Tag: Network

Don’t Underestimate Value of a Human Network (opinion)

This week is Thanksgiving in the United States, a time when many of us come together with family and friends to express gratitude for the positive things in our lives. The holiday season can also be a challenging time for those who are far from family and grappling with the prevalent loneliness of our modern era.

Perhaps worse than missing the company of others over the holidays is being with family who hold different views and beliefs from your own. The fact is, though, that when we come together with a large, diverse group of people at events we are bound to find a variety of viewpoints and personalities in the room.

People are complex and messy, and engaging with them is often a lot of work. Sometimes it seems easier to just not deal with them at all and “focus on ourselves” instead. Similarly, the vast amount of information available online often leads many graduate students and postdocs to think they can effectively engage in professional development, explore career options and navigate their next step on their own. Indeed, there are many amazing online tools and resources to help with a lot of this but only by engaging other people in conversation can we fully come to understand how various practices, experiences and occupations apply to us as unique beings in the world. Generic advice is fine, but it can only be tailored through genuine dialogue with another person, though some believe they can find it in a machine.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology has accelerated since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 and now many people lean on AI chatbots for advice and even companionship. The problem with this approach is that AI chatbots are, at least currently, quite sycophantic and don’t, by default, challenge a user’s worldview. Rather, they can reinforce one’s current beliefs and biases. Furthermore, since we as humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize things, we perceive the output of AI chatbots as “human” and think we are getting the type of “social” relationship and advice we need from a bot without all the friction of dealing with another human being in real life. So, while outsourcing your problems to a chatbot may feel easy, it cannot fully support you as you navigate your life and career. Furthermore, generative AI has made the job application, screening and interview process incredibly impersonal and ineffective. One recent piece in The Atlantic put it simply (if harshly): “The Job Market is Hell.”

What is the solution to this sad state of affairs?

I am here to remind readers of the importance of engaging with real, human people to help you navigate your professional development, job search and life. Despite the fear of being rejected, making small talk or hearing things that may challenge you, engaging with other people will help you learn about professional roles available to you, discover unexpected opportunities, build critical interpersonal skills and, in the process, understand yourself (and how you relate with others) better.

For graduate students and postdocs today, it’s easy to feel isolated or spend too much time in your own head focusing on your perceived faults and deficiencies. You need to remember, though, that you are doing hard things, including leading research projects seeking to investigate questions no one else has reported on before. But as you journey through your academic career and into your next step professionally, I encourage you to embrace the fact that true strength and resilience lies in our connections—with colleagues, mentors, friends and the communities we build.

Networks enrich your perspectives, foster resilience and can help you find not only jobs, but joy and fulfillment along the way. Take intentional steps to build and lean on your community during your time as an academic and beyond. Invest time, gratitude and openness in your relationships. Because when you navigate life’s challenges with others by your side, you don’t just survive—you thrive.

Practical Tips for Building and Leveraging Networks

For graduate students and postdocs, here are some action steps to foster meaningful networks to help you professionally and personally:

Tip 1: Seek Diverse Connections

Attend seminars, departmental events, professional conferences and interest groups—both within and outside your field.

Join and engage in online forums, LinkedIn groups and professional organizations that interest you. Create a career advisory group.

Tip 2: Practice Gratitude and Generosity

Thank peers and mentors regularly—showing appreciation strengthens relationships, opens doors and creates goodwill.

Offer help, such as reviewing your peers’ résumés, sharing job leads or simply listening. Reciprocity is foundational to strong networks.

Tip 3: Be Vulnerable and Authentic

Share struggles and setbacks. Vulnerability invites others to connect, offer advice and foster mutual support.

Be honest about your goals; don’t feel pressured to follow predefined paths set by others or by societal norms.

Tip 4: Leverage Formal Resources

Enroll in career design workshops or online courses, such as Stanford University’s “Designing Your Career.”

Utilize university career centers, alumni networks and faculty advisers for information and introductions.

Tip 5: Make Reflection a Habit

Set aside time weekly or monthly to review progress, map goals and consider input from your network.

Use journaling or guided exercises to deepen self-insight and identify what you want from relationships and careers.

Tip 6: Cultivate Eulogy Virtues

Focus not just on professional “résumé virtues,” but also on “eulogy virtues”—kindness, honesty, courage and the quality of relationships formed.

These provide lasting meaning and fuel deep, authentic connections that persist beyond job titles and paychecks.

Strategies for Overcoming Isolation

Graduate students and postdocs are at particular risk for isolation and burnout, given the demands of research and the often-solitary nature of scholarship. Community is a proven antidote. Consider forming small groups with fellow students and postdocs to share resources, celebrate milestones and troubleshoot professional challenges together. Regular meetings can foster motivation and accountability. These can be as simple as monthly coffee chats to something more structured such as regular writing or job search support groups. And, while online communities are not a perfect substitute for support, postdocs can leverage Future PI Slack and graduate students can use their own Slack community for help and advice. You can also lean on your networks for emotional support and practical help, especially during stressful periods or setbacks.

Another practical piece of advice to build your network and connections is volunteer engagement. This could mean volunteering in a professional organization, committees at your institution or in your local community. Working together with others on shared projects in this manner helps build connections without the challenges many have with engaging others at purely social events. In addition, volunteering can help you develop leadership, communication and management skills that can become excellent résumé material.

Networking to Launch Your Career

Through the process of engaging with more people through an expanded network you also open yourself up to serendipity and opportunities that could enhance your overall training and career. Career theorists call this “planned happenstance.” The idea is simple: By putting yourself in community with others—attending talks, joining professional groups, volunteering for committees—you increase the odds that unexpected opportunities will cross your path. You meet people who do work you hadn’t considered, learn about opportunities before they’re posted and hear about initiatives that need someone with your skills earlier than most.

