The alumni project: Fostering student-alumni engagement in the curriculum

Abstract

This study proposes and empirically tests a novel approach for promoting student-alumni engagement in the business school curriculum. Groups of students conduct semi-structured interviews with alumni. The primary goals of the assignment are for students to observe how class concepts are applied in practice, and to explore careers within their field of study. We empirically verify these benefits of the project with a survey instrument given to student participants after completion of the project. Factor analysis reveals that students report (1) growth in interview skills, (2) improved career discernment, (3) a better understanding of how coursework can be applied in practice, and (4) an overall increase in learning retention.

Keywords:

• AACSB accreditation
• alumni
• business curriculum
• experiential learning
• mentoring
• professional engagement
• student motivation
• teaching methodology

Notes

1 For example, Standard 13 requires that “Curricula facilitate student academic and professional engagement appropriate to the degree program type and learning goals.” One relevant basis for judgment provided by the AACSB involves providing experiential learning opportunities to business students that, “…allow them to engage with faculty and active business leaders…” Another basis for judgment is that, “Students are able to connect their academic and professional experiences in meaningful ways consistent with the degree program type and learning goals.”

2 Singer and Hughey (2002) survey how a university can engage its alumni association in activities such as admissions functions, student organizations, career development, campus programming, and in the classroom as guest speakers. Plice and Reinig (2009) study how business alumni can assist in curriculum development. Hunt, Taylor, and Oberman (2017) describe how college of business advisory boards can provide valuable assistance to students in resume development.

3 Newton and Wells-Glover (2000) examine how mentorship programs can provide support to students in technical majors who are underrepresented and/or experiencing difficulties in their coursework. D'Abate (2010) analyzes data collected from business majors and alumni 3–5 years after graduation to examine the benefits of mentoring, internships, and collaborative projects. Sword, Byrne, Drummond-Young, Harmer, and Rush (2002) studies a nursing school mentorship program and reports that students appreciated alumni support in making personal, academic, and career decisions, while alumni likewise enjoyed having the chance to act as mentors and reconnect with their alma mater.

4 Sample assignment sheets, suggested best practices, grading rubrics, and evaluation forms are available from the authors upon request.

5 The full text of the survey instrument is available upon request from the authors. To simplify analysis and exposition, we drop the two conditional questions (Questions 18 and 28) from our main analyses that follow.

6 Tabulated results of our exploratory factor analysis are available from the authors upon request.

7 While the two-tailed p-value of 0.156, the one-tailed p-value would be half as much and statistically significant at the 10% level. We report the two-tailed p-value here because we do not have any priors for how juniors and seniors will respond differently to the project.

8 We code the five GPA categories on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 representing the “3.5–4.0” category, and 5 representing the “below 2.0” category. The reported correlation with the “interview skills” category is 0.153 with a two-tailed p-value of 0.15 (N = 90).

9 Our results indicate that seniors reported slightly higher growth than juniors in the interview skills and learning retention categories. An alternative explanation could be that students who are able to take this particular class as juniors are “ahead of the curve” in their studies and thus may have already sought out other learning opportunities that overlap with the goals of the Alumni Project.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the College of Business, James Madison University.