The Fund Raiser

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By Mark J. Drozdowski

It's officially spring, though the New England weather gods evidently haven't consulted the calendar lately. Campuses across America are busy planning commencement exercises and dipping into their coffers to woo only the most deserving speakers. Many of us working in development and alumni relations are also busy planning next year's homecoming events.

Yes, it's not even beach season, and we're already contemplating the fall. Nothing wrong with thinking ahead, especially where huge budgets are concerned. Homecoming is a prodigious undertaking, involving meticulous coordination, judicious stewardship of funds, and a creative spirit to keep hordes occupied and entertained. The result can be thousands of happy graduates who speak fondly of you and write generous checks.

Why, then, have we decided to scrap it altogether?

Because that time-honored tradition, that staple of collegiate life for generations, that annual pilgrimage to rekindle warm fuzzies, is a flop. I've attended two homecomings on this campus, and the collective attendance could fit in my bathroom. It's not that our alumni hate the college; it's simply a matter of tradition. Or lack thereof.

You see, my institution spent its youth as a commuter college. We've become more residential over the years, but still only half of our undergraduates live on the campus. Many work part time or full time while taking classes, and vacate the premises on Friday afternoon. The sense of place just isn't very strong for many students, and it doesn't get any stronger when they become alumni.

Neither is the sense of class. Development offices normally organize fund raising and alumni activities around reunion years, courting the "fives and tens," meaning those celebrating a 10th, 15th, or 20th reunion, and so on. At many institutions, alumni will hold competitions to see who can raise the most money for the class gift. They will have special reunion activities at homecoming, and perhaps meet regionally. They move through life as a class, identified by their year.

Not here. And not, I suspect, at many other campuses that are, or used to be, dominated by commuting students.

Because so many of our students work and because the majority of them will complete a semesterlong internship before graduating, a good percentage will take more than four years to graduate. So a student here may enter with the Class of 2007 but finish with the Class of 2008. Or 2007 and a half. We have a winter commencement to accommodate those halfers.

So which year does a student identify with? My colleague in development is listed officially as a member of the Class of '92, but he came in with the Class of '91, made friends with that group, and still considers himself a '91 grad. The registrar's office says one thing, but the heart says another. That lack of class identification leads to further separation from the traditions we try so valiantly to perpetuate.

Such as homecoming. Last year's event squelched any thoughts of future attempts. Turnout was fairly miserable, save for the members of the 50th reunion class, which we do recognize.

We can take partial blame, however, because we mailed our event brochure too late. Chalk it up to printer delays, vacations, editorial snafus, and the other usual glitches.

We can also blame God, who decided to unleash a biblical flood on the region that day. Streets became streams, the quad became a lagoon, and alumni became scarce. If you have to cancel a soccer game, you know it's serious.

But a perfectly timed brochure and an exquisite fall day would have yielded only a handful more. Homecoming simply isn't a big tradition here. I suppose traditions can't be foisted upon folks or manufactured; they have to grow organically. This one never did. So why force it?

Instead, we're organizing several alumni events throughout the year. Some will be on the campus, while others will occur wherever pockets of graduates live. Those events will be small and theme-driven.

Our industry likes to refer to "affinity groups," packs of people joined together by common interests or experiences. Affinity groups revolve around certain popular majors, the radio station, the campus newspaper, sports teams, fraternities and sororities, and so forth. We have already started down that path, and it's proven effective. But not always, and we'll earn some bruises along the way. One attempt to gather folks in Phoenix flopped like a failed soufflé. Staff members outnumbered attendees two to one, and I'm not referring to a ratio.

I know most institutions already adhere to the affinity-group notion and conduct similar events accordingly. I wonder, though, how many have scrapped homecoming or are considering it. My alma mater certainly isn't, at least judging by the 20-plus-page pullout in the alumni magazine. It is, after all, a traditional place with a residential student body of 18- to 22-year-olds. They march through as a class, graduate with their friends, and remain faithful to the class mentality. Heck, I use my class year as my e-mail address. It's part of my identity.

As student demographics change, though, so too might traditions. Students are older, studying part time, commuting or attending online, taking one or two courses here and there. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, only 27 percent of undergraduates fit the "traditional" bill (that is the latest figure available and it is from 2000, so the percentage might be even lower now, given national trends).

The Ivies and potted Ivies cling to customs, but the romanticized ideal of alumni parading en masse across leafy quads doesn't square with reality for most institutions. My current college happens to be a hybrid, featuring a residential population; a nontraditional, commuting-and-working population; and an online population, most of whom will never step foot in Fitchburg. They can't come home if they never lived here.

We may represent the campus of the future, if not the present. And as such, our ways of thinking about alumni relations will change accordingly. To those working at the top of the academic food chain, keep doing what you're doing. Your institutions aren't about to change drastically any time soon. But the majority of us must continually rethink how we meaningfully engage alumni in the life and afterlife of our colleges.

I'm somewhat sad to see homecoming go, and I'll weep gentle tears next fall when the quad remains quiet and unpopulated by the handful of returning revelers. Yet I won't miss giving CPR to a corpse. It's time to bury this one and move on. We'll all be happier for it.