Communications Committee

The Communications Committee shall (1) encourage and facilitate communication between and among members of the council and their respective constituencies regarding both the council’s activities and the College as a whole; (2) encourage and facilitate communication within the council itself, by providing (a) tools and resources to aid constituent discourse, (b) metrics regarding successful communication practices, (c) training to improve the council’s overall accessibility to and from the alumni at large, and (d) a means to safeguard Council legacy of information; and (3) regularly review opportunities to improve council communications broadly.

Report from the 203nd Alumni Council, December 1-3, 2011 

Derek Symer ’90, chair of the committee, opened the meeting and asked all of the committee members to introduce themselves. 

The committee members reviewed the committee’s mission statement, which was revised last year. It was mentioned that, in addition to supporting Alumni Council communications, perhaps the committee could consider assisting with other alumni communications (for example, the webmasters’ and newsletter editors’ communications). 

Lynne Gaudet ’81 shared the Alumni Council communications metrics with the committee; there are 97 councilors with defined constituencies. A summary of the spring meeting was prepared by committee members Debbie Atuk ’04Tu and Sarah Jackson-Han ’88. It was emailed to all councilors. Fifty-five councilors sent out meeting reports following the spring meeting; 97 had sent them out following last fall’s meeting. There seems to be a dropoff in the spring due to turnover of third-year councilors, so that is an area to improve upon. Of those 55 spring reports, 42 (76 percent) used the meeting summary prepared by the committee in some way. The committee and the Alumni Council leadership focused on trying to improve pre-meeting communications this fall. Last spring, 18 councilors sent out pre-meeting emails. This fall, there was significant improvement, with 62 councilors sending out pre-meeting emails to their constituents.

Symer informed the committee that Steve Geanacopoulos ’74 will compose the Alumni Council meeting summary for the 203rd meeting. 

Vice President for Communications Roddy Young made a presentation to the committee and asked for feedback on the College website and for their impressions of the Dartmouth Aires media campaign. The following comments were made:

• It would be good to consider allowing public comments on various articles on the website.
• More coverage of alumni achievements and profiles would enhance website content and engage more readers.
• Young mentioned that he would like to integrate coverage of alumni between Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, the Public Affairs office, and the Alumni Relations office. There was a brief discussion regarding the utility of the alumni magazine among younger classes.

A conversation pertaining to ways to maximize the communications committee effectiveness followed. It was suggested that:

• The Alumni Council automatically send out a standard meeting summary if a councilor had not communicated within several weeks following the council meeting (Note: The council president sends out the Communications Committee meeting summary to those undergrad classes and grad school alumni who have not received a communication within this timeframe);
• The Alumni Liaison Committee mechanism for responding to councilor inquiries should be streamlined in some way;
• The Communications Committee should utilize its Wiki site to communicate between meetings; and
•  The Communications Committee should consider helping to support the communications of classes, clubs, and webmasters in particular.

Report from the 202nd Alumni Council, May 19–21, 2011 

Sarah Jackson-Han ’88, chair of the committee, opened the meeting and Lynne Gaudet ’81, director of alumni leadership, reported the following metrics, as outlined by the standardized meeting agenda that was approved at the fall committee meeting:

• The 201st Alumni Council meeting summary had been completed by Debbie Atuk ’04Tu and distributed to all councilors. Jackson-Han and Atuk will work together to compose the 202nd Alumni Council meeting summary.
• Ninety-seven out of 106 councilors who have an identified constituency sent out a 201st post-meeting report; 95 percent of the councilors used the prepared summary in some fashion within their report
• Eighteen councilors sent a pre-meeting notice before the 202nd Alumni Council meeting.
• The vast majority of councilors are communicating via emails to their constituencies. In addition, there are approximately five to six class representatives who include their reports in their class newsletters as well as sending it out via email.

The committee will be involved with the orientation session for new councilors once again next fall. The committee will continue to report during the Saturday morning plenary (with the other council committees), but the Executive Committee might also want to consider asking the Communications Committee to make a presentation regarding new media communications (Facebook, Twitter, websites, etc.). The Communications Committee might also want to consider creating a subcommittee to design a survey that could be conducted with SurveyMonkey and would poll alumni councilors regarding communications with their constituencies.

Michael Backman, director of information resources, made a PowerPoint presentation providing an update on alumni relations technical services. He said that alumni relations would be moving to iModules, replacing Harris, and would work on templates in July and August.

Diana Lawrence, director of alumni relations communications, made a PowerPoint presentation about blogs.

The committee elected Jay Benson ’90 ’96Tu to serve as vice chair of the committee. Derek Symer ’90 will be the chair.

Report from the 201st Alumni Council, December 1-4, 2010: 

The Communications Committee discussed the work that the communications subcommittee has completed over the last six months. The subcommittee held several conference calls and studied the committee’s mission and purposeful acts. A document outlining this work was circulated via email in preparation for the meeting so that the entire Communications Committee could review it beforehand. A summary of the purposeful acts outlined include:

• Create a brief meeting summary for each council meeting for alumni councilors;
• Include a key topics or major issues section within the meeting summary provided to councilors;
• Conduct periodic councilor surveys or polls — internal to the council — regarding specific tools that work well/poorly;
• Track metrics not within the Alumni Liaison Committee’s current scope (for example, how many councilors sent each of the four expected communications);
• Address full council (at each meeting/once each year) to share metrics and give brief presentation on communication tools;
• Participate each year in the orientation program
• Provide training sessions for councilors;
• Establish a means to safeguard council “legacy” of information; and
• Review opportunities for improved communication with a scheduled frequency.

