It's been a while since I posted on my own blog, but here is an entry that was originally posted on
Frankly Penn (the University of Pennsylvania Alumni blog) on June 27, 2012. I have made minor edits.
For those who don't know my day job, I work in Alumni Relations. Not everyone understands what I do on a daily basis.
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| Baker Library, quintessential Dartmouth |
Alumni relations professionals advance the
mission of their institutions and serve and support its alumni - graduates of an educational institution - reflecting the values of the institution. We
reinforce the principles of honesty,
integrity, and trust, which form the basis for long-term relationships
and
engagement with the school. For the majority of us, we manage and direct
the work of alumni volunteers who are promoting the image of the
College or University to their school peers.
Annually, the Alumni Relations groups of the 8 Ivy League
Universities as well as MIT and Stanford gather for the Ivy Plus Alumni
Relations Conference, or Ivy+ for short. It is three-day forum at a peer institution where were meet our colleagues who do the same work we do in order to hone our
craft. This year, the conference was
hosted by Dartmouth College.
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| Dartmouth Hall, the original college building |
Nestled in the town of Hanover, NH,
Dartmouth College
sits as an idyllic institution of higher education. So perfect is the
image, Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 said “this is what a college is
supposed to look like.” It is quite charming and, if Penn didn’t exist, I
would agree with Eisenhower (for the record, I think that
Brown,
Cornell,
Columbia,
Harvard,
MIT,
Princeton,
Stanford and
Yale are all what college is supposed to look like.)
The
Dartmouth Alumni Relations staff dazzled us with their school pride and
shared with us their traditions like the Dartmouth Outing Club
First-Year Trips,
the Salty Dog Rag,
the Winter Carnival, and Homecoming. From D-Term to Animal House, from
Sophomore Summer to Occom Pond, we were taken on a crash course of all
that is Dartmouth. By the end, several of us were seeing green –
Dartmouth Green.
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| Christine
Tempesta, Director, Strategic Initiatives, delivering her TEDx-style
speech (note the ice sculpture of a beaver – MIT’s mascot) |
Each of my colleagues found our specific conference track – focused on our area of expertise, including
Affinity Groups and Shared Interest Groups;
Alumni Education and
Travel;
Classes and Reunions;
Clubs and Regional Associations;
Marketing, Communications and Technology;
Student and
Young Alumni Programs; and
Volunteer Management and Alumni Boards.
In these sessions, we discussed best practices and shared success
stories that we can hopefully adapt at our home University. The intent
is that when we return to our campus, we follow up and continue the
conversations started at Ivy+. I've already been in touch with my wonderful peer at Dartmouth, and I'm working on my follow up to my presentation, "Are Small Clubs Dying?" to the attendees.
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| Vijay addressing the Ivy+ crowd |
Outside of our tracks of expertise, we had daily plenary sessions. Two of these featured
Christopher Trimble, adjunct professor of Business Administration and
Vijay Govindarajan, the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College – the authors of
The Other Side of Innovation. During Ivy+, their discussions were based on our pre-conference reading (a.k.a. homework),
How Stella Saved The Farm: A Wild and Woolly Tale About Making Innovation Happen,
a fable based on their business best-seller. The discussions revolved
around how to change the way we think about the planning for the future
(where will the firm be in 20 years and what products or services will
being the firm there) and addressing the need of mutual respect for the
business’s production engine and its innovation team (both of which will
be in conflict with each other).
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| The Tower Room, in Baker Library – the statue is a tribute to the original mission of the College |
The other plenary discussion was from
Peter Post, Director,
The Emily Post Institute, and a follow Penn alumnus,
who discussed the etiquette of tough situations. Peter annually comes
to Dartmouth during their sophomore summer for a lunch which pairs the
current sophomore class (the Class of 2015) with the matching 50th
reunion class (the Class of 1965). The lunch is a wonderful opportunity
for the two classes to make connections and discover each others class,
while learning (or refreshing) their table etiquette. For us, though,
Peter focused on what the contemporary meaning of etiquette is while
being true to his great-grandmother’s mission: etiquette is the
relationship between two people that is respectful, considerate, and
based in honest. In remembering these three tenets, Peter assured us
that we would have proper etiquette in the business world. He finished
his talk with some role play to manage some of the most challenging
interactions in today’s social world.
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| The Steam Tunnel Tour (picture from the Ivy+ Facebook page) |
We talked shop, but we had fun too. On Wednesday, we had the options of a tour of the Hood Museum of Art for the show –
Nature Transformed: Edward Burynsky’s Vermont Quarry Photographs in Context,
a walking tour of campus led by Dartmouth sophomores or underground
steam tunnel tour. On Thursday, we had a Dr. Seuss-themed
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
excursion (Theodor Seuss Geisel is a Dartmouth Class of 1925 alumnus),
which mirrored the Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trips, to the
Connecticut River for either canoeing or kayaking, to King Arthur Flour
Store and Bakery, to Simon Pearce – glassblowing and pottery studio, to a
guided hike along the Connecticut, to the Hood Museum for the
presentation “Ancient Art, New Media: Bringing the Past to Life,” or to
the
Harpoon Brewery. I opted for Harpoon in neighboring Vermont.
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| I am enjoying my excursion at Harpoon |
At the end of the three days, the conference ended with a handful of
TEDx-styled
talks from our peers, including our own Elise Betz. They were charming,
informative, evocative and emotional. The motivational chats moved the
audience and summarized the amazing experience of getting to spend 3
days with our Ivy+ peers, sharing our skills, brainstorming ideas and
meeting such impressive people who love their alma mater! Ending on a
high note, we announced that Penn would be hosting Ivy+ in 2013. It’s a
lot of work, but we’re looking forward to it.
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| For your information, Peter Post’s guidelines for good business lunch etiquette |
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