Credit: Ohio State University

The leaders of the Ohio State University, U.S., Alumni Association were looking for a way to engage Buckeyes of the past and possibly the future. 

“We noticed a big gap of alumni we were missing were those who had young children, so we wanted to create programs for them to share their Ohio State love with their families,” said Lauren Luffy, Director of Lifelong Learning. “We know people are more likely to participate if the whole family can come along.”

Luffy and her colleague, Associate Director Lindsay Seminara, created Brutus’ Summer Reading Challenge, which first launched in the summer of 2020. Alumni registered their children (or grandchildren, nieces, or nephews), after which they received a “passport” with stickers and bookmarks to record their minutes read and earn prizes. Fun challenges, such as “read a book from the year you were born,” were included. The key element, outside of encouraging the joy of reading, was that it did not require anyone to be at a certain place at a certain time. 

“We wanted something that anyone could engage in, no matter where they were,” said Luffy. “We saw this engaged a lot of people who hadn’t taken part in anything in the past.”

The program (awarded a 2021 Circle of Excellence Award for targeted engagement) helped to draw in alumni who had not previously been involved. On Facebook, participants engaged with one another by sharing photos of kids with prizes or books, sharing recommendations, asking questions, and offering feedback. 

PAGE-TURNING JOURNEY: Ohio State University created this map for kids to log summer reading hours.

Credit: Ohio State University

One alumna complimented the paper booklet. “I love having the kids track in their passport and practice writing and math to determine the number of stickers to place,” she wrote. “So much better than having them get on a tablet/phone/computer to enter their minutes or sessions. Thank you for a thoughtful and engaging design.” 

“It wasn’t something we were intentionally thinking about,” Luffy admitted, “but after a year online, it makes sense” that parents would prefer an opportunity for analog engagement. 

Alumni have even been asking for their own reading challenge for adults.  

For other advancement or alumni relations professionals looking to promote alumni family engagement, Luffy said: “We keep in mind families are being pulled in a lot of different directions. We’re cognizant of financial burden, so we make sure our programs are free or low cost. For in-person events, we’ve found success doing things in summers, usually early evening, making it casual with an open-house feel.”

The most critical feedback they received, said Luffy, was that several of the prize pencils, shaped like the state of Ohio, broke in the mail. They were replaced swiftly. 

“If the biggest complaint is that a few prizes were damaged during shipment, then we consider this initiative a huge success,” she said.