When I was a postdoc at Vanderbilt University, I volunteered for the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA), starting small by writing for their online newsletter (The POSTDOCket), and also became increasingly involved in the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Association (VPA). These experiences were helpful as I transitioned to working in postdoctoral affairs as a higher education administrator after my postdoc. Writing for The POSTDOCket as a postdoc allowed me to interview administrators and leaders in postdoctoral affairs, in the process learning about working in the space. My leadership in VPA showed I understood some of the needs of the postdoctoral community and could organize programming to support postdocs. I have become increasingly involved in the NPA over the past six years, culminating in being chair of our Board of Directors in 2025. This work has allowed me to increase my national visibility and has resulted in invites to speak to postdocs at different institutions, the opportunity to serve on a National Academies Roundtable, and I believe helped me land my current role at Virginia Tech.

I share all this to reiterate that in uncertain job markets, it’s tempting to focus on polishing résumés or applying to ever more positions online. Those things can matter—but they’re not enough. Opportunities often come through both expanding your network and engaging with people and activities we care about. They can present themselves to you via your network long before they appear in writing and they often can’t be fully anticipated when you initially engage with these “extracurricular activities.” A good first step to open yourself up to possibilities is to get involved in communities outside your direct school or work responsibilities. Doing so will improve your sense of purpose, help you build key transferrable skills, increase your connections and aid in your transition to your next role.

Your training and career should not be a solitary climb, but rather a collaborative, evolving process of growth and discovery. A strong community and network are critical to your longterm wellbeing and success. And, in a world where setbacks and uncertainty are inevitable, connection is the constant that turns possibility into progress.

Chris Smith is Virginia Tech’s postdoctoral affairs program administrator. He serves on the National Postdoctoral Association’s Board of Directors and is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing a national voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

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November 24, 2025
Network Weaving as an Antidote to Imposter Syndrome – Teaching in Higher Ed

I’ve been traveling this week, so got a bit behind on my reflections on Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) workshop. The other thing that is a bit frustrating, is that I haven’t been disciplined about my typical sensemaking habits and practices and seem to have lost the notes I took on a video he shared about something new to me: network weaving. At some point, maybe my reflections will resurface (my digital inboxes are overflowing, at the moment, and search seems no use to me if I can’t even find the haystack that the needle may be hiding in with those notes). That’s all just to say, I’m all over the place right now.

Network Weaving

I stubbornly don’t want to rewatch the video at this exact moment. I’m sitting in an airport, next to an outlet with all my devices happily charging until it is time to get on my first of two flights for the day. To say that I am a person with battery anxiety is an understatement. Here’s what I remember about watching Networks: Weaving People, Ideas and Projects, though, mixed with the connections I found with other ideas I’ve encountered in the past.

June Holley describes network weaving as connecting people, ideas, and projects. Hearing her describe the generosity and intentionality involved in network weaving had me reflecting on Coaching for Leaders Episode 279 with Tom Henschel: How to Grow Your Professional Network. Prior to listening to that conversation between Dave and Tom, I had thought about networking more as something I was never very good at, but tolerated, since I knew it was necessary in most professions.

Tom described different types of networking and it was then that I realized I actually loved it and did it all the time; just that I hadn’t thought of what I enjoy doing falling under the category of networking. I enjoy meeting someone new and then identifying who else I know that is into the same stuff that they’re into. I think what Tom was describing is a lot like June Holley’s description of network weaving. Jarche shares this short Network Weaving 101 article from Valdis Krebs, which describes how this process is all about “closing triangles.” Krebs writes:

A triangle exists between three people in a social network. An “open triangle” exists where one person knows two other people who are not yet connected to each other — X knows Y and X knows Z, but Y and Z do not know each other. A network weaver (X) may see an opportunity or possibility from making a connection between two currently unconnected people (Y and Z). A “closed triangle” exists when all three people know each other: X-Y, X-Z, Y-Z.

This makes so much sense to me, instantly. Some of the other content that Jarche has shared has been challenging for me to take in (which I appreciate, as he’s stretching me and helping me grow). But this one, I feel like I get on a more instinctive level. Like I’ve been doing something for much of my life, without having a word for it, yet experiencing such joy each time it happens.

Imposter Syndrome

I’m also realizing that one of the ways I try to calm my nerves when preparing to do a keynote or workshop may very well be embodied by the idea of network weaving. The lizard part of my brain starts to tell myself that I have nothing to offer (this gets exasperated by being in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city, after sitting too long on airplanes all day). One of the best listener emails I ever received came from Itamar Kastner in Scotland. He said that he knows I’m a fan of music and thought I might enjoy Grace Petrie, and English Folk singer-song writer “in the protest singer tradition of Billy Bragg and Woody Guthrie,” he explained over email. Yes, indeed, Itamar was spot on in recommending Grace Petrie’s Nobody Knows That I’m a Fraud:

To thwart the less sophisticated parts of my brain that make me wonder what I’m doing in a hotel room, preparing for the next day’s adventures, I work to shift my focus away from how I am feeling and what I might like people to experience in the session with me. I even try to shrink it down more than a bunch of nameless faces and think about a single person and where they may be struggling and potentially feeling alone or like a failure in some way. What sorts of imposter syndrome symptoms might otherwise be relieved through my vulnerability in not having everything figured out, yet learning out loud, anyway? How might that posture provide fertile ground for others to do the same?

The second half of how I can calm my nerves is to remember that my job isn’t to talk about what I do in my own teaching, necessarily. Rather, I get to share these incredible stories and point people back to the source of inspiration that I’ve found through the podcast across all these years. This feels very much like what I now understand to be a form of collective network weaving (as in connecting many people to new ideas, people, and projects. The last eleven and a half years, I’ve been fortunate to get to talk to people from all over the world who love teaching and learning (just like me). The stories within those conversations are limitless sources of hope, practice, and feelings of solidarity.

Jackie Shay offers the final piece of the puzzle for unraveling those feelings of insecurity that can be present for so many of us, by the way. I realize that last sentence mixed at least two metaphors at once, but give me a break. I’m sitting in an airport, remember? 😂 On Episode 571: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome Through Joyful Curiosity, Jackie asks:

Why can’t we recognize that these different types of intelligences have just as much value as intellectual intelligence?

