Communications Committee – Alumni Council

Jon Murchinson '91 (Chair)  •  Sarah Jackson-Han '88 (Vice Chair)   •  Deborah Atuk '04Tu Robert Charles '82  •  Michael Choukas '77  •  Brooks Clark '78  •  Jay Davis '54  •  Kaja Fickes '95 Sandy Fitchet '76  •  Peter Frederick '65   •  Clark Griffiths '57  •  Michael Guzman '06   •  Andrew Horne '87 William Hutchinson '76  •  Ivar Jozus '61  •  Michael Kanarick '90  •  Adrienne Lotson '82 John Mathias '69  •  Niral Shah '08  •  Derek Symer '90  •  James Taylor '57  •  Paul Tuhus '69 Elliot Weinstein '56  Report from the 198th Alumni Council, May 14–16, 2009:  The committee focused on its efforts to improve the follow-up process for ensuring that councilors communicate with their constituents. The process was streamlined, and is now focused on only those who have not sent in reports, who now also receive emails prior to any follow-up calls. This has resulted in less outreach work needed from committee members and a faster, more improved response rate among councilors. Karlyn Morissette, Web producer in the Development Office, presented a report on the social networking service Twitter: how it works, how the College is using it, and how it might be useful to alumni and alumni groups. This was followed by a presentation from Sean Plottner, editor of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, which won the 2008 CASE award for top alumni magazine in the country. The magazine is taking the publication online as well as working on creating a digital archive of past issues. The rest of the meeting was devoted to a brainstorming session of possible ways to improve communications between the College and alumni, councilors and alumni, and among councilors themselves. Previous “good ideas that failed” were discussed, such as the largely unused ClubTalk bulletin boards and the use by Alumni Relations of the InCircle social networking tools (were they just before their time?). It was suggested that the College consider further ways of using interest in “specialty” areas, such as “friends” of various sports teams, to increase alumni involvement and participation. It was also suggested that Facebook could be a valuable means to facilitate communications between councilors when they are not in Hanover, and incoming chair Jon Murchinson '91 and vice chair Sarah Jackson-Han '88 were asked to further explore the idea. Report from the 197th Alumni Council, December 4–6, 2008:  The committee meeting began with a recap of plans implemented during the past year and a half, including encouraging councilors to communicate with their constituents; the development of tools to help them to do so; and the follow-up process that had members of the committee check in with councilors for updates on their efforts. No phone follow-up was made this fall, but an email to councilors who had not reported revealed the importance of following up with retiring councilors. The effort to spread the word about the Association of Alumni elections had somewhat depressed follow-up after the May meeting. Jon Murchinson '91 followed with a short preview of the presentation about the Dartmouth YouTube channel that he was giving in the plenary session the next. The channel had its “soft launch” this fall, and much content is still to be added. Already the Hopkins Center is using the channel for arts-related videos linked to the Hop's Web sites. This could be a remarkably easy way for class and club Webmasters to add Dartmouth-related video content to their Web sites without the burden of hosting bandwidth-heavy material. David Spalding '76 outlined the College's Alumni Council communications plan designed to reintroduce alumni to the council and to encourage them to relay any concerns or comments to their Alumni Council representative. With the theme “Here to Hear You,” ads have been placed in the alumni magazine and online in the “D,” and postcards have been mailed out and are available as inserts for newsletter editors. While the College has done no overall survey of alumni sentiment in the past couple of years, recent focus groups conducted with uninvolved alumni showed that 85 percent of them thought they received the right amount of information regarding the College, 8 percent too little, and 7 percent too much. Further conversation on effective communications practices for councilors followed. Some members cited the value of concise reports with embedded links for those who wish to read more detail about certain topics.  Report from the 196th Alumni Council, May 15–17, 2008:  The Communications Committee meeting began with an introduction to Diana Pearson, vice president of communications. While no formal roles were established, time was spent learning the specific responsibilities she holds at the College and clarifying the role of the committee for her.It is the hope that she will develop a good working relationship with the incoming chair, Chris Robinson, to collaborate on any complementary initiatives.The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing the councilor follow-up process and how to improve it. Ultimately, it was determined that the process would be kept as it is, with committee members following up with councilors and the vice chair following up with the committee members.Our current efforts will focus on helping councilors communicate regularly and effectively.In keeping with our commitment to executing two tangible projects per council meeting, the committee will be producing (1) a “Why Vote” piece for immediate distribution for all councilors as well as the traditional council meeting wrap-up report and (2) a “How to be a Good Councilor” cheat sheet. Recurring issues discussed include (1) handling unsubscribe requests, (2) producing balanced reports, and (3) communicating regularly vs. too much communications. Also discussed was the role of the committee in encouraging participation in the AoA election and the committee's role in relation to the ALC, which is still to be determined. At the close of the meeting, Jon Murchinson '91 was elected as the incoming vice chair for 2008-2009. The goal of the committee is to try to remain progressive and focus on tasks that will provide a material impact on the council as a whole and deliver meaningful service to alumni.Alumni Relations Communications Director Diana Lawrence urged the committee members to visit the upgraded Alumni Relations Web site to view the news and profiles of various alumni and to encourage their constituents to do so as well.  Report from the 195th Alumni Council, November 29–December 1, 2007:  Recent events at Dartmouth have highlighted the fact that communication has become an absolutely critical issue for both alumni councilors and the College. There is anecdotal evidence that last year's passive effort to encourage councilors to communicate with their constituents is gaining traction (approximately 40 percent of councilors had sent formal reports to their constituents). While this is a significant improvement upon historical reporting rates, our uncompromising goal is to achieve consistent 100 percent reporting rates. As such, the committee is taking an active role in contacting all councilors to ensure they are communicating with their constituents on a regular basis. This follow-up process is one component of a broad strategy we intend to undertake in improving communications within the Dartmouth community. Our approach, broadly speaking, is threefold: (1) Ensure that we as a council are communicating with alumni; (2) refine the communications – make communications concise, compelling, and interesting; and (3) enhance and create new channels for two-way communications. Short-term purposeful acts include Revisiting the mission statement of the Communication Committee to ensure that it accurately reflects today's needs Producing a high-quality councilor's report by a committee member for use by all councilors either for reference, attachment or simply to be forwarded to constituents Handouts to be produced by the committee as reference items for councilors (key issues councilors should be informed about, what to include in your councilor's report, etc.) Continuation of the councilor follow-up calls by the Communications Committee Our goal as a committee is to develop clearly defined roles for our members and create a chain of accountability such that we are able to ensure effective communication by the council as a whole, identify the needs of the council, identify short and long-term purposeful acts to undertake, and also to make recommendations on what we perceive to be communication needs of the College. Report from the 194th Alumni Council, May 17–19, 2007:  Communication remains an important issue for alumni councilors.The outcomes of the recent trustee election and the alumni constitution vote last year highlight the challenges to communicating effectively with alumni and facilitating communication among alumni.The committee is seeing some traction in its efforts to address some of these issues:nearly 40 percent of alumni councilors have sent formal reports to their constituents.This is a dramatic increase from historical reporting rates. Future plans include efforts to further increase the councilor reporting rate, enhance existing communication channels, and develop new ones. Stewardship of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine remains strong. DAM is fiscally sound, and editor Sean Plottner is working to generate new revenue streams while cutting expenses.The magazine is investigating the creation of an online presence and the digitization of the magazine for international recipients. The alumni survey is in the RFP stage and the hope is to launch the survey in late 2007.Statistical sampling will be used rather than a survey of the full alumni body. Sound surveying science supports this approach.