We have just undertaken some bench marking of international students at JCU and this has found that our graduates on the whole have a very satisfactory experience of studying at JCU. I am confident that domestic students would also have an equally positive experience. So we have nothing to fear from these people "telling it as it is".
I think that one of the problems that we have had in the past is that we have not really defined what we want the JCU Alumni groups t
o do and what their purpose is. Last evening I met with the JCU Malaysian group. This group is led by its President Prame Kumar Nair. You can see this group in the picture.We discussed the issue of the purpose of Alumni groups. We came to the conclusion that staff and alumni have exactly the same objective - to make JCU the best it can possibly be. Both staff and alumni have a self interest in promoting the university. Alumni want to to able to say to potential employees that they have graduated from a well known and well respected university and we want to say that we work in one!
So rather than simply seeing alumni groups as social groupings we need to look at what Alumni can do for the university. They can of course raise the profile of the university and help to recruit students. They can also form links with leaders in the community who can help us to pursue our aspirations. This is particularly important for Alumni groups like the Malaysian Alumni group which is based in the tropics. They are very important in helping us achieve "a brighter future for life in the tropics world wide".
We have to support our Alumni. We need to be very clear about how we can help them with reaching our common goals. We need to offer appropriate training and support. The Engagement Office will be training our Alumni in fund raising and engagement practices. We will ensure that visiting academics offer to present to these groups.
We have to see Alumni as just as much part of JCU as staff and students. We have a long way to go with our alumni relations - but it is a very worthwhile area of activity.
The social aspect of Alumni groups is important. Graduates like having a forum for discussing old times when they were studying. In Malaysia the Alumni groups have go-carting evenings, bush dances and talent nights. It is however a responsibility of the University to give some leadership to these groups - or the social side can become the only purpose for these groups meeting. This is a shame because they have so much more to offer.
I hope that everyone in the Division will be able to come up with some ideas of how we can work with Alumni in the future.