I’m not supposed to ever be even close to the smartest person in the room. Not even close. But curiosity and connection? Those are two pursuits I’ve enjoyed my whole life and are forms of intelligence to be valued and cultivated in ourselves and others. As we prepare to share our sensemaking process with others, how about we stop trying to out-perform the imaginary room of intelligent people we’ll be talking at and start working on creating conversations that spark imagination?

Jackie Shay is tremendously good at getting people curious and engaged. I remember so vividly talking to Jackie about my memories of camping with my family in Joshua Tree as a little girl and getting swept away in all the specifics that flooded into my mind. Then, I felt like I should pull back and joked about revealing a bigger focus on capitalism than I had hoped for a conversation about nature/science. My brother and I used to have a whole economy we had built out of the various elements in the desert back then, like the quartz crystals and different types of plants.

Jackie laughed with me, but also let me know that sorting and categorizing things (as we had done with the different elements there in the desert) was actually a big part of science. We were doing science, even though I didn’t have a word for that at the time (and clearly didn’t in my embarrassment feeling like no one wanted to hear about my childhood memories until she pointed out to me that we had been doing science, without realizing it). I recalled Alexis Pierce Caudell recommending Categories We Live By: How We Classify Everyone and Everything, by Gregory L. Murphy on Episode 527. While I wish I had finished reading it by now, but it sits in the virtual pile of books I’ve started but have yet to complete. It’s not a science book, though, well… except maybe the varieties related to library science and information technology. I obviously need to read the book before I should be commenting on what it is and isn’t. Sigh.

I don’t think at all that this picture of my brother and I was actually taken in Joshua Tree. I’m going to have to see if I can find one in the photo albums I haven’t quite gotten to scanning yet. But it reminds me of our imaginative life that we had when our family would take trips together.

Closing Triangles

As Valdis Krebs described, network weaving is all about closing triangles. At the keynote I gave for the ETOM conference today, I didn’t exactly close a triangle. However, I got to spend some time with a couple of past Teaching in Higher Ed podcast guests. Christina Moore discussed Inclusive Practices Through Digital Accessibility on Episode 293 and Mobile-Mindful Teaching and Learning on Episode 456. VaNessa Thompson helped us discover How to Engage on Social Media on Episode 416.

VaNessa and Christina already know each other and I know them. Still, this memory we now share tightens the bond between us and now creates a triangular relationship between the three of us. Again, not necessarily closing triangles here. But certainly doing something new with going from one-on-one relationships and now having this shared triangle to remember and potentially strengthen in the future.

PS. My talk was aligned with the conference theme (innovation). I had some fun with alliteration and divided the talk into: 1) innovation 2) imagination and 3) imitation (which was kinda like curation, but I just couldn’t break the alliteration streak I was on there). In my reading for the topic of connectors, I just saw a quick reference in Beth Kanter’s piece that Jarche shared about how helpful network weaving can be when we’re “stumbling through the fog of innovation.” I like that phrase “fog of innovation” and only wish I had come across it before today’s keynote. 🤦‍♀️🫠

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November 8, 2025
The network effects of a university collapse
Universities are bound together more tightly than ministers like to admit. They share credit lines, pension schemes, suppliers, and reputations. Contagion, once started, moves faster than policy can catch it.

The question up until recently was the wrong one: could a university fail. The grown-up question is what happens next: to students who haven’t applied yet, to local communities, and to neighbouring universities. We have to begin with the obvious: students come first.

Failure at one institution produces contagion effects, the magnitude of which depends on regional centrality and clustering. Government should focus on keeping that transmission reproduction number (or R number – remember that from Covid?) below one. This piece maps some of those transmission channels – I’ve modelled small changes to the bottom line of an average neighbouring university, based on student spend, pensions, interest rates and group buying.

Our patient zero – that is, the first to fall – is a provider that is OfS-registered and regionally significant, and I have estimated the price shock for its financially average neighbour. Of course, I have to assume no rescue package from government (they have signalled as such).

The calculations below are based on the average university using 2023–24 HESA data, excluding FE colleges with HE provision. Each percentage change is illustrative rather than predictive and actual outcomes will depend on local factors.

Stay at home

Student demand runs on policy signals and vibes as much as price. In 2024 we saw sponsored study visas fall year-on-year and dependants drop sharply, while PGT overseas remained twitchy.

Throw a closure into that salad and you start to see conversion eroding. Bursary spend and fee waivers will rise to keep offers attractive. A percentage point here or there looks insignificant but adds up across multiple providers.

International students will start looking elsewhere: Australia, Canada, Germany. Or they’ll just stay at home. Better to choose a sure thing than risk having your course disrupted halfway through. Home students may be similarly spooked – but have fewer alternatives.

There are a few antidotes: multiple guaranteed transfer corridors, decent student protection plans, and teach-out clarity. And most importantly, comms that make sense to agents and parents.

Illustrative hits to an average university elsewhere:
- Additional bursary spend on international: £80m × 0.5% = £400k
- Reduced international demand: £80m × 0.5% = £400k
Protect the USS

Multi-employer pension schemes, like USS and LGPS, can go very squiffy when a member exits. In that case, the rules force the member to pay a large exit bill called “Section 75”, and the sums can be eye-watering. It’s a standard expectation of a “last man standing” scheme.

Trinity College, Cambridge wrote a cheque for about £30m to leave USS in 2019. USS has suggested that, for a sample of employers (mainly Oxbridge colleges), a crystallised bill could represent anywhere from 4 to 97 per cent of their cash and long-term investment balances, averaging around 26 per cent.

In practice, an insolvent provider wouldn’t cough up, so other universities would absorb the orphan liability. But there isn’t a mechanical “spread the S75 bill this year” formula; it would show up, if at all, via the valuation and rate-setting process. The scheme is currently in surplus, so additional contribution costs are uncertain. Of course, not all universities are enrolled in USS, but the vast majority are enrolled in multi-employer schemes.

Illustrative hit to a USS-enrolled university elsewhere:
- Salary base: £181m × 72% = £130m
- USS proportion: £130m × 70% (say) = £91m
- 1 pp rate bump: £91m × 1% = £910k
Save livelihoods

Universities drive jobs, rents, transport and culture. Liverpool estimates £2.2bn GVA and 26,630 jobs supported nationwide, roughly one in fifty locally. Northampton reports £823m GVA and 10,610 jobs. National estimates put the sector above £116bn.

