UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI- ST. LOUIS

UMSL DISCOVERY INITIATIVEFall 2013 Report

n Thursday, September 12, 2013 the first notifications of the UMSL Discovery Initiative were mailed to 50 UMSL alumni. In this letter Chancellor Tom George asked our alumni to help “provide direction for the next 50 years at UMSL.”

This small mailing marks a turning point in how the Office of Alumni and Community Relations, and the university as a whole, interacts and engages with its alumni.

The UMSL Discovery Initiative hopes to tap into the minds and hearts of the 87,000 alumni who have represented their alma mater over the last 50 years and have a vest-ed interest in how our great university moves forward.

This new program will allow us to create more relevant, rewarding and engaging ex-periences for all alumni, as well as to provide real life stories to support improving the programs and services that UMSL offers.

The purpose of the UMSL Discovery Initiative is to place current students in front of alumni who could become major gift prospects or have a high propensity for engage-ment as well as generating market research on UMSL’s vision and case for support while building a greater sense of alumni engagement in the UMSL community.

INTRODUCTION

he UMSL Discovery Initiative was designed to meet the following goals:

• Engage current UMSL students and allow them to earn additional income

while acquiring critical skills for the workforce.

• Yield discovery of prospective donors and volunteers resulting in increased

giving, major gifts for endowed scholarships and alumni engaged in mentoring

and creating internships.

• Provide alumni the opportunity to interact directly with current students and

hear first-hand about the student experience today.

• Discover new areas of interest among alumni in order to identify ways that

UMSL could more meaningfully connect with alumni.

• Gather information about experiences alumni had as students, the lives

they’ve led since graduation and their perception of the university today.

• Assess alumni familiarity with current UMSL programs and priorities.

BY THE NUMBERS

87,000

62,000

17,000

7

UMSL alumni worldwide

UMSL alumni in the Greater St. Louis area

students enrolled as of Fall 2013

full-time staff in Alumni and Community Relations

n August of 2013 the Office of Alumni and Community Relations posted the UMSL Discovery Initiative Student Associate job posting on the UMSL Career Services website in collaboration with the Student Plus Associate internship

program on campus. Student employees were interviewed jointly between the two programs.

Between August and October, 38 students were selected and hired as Student Plus Associates. Any student that was employed by the program on campus would be eligible to conduct UMSL Discovery Initiative interviews. This setup allows the UMSL Discovery Initiative a larger pool or students to conduct interviews, while the student’s on-campus employment positions provide a consistent source of hours.

One student employee was hired in early November as an office worker for the UMSL Discovery Initiative. The scheduling of interviews was proving to be a very time intensive task for the individual student plus associates and was better suited to be done by one consistent scheduler. After implementing this strategy the num-ber of scheduled interviews increase 100% in less than a month.

PARTICIPANTSSTUDENT ASSOCIATES

he alumni chosen for the initial pilot project of the UMSL Discovery Initia-tive were provided to the Office of Alumni and Community Relations by the Development Office. The contact information for 130 alumni was provided

to begin the outreach for this project. All 130 alumni were contacted by mail, e-mail, phone and LinkedIn when possible between October and December. These alum-ni had capacity ratings of $10,000-$50,000, were located in the Greater St. Louis region, graduated from the business school between 1968 and 2008, and have given less than $1,000 in their lifetime to UMSL.

ALUMNI

58% did not return messages

22% were unreachable

12% agreed to be interviewed

7% declined to participate

uring the interviews, UMSL Discovery Initiative Associates asked over 20 questions in a half-hour session. The interviews were conducted in the alumni’s place of business, a coffee shop and on the UMSL Campus.

The interview questions were structured to advance through the alumnus/a’s life chronologically, beginning with why they chose UMSL, through their undergradu-ate and graduate experience, and into their professional lives.

Over the pilot semester of this program, nine alumni interviews were completed in the month of November and the first half of December. Due to the small sample size it was hard to decipher consistent themes or trends but we were able to learn a great deal on how to construct these interviews to obtain the most information from our alumni.

