to continuing them this Spring during the Blue and Gold Game Weekend.
I also had a chance to connect alumni and students of our Chicago programs by hosting two well-attended mixers for our MSBA and EMBA cohorts in the atrium restaurant of our beautiful Chicago building on Michigan Avenue.
We were able to create similar opportunities for community building outside of campus, hosting a fascinating panel discussion with Las Vegas business leaders as part of Shamrock Series Weekend and also a luncheon and presentation to our international alumni club directors as part of their annual meeting in London, which Dean Cremers detailed in a prior Exchange.
Board Service
Many of Mendoza’s boards are full of alumni, and most of them had a chance to gather on campus this fall to meet with faculty and students.
The board that I manage, our Graduate Alumni Board, had a very successful slate of “office hours,” where students were free to stop by four different classrooms and chat with board members grouped by industry. We had a steady stream of students all afternoon in each classroom. The following day, they hosted a Navy game watch that drew over 300 students to the beautiful Foley’s Club in Notre Dame Stadium.
I’ve also started a series of “residencies” for our board members, where they can come to Mendoza individually or in small groups for 2 to 3 days of focused time with faculty and staff relevant to their industry or profession.
Admissions/Marketing/Communications
I’m pleased to report that more than 50 alumni have provided interview support for our prospective MBA students this cycle. Alumni have also been active in connecting with prospective students in various admissions events and through one-on-one interactions.
We’ve had many alumni profiled for our website and magazine this year, and I’ve been able to work with the Alumni Association in providing dedicated Mendoza content for the newsletters of the 260+ local alumni clubs.
Student Journey
There have been dozens of sessions, meetings and lectures that have given our students the chance to interact with our alumni. In particular, we saw strong alumni impact on orientations, MBA clubs and co-curricular projects such as practicums, capstones and experiential learning projects both here and abroad.
Career Development/Continuous Learning
Alumni play a large role in helping our students to discern their future career paths, and we’ve had dozens of alumni participating in career treks, panel discussions and networking opportunities. I’ve also partnered with Graduate Career Development and the Corporate Advisory board to engage with alumni from Notre Dame’s affinity groups to develop an MBA mentorship program for underrepresented students.
I’m thrilled to continue to build our suite of services for our alumni. This includes continuing to grow our Mendoza Alumni Book Club, promoting and workshopping IrishCompass, and establishing Mendoza groups amongst our international alumni clubs. Finally, I’ve partnered with John Gordon ‘98 and his career planning platform, Whomi, to provide both thought leadership and access to his innovative platform to our alumni. Far from another social media network, Whomi helps you to design a career plan and establish your personal “board of directors” to help you achieve your goals and hold you accountable to your plan.
Metrics
While I will always value quality engagement over quantity, it helps to know where we stand and how we’re growing our level of engagement between alumni and the College. I’ve developed “Alumni Impact Points,” which track individual instances of alumni directly interacting with current members of the Mendoza community. I’m pleased to report that we have more than 550 AIPs so far this fiscal year across 45-plus different programs and initiatives (a 175% YOY increase). I’m always working on aggregating and recording more alumni interactions that happen across the college, so please send them my way!
I’m so grateful for the partnership and support of so many across the College in helping to engage with our alumni and activate them to support Mendoza’s strategic goals. I look forward to a Spring semester filled with bold ideas and measurable impact.
Warm regards,
Ryan
Ryan Retartha (ND '07)
Director of Alumni Relations
Director of Alumni Relations