Remove the local provider and the GVA virtuous circle turns vicious. Cafés lose footfall, landlords lose tenants (poor them), and pubs are no longer full of students. The extent depends on how rooted the provider is in its community.

Government will find itself paying anyway. Either pre-emptively with small civic grants to keep key services alive, or retrospectively with bigger cheques after the rot sets in. Maybe it will finally put a stop to town and gown tensions.

Illustrative hit to an average university elsewhere:
- No direct cost to other universities
- Material GDP and tax impacts for government
- Likely need for community grants.
Flatten the yield curve

Lenders rarely treat a closure as an isolated blip; being hawkish, they would probably reprice the entire university category.

Add 50 basis points to a £90m facility and you’ve created a recurring £450k drag until you refinance. All in all, that’s not a huge bite out of your cash flow, but it will certainly make you more cautious.

To fix this, listen to your finance directors: stagger your maturities and fix your rates well in advance. Or, radical thought – stop yanking at your credit lines and make do with what you have.

Illustrative hit to an average university elsewhere:
- Additional interest costs: £90m × 0.50% = £450k
Herd immunity

Group buying is one of the few places with cash on the table. In 2023–24, the UK Universities Procurement Consortia (UKUPC) members put about £2.4bn through frameworks and reported roughly £116.1m (4.84%) in cashable savings. The Southern Universities Procurement Consortium (SUPC) talks about £575m of member spend and average levy rebates of around £30,000 per full member.

If fewer universities use those routes, frameworks lose clout, and with that, discounts and rebates. The more volume that stays in the collective pot, the better the prices – but for critical services, it’s still wise to have a backup supplier in case one fails.

Another group issue is shared services. Up until recently, they were seen as a poisoned chalice, but are now growing out of necessity. The usual worries are well-rehearsed: loss of control, infighting and VAT jitters. Still, some experiments, like Janet and UCAS, have been tremendously successful, although pricing relies on throughput.

Shared IT, payroll, procurement or estates often come with joint and several obligations. If one partner hits trouble, you start to see real governance friction.

The practical fixes are contractual. Ringfence any arrears so they do not spill onto everyone else, and rebalance charges on a published, defensible formula.

Illustrative hit to an average university elsewhere:
- Frameworked spend: £131m (total non-staff) × 60% (frameworked, say) x 4.84% (cashable savings) x 10% (diminution) = £380k.
- Shared services: impossible to quantify.
What ministers can do without a podium

I’ve modelled small changes to the bottom line (again, illustratively) – in this example one university going under could cost others £2.5m, or 50 per cent of the average university’s 2023–24 surplus. This number isn’t rigorous or comprehensive, but serves as an interesting thought experiment.

The rational response is a resolution regime that protects students and research, temporary liquidity for solvent neighbours, clear transfer routes when the worst happens, and deployment of short, targeted grants for civic programmes.

A single collapse could probably be absorbed; a string of them could set off an irreversible domino effect with far-reaching consequences. Ministers need to plan for this now – or else risk a very hefty civic bailout.
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October 31, 2025
Getting Curious About Network Mapping – Teaching in Higher Ed
I’ve just embarked on Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) Workshop (October–November 2025). The first invitation Jarche gives is to examine our networks. We begin with a naming exercise: the top four people who come to mind in response to prompts like:
- Who do you most frequently communicate with to get work done?
- Who do you approach for career or work advice?
- Who are the main people you socialize with informally?
- Who do you contact when facing complex work problems?
After listing names, we reflect on their demographics, roles, ages, and how much diversity (or lack thereof) we see in our knowledge network. Jarche encourages us to spot gaps and opportunities for expanding who we include.

Because the prompt focuses on recent months, I observed that some of the questions hit harder than others, given what I’ve been up to, lately. For example, I haven’t been actively job-searching for a long while, so the aspect of the career advice question focused on who I reach out to when considering whether to accept a job or leave my organization felt a bit hypothetical. But answering using a longer time span than solely these last few months nudged me to think about past seasons in which those questions were more pressing.

Serendipitous Invitations and Saying Yes

One outcome of doing the naming exercise is that it reminded me of an invitation to co-facilitate a book study with two other friends. The topic was not related to my formal role at work. The three of us had joked throughout the month-long study about whether we chose the worst possible evening for it. I teach a multi-hour block on Monday afternoons and my fellow facilitators also had all sorts of things going on in their professional and personal contexts. And yet, we were ultimately all glad to have said yes to the commitment.

It ended up being challenging, yet hopeful: people with shared values, diverse perspectives, different paradigms, and a desire to consider our role in the work to live out what we believe. It made me appreciate intentionally saying no to lesser priorities so that I can say yes to what matters most.

After browsing and reflecting on some of the supporting materials that Jarche includes about network mapping, I realized that this experience may be emblematic of “The Strength of Weak Ties,” an idea brought forth by Mark S. Granovetter back in 1973. Granovetter defines the strength of a tie as a composite of time spent, emotional intensity, intimacy (mutual confiding), and reciprocal services. He shows that as tie strength increases, so does overlap in one’s social circle (i.e. your strong ties tend to know each other). Weak ties, being more distant, often serve as bridges between clusters in a network. He reveals about the strength of ties:

Most intuitive notions of the “strength” of an interpersonal tie should be satisfied by the following definition: the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie.

Granovetter also shares the understandable emphasis on strong ties, yet also cautions us about what is lacking in our personal and societal development, were we to focus exclusively on strong ties. He writes:

Treating only the strength of ties ignores, for instance, all the important issues involving their content. What is the relation between strength and degree of specialization of ties, or between strength and hierarchical structure?

The article is pretty dense reading and I am only skimming the surface here, no doubt not quite getting the richness of what he shares.

The Teaching in Higher Ed Network

I’ve long been grateful for my Teaching in Higher Ed podcast and the network is has helped me to cultivate since June of 2014. Over the 11+ years, it’s connected me with people across disciplines and invited discussions about assessment, AI, pedagogy, digital literacy, and more..

