Higher education over a lifespan: a gown to grave assessment of a lifelong relationship between universities and their graduates

Abstract

Graduation day often includes an oration by a Vice-Chancellor or President reminding the newest cohort of alumni to ‘keep in touch’ with their alma mater. Often, graduates dismiss this invitation instead of embracing this lifelong opportunity. As the only constant – and constantly growing – stakeholder group of higher education institutions (HEIs), this research analyses the wide range of interactive opportunities offered to alumni over their lifetime. This research probes the common ‘student as customer’ rhetoric through the lens of a supposition of interactive participation in public systems: in this case graduates and their universities. These interactive opportunities are organised using an alumni relationship building cycle, allowing the alumni–university connection to evolve under the themes affiliation, affinity, engagement and support. A case study of an Irish university demonstrates some concrete examples of the interactions, and thus opportunities, available to alumni.

Keywords:

• alumni
• institutional advancement
• graduation
• alumni affairs
• philanthropy
• Irish higher education

Acknowledgements

This article was adapted from a presentation at the Society for Research into Higher Education Conference 2012: ‘What is higher education for? Shared and contested ambitions’ in December 2012. The author wishes to acknowledge the feedback she received at the conference that contributed to this paper. In particular, the author wishes to express her gratitude to Simon Warren for his guidance and feedback during this research study.