Most of the alumni interviewed conveyed positive feelings towards UMSL regard-less of their engagement with the university since they graduated. One alumna stated that she had “great pride in my alma mater but there is a lot of room for improvement, specifically in the quality and affordability of student housing on and near campus.” This alumna, who is now retired, spent the majority of her career working for the Housing Authority of St. Louis County. We found that often times alumni view UMSL through the filter of their profession.

FINDINGS

TOUHILL PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

nother example of this is an alumnus who works for the Alberici Corpora-tion. His view of UMSL was affected by his employer not being selected to build the Touhill Performing Arts Center due to “politics.” He was upset

that, as an alumnus, he has not been contacted after the bid process other than requests for donations.

The Touhill PAC was generally a point of pride and connection for most of the alumni we interviewed. Many of our alumni have been on campus several times for performances recently and would be interested in alumni events involving the Touhill.

Most of the alumni interviewed have fond memories of studying business at UMSL but few maintained relationships with fellow class mates or UMSL faculty or staff. The majority of the alumni we spoke with commuted to campus or took evening classes and felt that they never made a strong connection to UMSL but still felt grateful for the education they received.

ased on the interviews with the nine alumni, the following opportunities were revealed as possible avenues for engagement:

• Concerts and performances at the Touhill Performing Arts Center• Speaking with international students about obtaining work visas and green

cards• Mentoring business and engineering students• Off-campus events in the Wentzville, MO area• Internship opportunities in alumna’s research lab at Washington University

Medical Center• Career fairs and career counseling for alumni who are unemployed• Community events that focus on adult education• St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball events in St. Louis and at spring training in

Florida.• Panel discussion where alumni can be used as industry experts

ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES

FINDINGS

n 2014 the UMSL Discovery Initiative plans to improve almost every aspect of the program and to increase alumni participation greatly. On January 6, 2014 the first 100 of 400 letters will be sent to alumni in the St. Louis area who

have shown interest in the university but have not been engaged in any meaningful way. These alumni were identified by tracking those alumni who have opened an e-communication from the Office of Alumni and Community Relations and clicked through to read more of a story or register for a program. By using this as the initial variable we feel that our communications about the UMSL Discovery Initiative will be much more efficient and effective.

As mentioned previously, the Office of Alumni and Community Relations now has one student employee working 20 hours per week contacting and scheduling inter-views with alumni. Once a date and location for the interview is set, that informa-tion is forwarded to the 38 student associates on campus. With this system now in place we estimate that at least 50 interviews will be conducted in the spring 2014 semester.

Other changes planned for the spring 2014 semester include a revision of the in-terview questions, additional e-communication from the Chancellor, a bi-monthly meeting with all student plus associates who conduct interviews, and consistent formatting of interview reports.

MOVING FORWARD

fter spending four months launching the UMSL Discovery Initiative it is now poised for a great deal of progress in 2014. From how we train student asso-ciates to our ability to contact alumni, our processes have only became more

efficient and effective. Fall 2013 was a time of organizing and learning how to best run a discovery program at UMSL. Moving forward, the nine alumni we interviewed this semester will prove to be just the first step in learning valuable information about such an influential group in our community.

The interviews that will be conducted in the new year will bring a stronger focus on specific ways that we can engage UMSL alumni through on and off-campus activities and programs. The responses from UMSL alumni indicate that for many the UMSL experience was a positive one, albeit one where a strong connection to the alma ma-ter may not have been made. Moving forward it will be important to not only learn how UMSL alumni would like to be engaged but to actually take the steps to make these engagement opportunities a reality.

The engagement of UMSL alumni will be vital in the future of the university and the UMSL Discovery Initiative’s findings will prove to be an important step in revitalizing alumni engagement and the role alumni play in the life of the university.

SUMMARY

James Page Assistant Director of Alumni Relations

Student and New Graduate Engagement