By the way: Harold Jarche has been a guest on Teaching in Higher Ed (Episode 213). It was an honor to speak with him, after having followed his work for such a long time. In that episode, he says, “You can’t turn data into information until you have the knowledge to understand the data.” That line struck me again as I think about how PKM is about sense-making, not just accumulation of information.

My Most Frequently-Mentioned Name

As I reviewed my responses, the name that surfaced most often was Dave (my husband). That shouldn’t surprise me: we met while earning our master’s degrees, later pursued doctoral work together, and share many disciplinary interests. He is also someone who regularly challenges my thinking while supporting me. His name appeared in questions about deep matters, who I talk to when launching something new, someone I informally socialize with, a person I want to talk to about complex problems, and finally to get career advice from.

Informal Socializing: Breaking the Rule

One of the prompts asked: Who do you socialize with informally?

I confess: I broke the rule of listing specific names. First off, I really don’t socialize informally very often, at all. Most time I spend with others is somehow geared toward an aim of some kind. My informal socializing is mostly with my immediate family (Dave and our two, curious children).

I also reflected on the recent optional activity I did with the students enrolled in my personal leadership and productivity class, while answering the questions posed by Jarche for this activity. They have an assignment to plan their 85th birthday party, which is based off of a prompt offered by Stephen Covey in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. After students reflect, they can optionally sign up for a time to join me on campus or online for a time to celebrate and reflect together on what they learned.

That, plus I bring cupcakes and play Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday song (which thus far, 100% have agreed is the best of the birthday songs).

Reflections & Next Moves

A few reflections and intentions as I begin Jarche’s PKM workshop this week:
- New seasons evolve my network ties. My closer-knit network in recent months reflect my focus during that time. In a different season, I would have listed different people.
- Mix strong and weak ties. I already see how much value my core, close relationships (like Dave) bring. But I also am thankful for the times when my podcast allows me to reach outward, diversify, and surface my weaker ties that bring novelty and new perspectives.
- Nurture the giving habit. As Rob Cross (in his work on networks) says, effective networks often grow when people give first and who go beyond the superficial.
I have enjoyed this opportunity to reflect on my networks and look forward to continuing to explore some of the resources that Harold includes. I’m also ready to get to learn more about the others participating in the PKM workshop these next couple of months. If I know anything about PKM and about Harold, it is what will become “us” as a cohort that will make the biggest difference in our learning.

Plus that whole thing about getting out of something what you put into it…
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October 6, 2025
Inside a Network of Fake College Websites

At first glance, Southeastern Michigan University’s website looks like it represents a real institution.

Smiling students in graduation regalia embrace, diplomas in hand, in the video on the front page. A chat bot pops up to ask, “How can I help you?” Southeastern Michigan’s website touts the university’s scholarships, array of accredited academic programs, award-winning faculty, 75 percent graduation rate and “vibrant campus life.”

But littered throughout the website are signs that something is off about Southeastern Michigan.

Blurry backgrounds and distorted limbs hint at the use of generative artificial intelligence. Some images seem likely to fool the untrained eye, while others—like a basketball player with veins bulging from his angular arms—could have been ripped from a poorly illustrated comic book. Meanwhile, paragraphs of text contain repetitive, grandiose and nonspecific language, characteristic of a chat bot’s writing.

In reality, the university is as fake as some of the content on its website. And it’s part of a much larger scam fueled in part by the rise of generative AI.

Some of the images on Southeastern Michigan University website appeared to be AI-generated.

“It took me a while to realize it wasn’t an actual institution,” said Aaron Ament, president of the National Student Legal Defense Network and a lawyer who has investigated for-profit colleges that have defrauded students. “For the average person who’s looking for a program, you could easily see how people would think it’s a real institution.”

Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel warned consumers about Southeastern Michigan University in an alert last week, following a complaint from Eastern Michigan University to her office about the fraudulent website using deceptive practices in an effort to scam students.

Southeastern Michigan is one of nearly 40 fake university sites that Inside Higher Ed recently uncovered, which appear to have been developed with or supplemented by AI. The sites seem to be part of a network, based on the use of identical language, the repetition of images and other design similarities. And many of these fake colleges also have a presence on social media sites, including LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

An Inside Higher Ed analysis also turned up dozens of websites for nonexistent accreditors and a fake U.S. Department of Education website. They all contain at least some AI-generated images and design templates similar to the college websites’, including many that list those fake accreditors—and link to their websites—to give an air of legitimacy. The Education Department is also investigating the scam.

Fake colleges aren’t new. North Carolina’s attorney general warned about a nonexistent King’s College in North Carolina in 2023, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement set up the fictional University of Farmington several years ago as a sting operation to crack down on student visa fraud. Last year, websites popped up advertising colleges that had been closed for years.

But the network uncovered by Inside Higher Ed reveals how the rise of generative AI is making it faster and easier for scammers to repackage an old ruse and deploy it on a much larger scale.

“This lowers the transaction costs for making a scam site,” said Jose Marichal, a professor of political science at California Lutheran University who studies how algorithms and AI are restructuring social and political institutions. “If I wanted to do this [before generative AI], it would have taken me a week, maybe a month, to put all this together. Now, it would take me a matter of hours.”

AI Increases Scammers’ Reach

The technology is also making it harder for consumers to immediately recognize fraudulent websites like Southeastern Michigan’s and dozens of other similar scam college websites Inside Higher Ed identified.

Large language models—which can immediately generate text and images like those populating the scam college websites—are becoming more sophisticated at mimicking human-created content by the day. For example, last week OpenAI released GPT-5, the latest version of ChatGPT, advertising it as its “smartest, fastest, most useful model yet,” capable of putting “expert-level intelligence in everyone’s hands.”

While suspicious, Marichal couldn’t say for certain if the fraudulent college websites were created using generative AI. But Junfeng Yang, a computer science professor at Columbia University who helped develop a novel tool that can discern whether text was generated by an LLM, had one of his graduate students peruse Southeastern Michigan’s website. “It appears that the [university’s] engineering page is AI generated,” he said in an email.

