Duke recently ended the lifetime email forwarding it had long promised its alumni, and the reaction online wasn’t what you’d expect from something so operational. People weren’t just annoyed about logging back into a handful of accounts. One 2017 graduate described it as the end of his public identity — the address attached to his publications, his legal records, his resume, his healthcare portals, all of it. For decades, that little @alumni.duke.edu forward wasn’t a convenience. It was a thread back to who he’d been and where he belonged.
On this week’s Breakout, Annie, Courtney, and I kept circling the same idea. As Courtney put it, “this is messing with their lives.” And it raises a question I don’t think we ask enough in advancement: how much of engagement is really about the benefit, and how much is about identity? The same thread ran through the other two pieces we discussed — research on what genuinely engages employees (connection, communication, appreciation, and voice, not perks) and a new study sorting donors into five profiles of generosity. Different topics, same lesson.
Whether it’s an alumnus, an employee, or a donor, people don’t stick around for a perk or a program. They stay because they feel known. The Duke story is a reminder that the moment an institution treats a relationship as a line item, the people on the other end feel it. And the moment we treat it as a connection worth protecting, they feel that too.
Big Themes This Week
One relationship-rich, work-integrated experience roughly doubles a graduate’s odds of a good job and lifelong engagement but it reaches fewer than a third of students. The issue isn’t whether it works; it’s that no one has scaled it.
The early rungs of the career ladder — summer jobs, internships, entry-level roles — have been eroding for a decade, and AI is now accelerating it.
“Lifelong learning” is the most common phrase in mission statements, and schools do almost nothing to deliver on it. A degree could be evergreen, not a four-year burst.
With more supply than demand, differentiation is now survival but only if an institution is authentic to its value proposition and can deliver it.
Career readiness and the liberal arts aren’t opposites. Employers want graduates who are both broadly educated and specifically skilled.
Team Discussion Questions
If work-integrated learning is this powerful, what’s actually stopping us from scaling it? Resources, buy-in, or that no one owns it?
As entry-level roles erode, what role should we and our alumni play in securing applied-learning opportunities for students?
What would treating the degree as “evergreen” look like for us, and what would have to change in how we engage alumni?
Could we name our institution’s signature in one sentence and would our alumni describe it the same way?
Where does work-integrated learning sit on our campus, and is it positioned to be core to the student experience rather than an add-on?
Coming Up:
The Next Agora: Developing Leadership Presence
Our next Agora will be about these themes and more.
Title:
Developing Leadership Presence: Inspire with Confidence, Credibility, and Trust
Date & Time:
Friday, June 26 from 12-1 pm ET.
Speaker:
Mo Cotton Kelly, Chief People Officer and Senior Vice President, Alumni Relations at the UConn Foundation.
