Sustaining Community: Strategies for Developing Social Justice Alumni Engagement Opportunities in an Era of Backlash
In light of the Supreme Court's recent decision regarding the consideration of race in university admission processes, and the continued attacks on civil rights across the country, it is imperative that we continue to identify strategies for engaging diverse alumni communities through a social justice lens. We have also learned a great deal through the COVID-19 pandemic about how to serve and connect with alumni through virtual tools. This session will provide insight into how the UCLA Alumni Diversity Programs and Initiatives team has identified and employed new approaches, strategies and tools for engaging in life-long learning and relationship building with the diverse alumni communities that we serve. We will discuss how we define and operationalize a social justice lens that is nimble and capable of evolving in relation to the dynamic needs and interests of our alumni. We will also discuss the framework we utilize for fostering sustainable alumni engagement for identity-based alumni networks. We will then describe some of the key programming efforts and digital content that we have developed both virtually and in a hybrid format to connect with our alumni, and discuss both our successes and the challenges that we encountered. We will close with a list of our best practices for how any alumni leader, committed to both alumni engagement and social change, can assess their current offerings and begin to explore new possibilities for better serving and uplifting diverse alumni voices.