“A year ago, if you tried to do this, you may have had some bugs to work out,” Marichal said of the scam college websites. “Now, we’re getting to a place where you could keep spitting these out and it doesn’t cost much to host it. If you make 100 of them, you increase your yield. Instead of casting one fishing line, you cast 20, upping your chances of catching fish.”

‘Didn’t Seem Legit’

One prospective student who was looking for a business degree program almost got hooked by Southeastern Michigan’s con, according to Walter Kraft, a spokesperson for Eastern Michigan University, which is a real, accredited institution in Ypsilanti.

The fake Southeastern Michigan University prompted a complaint to the state attorney general from Eastern Michigan University, which has accused it of deceptive practices.

Source: Inside Higher Ed

“He came across an institution named Southeastern Michigan University, and it looked legit to him,” Kraft said. “So he contacted them and received a phone call telling him that his total tuition would be, like, $31,000, but he would receive a 90 percent scholarship and would only have to pay $3,100.”

The fake university asked the would-be student to provide documents for his scholarship application, but he never followed up. Two days later, he got a call from a number spoofing Eastern Michigan’s admissions office number, and the person on the other line told him he got the scholarship, despite never receiving any of his documentation.

After that, he received an admissions offer on letterhead that looked similar to Eastern Michigan’s, which raised his suspicions.

“He could sense that it didn’t seem legit, didn’t seem right, and questioned it,” recalled Kraft, who said two or three other people have reported similar concerns about Southeastern Michigan’s website, though he’s not aware of anyone who has fallen for the scam.

A spokesperson with the Michigan attorney general’s office said the office had “not received complaints from any potential students losing money in connection to these websites” but had contacted officials in two other states about similar schemes and referred concerns to the Federal Trade Commission.

But that doesn’t mean other people haven’t been scammed—or won’t in the future. As of Wednesday, the website was still live.

“That’s problematic, because until somebody finds out who’s responsible and takes that site down, other prospective students could be victimized,” Kraft said. “We certainly don’t want that to happen.”

Universities Push Back

While Eastern Michigan went to the state attorney general, other universities that have encountered similar websites have sought recourse with the World Intellectual Property Organization, a group that mediates domain disputes.

George Washington and New York Universities, as well as the University of Houston system, have all filed successful complaints to challenge websites using their trademarks or a similar name and URL. Those complaints shed more light on the scheme, which appears to date to at least 2021, per archived copies of the websites that were taken down. In its filing, GWU pointed to Kenneth Stone, a person the university believed to be connected to the scheme through a company called Domain Lance, a forwarding service that allows users to redirect URLs.

(NYU did not name a specific individual in its WIPO complaint, which noted that “little is known of the respondent” and indicated the domain owner provided a contact address in Panama. However, another version of that website—New York University of Business and Technology—with a slightly different URL has already emerged.)

The University of Houston system also named Stone in a complaint filed in December, along with William Morocco and Cole Brad as the people believed to be behind the website. The filing suggests that Stone is in Panama, while the other two are in the U.S. In its second complaint, filed in May, Houston pointed to websites in Panama. Despite winning the domain dispute, another version of the contested website has since emerged.

Houston’s complaints indicated that multiple fake college websites were created last year. Three of the websites flagged by Houston were registered between July and October of 2024, and another followed early this year. The fake accreditor websites mentioned in Houston’s complaint were all registered on May 10 of last year, according to the WIPO filing.

Houston University of Texas is one of nearly 40 fake college websites uncovered by Inside Higher Ed.

Source: Inside Higher Ed

Inside Higher Ed contacted two of the individuals it believed to be the persons referenced in the complaint based on a review of public records and LinkedIn profiles, but neither responded. A review of public records, including website registration information, suggests all three individuals are in the U.S., though the fake university websites are hosted on servers located overseas.

An Inside Higher Ed reporter also had conversations with individuals operating the chat service on three different websites connected to the network. After a reporter requested admissions info through Southeastern Michigan’s chat service, a woman called to talk him through the process.

Over a nearly half-hour conversation, the operator—a woman with a heavy accent—explained the tuition and fees, gave the reporter a password to a demo version of its student portal, and pressed hard for a $300 “registration fee.” When the reporter pushed back on the cost, she offered to lower it to $199 and stressed the importance of signing up while seats were available.

A chat operator at Southeastern Michigan University offered insights into the scheme.

Justin Morrison/Josh Moody

But when the reporter questioned the legitimacy of the operation, telling her it appeared to be a scam, she said, “I will suggest you contact the Department of Education, not me” and hung up.

Contacted by Inside Higher Ed, a Department of Education spokesperson wrote by email that “the department is currently investigating these malign activities and will work with the appropriate authorities to prevent predatory action toward our nation’s students.”

Sector Responses

Universities with similar names to fake college websites encouraged consumers to take steps to protect themselves from scams.

“Students have many affordable, high-quality education options among North Carolina’s public universities. It’s a shame that bad actors are creating fake university websites to prey on students who want to pursue their dreams of a college degree,” Andy Wallace, a spokesperson for the University of North Carolina system, wrote while encouraging people to report the sites.

University of Houston spokesperson Shawn Lindsey wrote by email that UH “continuously monitor[s] for threats, including false or misleading websites and domain names, and use[s] a variety of tools to support this vigilance” and noted UH’s legal team has acted on offending sites.

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation also condemned the rise of fraudulent college and accreditor websites designed to mimic legitimate institutions in an emailed statement.

“Accreditation is meant to assure quality and integrity in higher education—not to be misused as a tool for fraud,” CHEA president Nasser H. Paydar wrote. “These fake accreditors prey on the trust of students and the public, and we are committed to exposing and stopping them.”

But experts warn if these websites aren’t shut down—or similar ones continue to crop up—it could further weaken the public’s trust in higher education in an era marked by politicized attempts to discredit legitimate universities as overpriced and biased.

“People may not know what’s a real university and what isn’t, so they just throw their hands up and say, ‘Universities are too expensive anyway,’” said Marichal, the algorithm expert. “When people don’t know what’s true or false anymore, they’re less inclined to trust any of it.”

