JISC

This project responds to the call from the Relationship Management programme, Strand III Alumni Engagement. The project aims to understand the links between alumni engagement and social capital for creating a connected community of graduates that have a strong affinity for their institution.

For this project, we have chosen to operationalise alumni engagement in the context of student employability and career development – a key area where the alumnus can provide support to an undergraduate and a topic of sector-wide concern. If the social capital approach proves fruitful – which we believe it will – it can be extended to other alumni engagement contexts where the ties between alumni and their institution can be strengthened through interaction with current students (and/or staff).

Within the project, a mentoring service is proposed, where the alumnus acts as a mentor to a current undergraduate in relation to employability and career development. The relationship is enabled by social networking technologies, providing a „bridge‟ between individuals whose social ties and connections are weakened by distance, whilst at the same time capitalising on the learning opportunities afforded by the widening of social networks.

The project's aims are to:

• Improve engagement with alumni through technology-enabled processes;
• Support the ways in which existing students connect with alumni and build mutually-beneficial relationships that reinforce positive feelings for the home institution;
• Blueprint processes and redesign services to improve the student/alumnus experience with respect to investment in social capital;
• Identify the employability and career development needs of undergraduates and alumni and use the knowledge gained to offer relevant support and advice to both groups;
• Deliver a model of alumni engagement that can be rolled out to other university departments and build partnerships relevant to improving employability;
• Contribute to, and share experiences with, the wider HE community with respect to developing alumni engagement processes using social networking technologies.