Being a Duck lasts a lot longer than the four (or five or six) years that students might study here. The Stevens Alumni Association (SAA) works year-round to keep alumni connected to the university, as well as to keep current students connected to alumni. This task recently became a lot easier.
The 1906 Stevens Alumni Association Constitution was completely updated in 2018. While the 1906 Constitution and its technological limitations made it hard to engage with alumni outside the New Jersey/New York area, the updates allow for the utilization of evolving communication methods in order to connect alumni worldwide. 1906 rules dictated how votes were cast and requiring meetings to be held mainly on campus.
Loosening the restraint of paper ballots and allowing individuals to call in for a meeting allows SAA President Victoria Velasco ’04, Assistant Vice President for Annual Giving and Alumni Engagement Matthew Gwin, and the entire SAA Board of Directors to grow the alumni community. Velasco is excited they can now “build on the participatory nature of the new structure, and be more intentional in how [they] connect with the Stevens community. Using virtual meetings and a more robust social media plan, there will be more content for alumni, who will be able to speak on anything from the Power of Stevens campaign, to the upcoming 100th anniversary of Alumni Weekend.”
The SAA has been working to realign with Stevens’ brand: “On the Rise.” The constitution amendments were part of “a five-year process to improve our governance structure in order to increase alumni engagement. We recognized that it was a change that needed to be made. [The process] involved dozens of alumni working across multiple subcommittees and much research,” shared Velasco. “How [alumni can] participate had to move to become more global. Alumni leave the area, but we still need to engage them. With the new framework, anyone can participate no matter where they live or work. Now there is a possibility of virtual participation, among other updates, and that changes everything.”
Beyond simply changing their rules on paper, the SAA has also been focusing on how to best engage alumni. Gwin reflected upon the changes being made: “Looking at Stevens and the type of institution we are, we are trying to be thoughtful at how we look at alumni information and statistics to inform programming ideas and marketing approaches. We can reach out to different generations in different ways — for example, more recent graduates are going through different experiences than those who graduated a few decades ago and may appreciate different kinds of events than older alumni. We can capture the interest of alumni at a younger age to create lifelong engagement.”
The SAA is working to engage future alumni, “current students,” as well. With ideas such as welcome gifts for freshmen, a more noticeable on-campus presence for SAA, and more, students can look forward to being supported by the alumni network from the moment they step on campus to long after they step off.
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