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August 14, 2025
Personalizing Network Events for College Student by Strengths

One of the challenges for students entering the workforce is identifying how their experiences in and outside the classroom have prepared them for careers. A 2023 survey by Cengage found that one-third of recent graduates felt underqualified for entry-level roles, and only 41 percent believed their program taught them the skills needed for their first job.

Focused career development opportunities that address unique learner populations, such as working or neurodiverse students, can help bridge the gap between lived experiences and their application to the world of jobs.

Inside Higher Ed compiled various initiatives that increase career readiness for specific student populations.

Neurodiverse Learners

Beacon College in Leesburg, Fla., primarily serves students with learning disabilities, including ADHD and dyslexia. Last year the college established a career fair designed for these learners, which introduces them to employers looking to develop a neurodiverse talent workforce.

Survey Says

Just under half of college students believe their college or university should focus more on helping students find internships and job possibilities, according to a May 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab.

This spring’s event, Internship Careers and Neurodiversity (ICAN), featured two dozen national and local employers. Success coaches were on site to support students and employers as they engaged with one another, and students could visit the Zen Den if they needed a quiet and private space to process.

ICAN “is designed to remove barriers and reduce anxiety often associated with large-scale ‘convention center’ type events, so Beacon College can empower neurodivergent college students and help increase their participation in networking events elsewhere,” according to an April press release.

Student Athletes

Student athletes have packed schedules while they’re in season, making it difficult to balance athletics, coursework and extracurricular activities, which can sometimes push career development opportunities to the background.

To help student athletes build their confidence in professional settings, Kennesaw State University created a “networking scrimmage” with employers so learners could practice introducing themselves, relay their academic and athletic accomplishments, and discuss career interests in a low-stakes environment, according to a university press release.

Students also heard from three former student athletes who shared their stories of transitioning from sports into the workforce, as well as advice on how to navigate postcollege life.

Adult Learners

In 2023, the University of Phoenix created a digital tool that allows working adult learners to identify skills and goals that will guide them on their career journey.

Students can access Career Navigator through the student portal. The tool allows them to build out demonstrated and self-attested skills and explore job features, including daily tasks and salary range, as well as identify skill gaps they may have when pursuing their desired career.

Student Veterans

After leaving military service, many veterans enroll in college to build career skills and gain further education, but connecting their military experience to civilian life can be a challenge.

The University of Colorado, Denver, provides a one-year cohort program for student veterans, Boots to Suits, to aid their journey, providing personalized academic and career-development resources. Program participants receive job search strategies and career coaching, as well as advice on networking and building their LinkedIn profile and résumé.

Major Programs

While general career fairs and networking opportunities can give students visibility into employers or roles they may not otherwise have considered, tailored events can connect students of a particular discipline to employers looking for their expertise.

Staff at Villanova University identified a problem at their career fairs: The number of employers looking for early-career civil engineers far overshadowed the number of students interested in such jobs. In response, staff created a new event specifically for civil engineering students, allowing employers to connect with potential interns earlier in their college career while also ensuring that students who were interested in other fields were able to engage with organizations that better fit their career goals.

The University of Maryland hosts a Visual Arts Reverse Career and Internship Fair, a flipped model of the career fair in which employers visit a student’s table or booth to engage with their portfolio of work. This allows students to display graphic design, video production and immersive media skills in an engaging way that better reflects their learning and accomplishments.

Do you have a career-focused intervention that might help others promote student success? Tell us about it.

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May 20, 2025
$Wraparound Support Network Aids College Student Math Completion$

Wraparound Support Network Aids College Student Math Completion

Corequisite educational models are tied to higher pass and completion rates for students compared to remedial education, but ensuring learners are passing college-level courses often requires additional institutional investment.

Middle Georgia State University reimagined its corequisite education model to embed tutors, peer mentors and success coaches in entry-level math courses. Now, students who are falling behind are identified on a weekly basis, allowing for targeted and individualized outreach.

After the first term of the initiative, passing rates grew over 10 percentage points and withdrawals decreased, encouraging the university to scale the intervention to English courses and, starting next fall, STEM courses with high failure—D or F—or withdrawal rates.

What’s the need: Middle Georgia State offers 29 sections of its corequisite math course, Qualitative Reasoning. The course has seen stagnant success rates over the past few years, even though the number of students enrolled in corequisites grew, said Deepa Arora, senior associate provost of student success at Middle Georgia State.

Students who didn’t pass the class were less likely to stay enrolled and progress, prompting institutional leaders to consider new ways to engage these learners.

How it works: The solution was to create a support network of professionals who assist learners.

Faculty members are at the center of the initiative, flagging at-risk learners who are missing goals or failing to submit work.

From there, student success coaches, who are embedded in the course’s learning management system, reach out to those students to share resources, create a success plan and make referrals. Coaches also initiate a follow-up a week later to see if students have completed any action.

Depending on the student’s area of weakness, success coaches funnel them to one of two types of student employee: an embedded tutor or a peer mentor.

Embedded tutors address primarily academic concerns, such as low grades. Tutors attend class sessions, provide content-specific coaching and host review sessions as well as set up appointments for learners who need additional assistance, Arora said.

Corequisite learners who may be missing or not participating in classes are referred to a peer mentor, Arora said. In addition to teaching academic skills, peer mentors focus on a student’s sense of belonging and connection to the institution. They facilitate workshops, provide referrals to other support resources and connect students with classmates.

Both tutors and mentors are paid positions for which students must meet certain qualifications: They need to have passed the relevant course, be enrolled at least part-time and fulfill role-specific training.

Building better: The staffing changes were supported by revenue from tuition increases over the past two years. Faculty buy-in was also essential. “Faculty collaboration and cooperation with the success team was an integral part of the initiative and led to the development of a support ecosystem for the student,” Arora said.

Prior to implementing the new model, faculty members were briefed on the initiative’s design and asked to provide feedback and meet with the success coaches to build relationships.