 The document proposed the following revised Communications Committee mission:

The Communications Committee shall 1) encourage and facilitate communication between and among members of the council and its respective constituencies regarding both the council’s activities and the College as a whole; 2) encourage and facilitate communication within the council itself by providing a) tools and resources to aid constituent discourse, b) metrics regarding successful communication practices c) training to improve the council’s overall accessibility to and from the alumni at large, and (d) a means to safeguard council legacy of information; and (3) regularly review opportunities to improve council communications broadly.

The document also outlined the means to accomplish the mission through a standardized meeting agenda. The Communications Committee unanimously approved the list of purposeful acts and the proposed mission.

Diana Lawrence, director of alumni relations communications, gave a presentation about Dartmouth and alumni relations online resources and tools. She also provided information about the Alumni Council Facebook group.

A discussion about various means of communications and tools followed. The committee agreed to discuss social media communications and options for the Alumni Council at the next Communications Committee meeting. The committee also decided to invite Mike Backman, director of alumni information resources, to make a presentation about alumni relations technical resources at the next committee meeting. 

 
Report from the 200th Alumni Council, May 20–22, 2010: 

Sean Plottner, editor of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, made a presentation regarding the online version of the magazine. 

Committee member Andy Horne ’87 led a discussion about the focus of the committee. He recommended that the following items be discussed by the committee at each meeting: metrics (how well is the council communicating via emails?), tools (is the council using them effectively? Which presentations should the committee bring to the entire Alumni Council?), issues, and councilor reporting. The committee decided to create a subcommittee to discuss these issues between meetings, draft a new committee mission statement, and examine purposeful acts and recommendations to share with the entire Communications Committee. The subcommittee will: identify purpose and set task, base agenda on task, and ensure follow-up with action items.

The committee discussed councilor communications, including the summary produced by Brooks Clark ’78 after each meeting. Brooks will retire from the Alumni Council on June 30 and Debbie Atuk ’04Tu will oversee the production of the fall meeting report. Jay Davis ’54 shared a handout of a writing style guide. He will compose a draft of a style guide, circulate it via email to the Communications Committee members, and allow everybody to work on revisions together. The committee will then post the final guide on the Alumni Council website as a tool for councilors.

Sarah Jackson-Han ’88 will become the chair in 2010-11. Derek Symer ’90 was elected vice chair for 2010-11.

Report from the 199th Alumni Council, December 3–5, 2009:  

Sarah Jackson-Han '88, vice chair of the Communications Committee, opened the meeting and explained that Jon Murchinson '91, committee chair, was unable to attend the Alumni Council meeting due to his child's illness. She welcomed the five first-year councilors who have joined the committee. Sarah provided a summary of 2008-09 alumni councilor communications. Councilors sent out 213 emails and reports (more than a 100-percent increase over the 99 reports sent last year) and received more than 600 responsive messages from alumni. The responses of alumni feedback were forwarded by councilors to the Alumni Liaison Committee, which compiled the annual report for the board of trustees. The report is posted at http://alumni.dartmouth.edu/news.aspx?id=502. The report has been posted in its entirety and is also available in two sections (body of the report and appendices). These downloading options resulted from a recommendation that was made by Communications Committee member Jay Davis '54.

The committee discussed the meeting summary, which will be produced by Brooks Clark '78. The summary is made available to all alumni councilors for their use when communicating with constituents. Lynne Gaudet '81 of Alumni Relations told Brooks that many councilors liked the format he had used for a previous meeting, which provided both a short "elevator statement" of main points as well as the more detailed summary of the meeting. Some councilors used the elevator statement and then provided their own commentary in their communications.

Communications regarding the 2010 trustee election were addressed. In response to some questions from committee members related to the history of the trustee election process, Lynne Gaudet and John Mathias '69, president of the Association of Alumni, provided information about this. Sarah informed the committee that the Nominating Committee, which includes Jon Murchinson, is working on providing councilors some communications pieces about the trustee nominations. The committee also discussed ideas for outreach to increase voter participation.

Committee members agreed to continue the practice of following up with councilors who do not promptly send out an email to their constituencies. Approximately six weeks after the Alumni Council meeting, Lynne Gaudet will provide each committee member with names and contact information to follow up with some councilors about this. Elliott Weinstein '56 '57Tu mentioned that the committee used to also contact councilors in advance of meetings to encourage them to contact their constituencies in preparation for meetings. The committee would like to do this again, and so Lynne Gaudet will email each member the contact information for some councilors before the spring meeting.

A discussion followed about sending effective communications to gather feedback. The committee would like to recommend to the Alumni Council's Executive Committee that it have a panel presentation at the spring meeting composed of particularly effective Alumni Council communicators who could share some "best practice" ideas with fellow councilors and lead a brainstorming session on this topic.

Diana Lawrence, director of Alumni Relations communications, then made a presentation about online communications and showcased the following sites and pages:

• www.alumni.dartmouth.edu  (Alumni Relations home page)
• www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/greennews  (GreenNews)
• www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/voxbox (VoxBox multimedia page)
• www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/council/resources (Resources for Alumni from the Dartmouth Alumni Council)
• www.alumni.dartmouth.edu/dcn (Dartmouth Career Network)
• www.voxthevote.org (election Web site)

Diana also mentioned that alumni like to download the Baker Library bell tones for their cell phone ringtone. A holiday email card will be sent to all alumni; the office is exploring the demand for mobile applications, and they hope to place more communications online.

Sarah Jackson-Han discussed the Alumni Council Facebook page, and explained that she would be making a presentation about it to the entire Alumni Council during the Saturday morning plenary session. Also during that session, Mike Backman, director of alumni information resources, was to speak about Dartmouth alumni technology.