The most recent classes of graduates, shaped by pandemic interruptions to their campus experiences, present a unique set of challenges when it comes to reconnecting with their alma maters. Find out how alumni relations teams are rising to the challenge, with innovative programs and strategies for engaging their newest young alumni.

Institutions’ Circle of Excellence Award-winning projects used nostalgia to engage alumni in fun, new ways. Explore how advancement teams broadly balance looking back and looking forward, why nostalgia works well to engage alumni, and what takeaways advancement teams can apply to their own work.

What members are thinking and sharing: gifts for graduates, beloved campus locations, and more.

Campus traditions bring communities together. They build alumni identity and connections. But the pandemic has disrupted the ways campus communities gather, cancelling or changing traditions that were rooted in years of history. Where do traditions stand, in times of change? Here, advancement professionals and higher education researchers share why traditions endure, how they shift, and what role advancement today plays in celebrating and shaping them

What is race equity as it applies to education institutions? How are advancement teams approaching this work, which experts say involves a wholesale transformation of organizational cultures? How are institutions and individuals moving forward in the name of equity? 

Alumni relations teams that executed innovative programs in 2019 faced a big question in 2020: How could they continue those projects amid the pandemic? Here’s how five teams grappled with that—and the key lessons their experiences reveal about creatively and strategically problem-solving when contexts change.

How advancement draws on athletics to communicate with constituents, motivate alumni, and speak to a greater mission—even in an era when the sports environment has changed radically

Alumni engagement metrics have come a long way in a short time and are proving to be crucial to advancement teams. With years of solid data under their belts, many in alumni relations are finding significant results from building systems around these metrics, altering their actions in response, and displaying the value of their work to constituents, institutional leadership, and board members.

Community and support amid COVID-19, inside the Elizabethtown College carrot cake tradition, exploring the University of Denver's Crimson & Gold Trail, and more.

When a university or college undergoes a name change or merger, becomes widely known for a new program, or has a changing student population, what steps do advancement shops take to communicate these changes to their constituents and pursue the advantages of the situation?