COMMUNICATION ALUMNI COUNCIL
NOTES FROM MEETING
October 9, 2010
Council Members in Attendance: Fran Mancia, Laura McHugh, Laura Roenick, Liz Rockhold, Vicki Prentice Rubin, Kamyab Sadaghiani, Mary Shirley (telephone conference), Kibibi Springs Absent: Amy Stoody
Faculty Members: Linda Putnam, Karen Myers, Anna Laura Jansma
Guest: Michael Miller, Development, Division of Social Sciences
I. Introductions. The Council welcomed Vicki Prentice Rubin as a new member. Vicki is a graduate of the class of 1973 for her BA and 1977 for her MA. She was one of the first three MAs the department granted. She is President of Vicki Prentice Associates in New York.
II. Development and Funding Opportunities
A. Targeted Development Initiative. Linda asked the Council to move up agenda item IV since Michael Miller had to leave the meeting early. She began by reviewing the Targeted Development Initiative for funding the Honors Student/Teaching Assistant Lab.
B. After reviewing the need, benefit, and overall goal of the campaign, participants made several suggestions:
1. We might connect it to the broad UCSB development campaign—a new one is under development and will be released soon.
2. Making it part of Strategic Communication of the Department—it would be best to make it part of an integrated need, not just an isolated initiative. We should connect it with the internship program, job placement, and the department’s distinctive mission.
3. Companies—look at alumni and where they are placed, target corporations who hire students as interns, ones who sponsor Career Day, and maybe target technology companies by highlighting our focus on social media and integrated marketing. Such companies might include Ernest & Young, ValueClick, Google, Facebook, and PR firms (KP Public Affairs).
4. Anna Laura will send Council members the names of companies that have hired our interns.
5. We could also look at companies affiliated with UCSB parents.
B. Strategic Giving Program. Liz introduced the idea of a Strategic Giving Program. Even though we might begin with corporate giving to meet the Department’s most pressing needs, alumni communication and giving is intertwined with corporate giving. In fact, the two could be combined.
1. The program should be an integrated branding and marketing.
a. Develop top 3 priorities for funding
b. Set forth a vision, mission, and brand statement for the Department—one that captures emotional appeals and needs
c. Develop a press kit for the strategic communication. Roll in department activities—including invitations to key speakers, publicize these initiatives. We need to earmark the department on the donation brochure.
d. Think about a global reach, e.g., Google India
e. Look at corporations that give to UCSB writ large and think about how they might be seen as competing for the contribution.
f. Develop a laundry list of needs—wish list—like name the building, name a wing of the building, name rooms, fund the internships program, scholarships, etc.
g. Look for a $100,000 yearly contribution—sustainer fee.
h. Develop a wall of corporate sponsors with on-going
contributions.
i. Vicki suggested contacting the Santa Barbara Museum of Art about rotating art exhibits in the department.
2. Action steps
a. Linda will put together a wish list of needs and send them to everyone.
b. Anna Laura will get the list of internship companies to everyone
c. Linda and Karen will talk with Michael Miller and Ann Hagan about getting names of companies that donate to UCSB
d. Vicki Prentice Rubin will work on vision and mission statements that integrate departmental activities, including internships, special lectures, Career Day, mission of program, and strategic communication.
e. After materials are distributed, council members will have a 30 minute brainstorming call about development. Laura McHugh said that she might be able to arrange an instant conference which produces an mp3 audio file.
III. Updates on Communication with Alumni and Students
A. Facebook. Karen discussed the Department of Communication Alumni and Student Facebook page. It is a community page, not an group page and she monitors it regularly and keeps it updated. Several Council members, staff, and faculty hold the administrative rights. The site gets about 68 hits a week and about 230 (mostly students) have visited the page. Because of its design, individuals need to subscribe to posts on the site. Otherwise, they can visit it regularly.
B. The Gaucho Communicator. Karen just posted the Fall edition of the newsletter. It contains a special section on the Council as well as many other sections on Career Day, peer advisors, senior honors research, awards and faculty productivity, and research profiles. Laura Roenick referred us to an online source to distribute emails for the department. We applied for and received nonprofit status giving us 10,000 free emails per month. Kibibi sent out two email blasts to the department’s alumni. Of the more than 6,000 alumni, we have nearly 3000 good emails. We can add new names to this list and delete invalid ones--updating after each mailing. Maintaining this database is a massive job and the Council thanked Karen for her service.
1. Council members suggested an interview with an alumni member on how they got started in their career and how the major helped them in their career. This interview with picture would appear in the newsletter.
C. Linked-In—Anna Laura reported that this site is used widely by employers and students as well as alumni. It is an invited page and contains numerous internship and job postings.
D. Recruitment of Council Members—Linda announced that we continue to recruit members for the Council. Please pass along any communication alumni to contact and Linda will follow up.
E. Building Relational Networks—Kibibi reported on the Relationship Masters Academy sponsored by Ferrazzi. The program focuses on building networking activities into work schedules, community building in for different generations, roads to networking. She will be discussing it and a discount for UCSB students.
IV. Internship Workshop
A. Format and Schedule. Kibibi reported on the plans for the Internship Workshop from 2:00-4:30 on the lawn of the SS & MS Building. Anna Laura will present a welcome, Kibibi and Laura McHugh will discuss internships in general, and then students will break into inner and outer circles for speed networking between alumni volunteers and students. A reception will follow on the 4th floor balcony with closing remarks by Anna Laura and Linda.
B. Purpose. The workshop is designed for students to get beyond the mundane to talk about who they are and what they want to do in their careers, especially in developing skills in presenting an elevator speech.
C. Publicity. Karen reported that the workshop filled early and she has a wait list. Laura Roenick developed flyers that were posted on the web and distributed widely; faculty made announcements in classes. We stopped student visits to classes almost immediately because the workshop filled so early.
D. Volunteers. Anna Laura noted that 13 alumni and community volunteers were coming to be involved in the workshop.
V. Future Agenda Items
A. Buddy System. A suggestion was made to develop a buddy system in which lower division students would partner with seniors or recent graduates to connect. This could be an on-line mentoring, with on-line registration for mentors, and searching through Linked-In site for contacts.
B. Branding the Council. This topic was included in the discussion of developing the Strategic Giving Program. Fran noted that we need to keep the campus leadership as a target for these strategic communication endeavors.
C. Career Day—April 30, 2011
1. Sponsor. We should look for a sponsor for Communication Career Day.
2. Name. Vicki suggested we call it Professional Development, but some Council members felt students would not know what it was.
3. Positions. We should continue to concentrate on different types of positions and companies—corporate communication, public relations, advertising, communication and technology, etc.
4. Format. Council members suggested that we have one big session for 20-30 minutes in which the schedule and panels are introduced. Each participant would say name, company, and elevator speech. Break into smaller panels of 3 people, 5 minute talks, and more questions and answers from students. Panelists might research and note other organizations that hire in specialized careers—nonprofits, sustainable industries, INK 500, Fortune 100, etc. Continue the double session and the rotation of panels.
6. Alumni Volunteer and Council Lunch. Invite all alumni volunteers to the Council member lunch. Open it up and get more alumni networking.
7. Preparation. The week or day before Career Day events, have Communication Association workshop on “Professional Branding.” Have students come with a press kit on themselves—a personal card, resume, summary of self, vision, goals, and branding. Have them discuss what they are passionate about.
D. Conference Calls and Council Communication.
1. The Council decided to have 30-45 minute conference calls once a month at 7:00 a.m. They should be frequent, short, and not held on Mondays or Fridays.
2. Next Conference Call—Tuesday, Nov. 2 at 7:00 a.m.
3. Ways to do the conference call
a. Instantconference.com—download mp3 file
b. Freeconferencecall.com
V. Summary of Action Steps and Point Person—faculty and staff will be involved in these initiatives, but this list summarizes the Council member roles
A. Wish List of Department Needs—Linda and Karen
B. List of corporations—internship and donors—Anna Laura
C. Vision and mission statements—integrated strategic communication—Vicki Prentice Rubin
D. Survey and Recommendations for Internship Workshop—Laura Roenick
D. Career Day—need volunteer to work with Anna Laura; sponsorship for Career Day—need volunteer?
E. Arranging Conference Calls—need volunteer
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