Faculty didn’t receive any specific training other than guidance on how to identify at-risk students—those missing classes, earning low grades or failing to engage. Campus leaders also encouraged professors to send weekly communication regarding student performance and share related information about content with the success coach assigned to their section, Arora said.

The impact: The initiative succeeded in its goal of improving student pass rates: 73 percent of students who attempted the course in fall 2024 passed, a 14-percentage-point increase from the previous fall’s rate. (Excluding withdrawals, 77 percent of fall 2024 students passed the course.)

One trend the university noted was that the students who did fail were primarily in the online sections, suggesting that improvements to the in-person experiences were moving the needle.

Additionally, the connection between faculty and success coaches broke down institutional silos through ensuring timely identification of barriers and sharing of best practices. Success coaches appreciated being embedded in the learning management system, as it gave them greater insight into where the students needed help.

Support staff also noted increased student use of resources.

What’s next: After the initial positive results, university leaders chose to extend the initiative this term to include all sections of Composition I and its corequisite support courses. “The plan is also to extend this strategy to all sections of Anatomy and Physiology I and II where additional support is needed to improve their success rates,” Arora said.

The university will also invest in additional focus on online courses to close success gaps there.

Do you have an academic intervention that might help others improve student success? Tell us about it.

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April 10, 2025
The Importance of an Alumni Network

Reading Time: 9 minutes

With your experience in the education field, you likely understand the benefits of cultivating strong relationships with current members of your school community. What many school administrators and marketers forget is that alumni, though they no longer attend a school, are invaluable to educational marketing strategy and an institution’s overall growth. If you haven’t already, it’s time to examine how your school can build a strong alumni network as part of your marketing efforts and general institutional development.

An alumni network is one of the most valuable assets a school can cultivate. Your graduates are living proof of your programs’ effectiveness. Their journeys from classroom to career serve as compelling testimonials that not only strengthen institutional reputation but also attract prospective students who seek assurance that your school can set them up for success. Join us as we discuss what an effective alumni network should look like, the benefits you can expect, and how to get started.

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What’s an Alumni Network?

At its core, an alumni network is a community of former students who remain engaged with their alma mater. This engagement can take many forms, from mentorship opportunities and career support to networking events and fundraising initiatives. A well-developed alumni network fosters lifelong connections, enabling graduates to support each other while strengthening the institution that provided their foundation.

Enriching Education: The Power of an Alumni Network

When alumni feel connected to their school, they become brand ambassadors, willingly sharing their success stories and contributing to a culture of loyalty and pride. These graduates are more likely to participate in career panels, donate to scholarship funds, and advocate for your institution within their professional circles. Most importantly, their success becomes a tangible example of your school’s impact, which is a powerful marketing tool in itself.

Alumni relationships create a dynamic ecosystem of support, mentorship, and career growth. So in summary, why is alumni networking important? It plays a crucial role in helping graduates navigate their professional journeys, opening doors to job opportunities, industry insights, and collaborative ventures. An engaged alumni network ensures students are stepping into a lifelong professional community that enhances their career trajectory. For schools, this network fosters goodwill and credibility, proving that your programs produce graduates who thrive in competitive industries.

Do you need support navigating alumni networks and other aspects of your school’s marketing strategy? Ask about our tailored digital marketing services for schools!

Example: On a dedicated alumni network page on their website, Ivey Business School plainly states the objective of their program” To encourage and promote continuous professional and personal enrichment by connecting alumni with each other and the school”. The alumni network is positioned as a resource for career development and support for graduates.

Source: Ivey Business School

The Unique Marketing Benefits of Alumni Networks

Now that higher education is increasingly competitive, the ability to showcase real-world success is crucial. What is the value of alumni networks when it comes to your marketing strategy? Alumni networks are excellent social proof, providing great opportunities for organic traffic, and showcasing how your school facilitates career development. Here’s how:

Your Alumni Network Offers Valuable Social Proof

In an education marketing context, social proof refers to the credibility and trust institutions build by showcasing the success and satisfaction of their alumni, current students, and faculty. When prospective students see tangible examples of graduates thriving in their careers, testimonials from successful alumni, or high employer satisfaction rates, they gain confidence that choosing your school is a worthwhile investment.

Social proof can take many forms, including video testimonials, alumni spotlights, employer endorsements, rankings, and word-of-mouth referrals. A strong alumni network serves as a powerful form of social proof, demonstrating that your institution provides quality education and equips graduates with the skills, knowledge, and professional connections necessary for long-term success.

Alumni success stories create a compelling narrative that validates the effectiveness of your curriculum, the strength of your career support services, and the credibility of your institution as a whole. Whether through personal testimonials, LinkedIn endorsements, or employer recommendations, alumni reinforce the value of your educational offerings in a way that no traditional marketing message can replicate.

Example: On their website, Boston University showcases alumni success stories that highlight educational and career development opportunities like internships and networking events. The success of graduates provides valuable social proof for prospective students, who can identify with and look up to these role models.

Source: Boston University

Driving Organic Traffic

An engaged alumni network plays a crucial role in generating organic traffic through word-of-mouth marketing. When alumni have a positive experience with your institution, they naturally become enthusiastic advocates, sharing their journey with peers, family members, and colleagues. This organic promotion is highly credible because it comes from real-life experiences rather than institutional messaging.

Beyond personal referrals, alumni contribute to organic traffic through their online presence. When they mention your school on LinkedIn, post about their achievements on social media, or participate in professional discussions related to their field, they create a ripple effect that drives interest in your institution. Schools can amplify this impact by encouraging alumni to tag their alma mater in their career updates, engage in school-sponsored events, and contribute to online discussions within alumni groups.

Additionally, search engines favor authentic, frequently updated content. When alumni success stories are featured on your website, blog, or social media channels, they provide valuable, keyword-rich content that enhances search visibility. Prospective students searching for insights on career outcomes in their chosen field may stumble upon these stories, further reinforcing your school’s credibility and increasing inquiries and applications.

Example: Here an alumni from Koç University in Turkey posts a very valuable testimonial, even tagging her alma mater and citing it as the #1 medical school in the country. In addition to an official alumni network, encouraging UGC from graduates is an effective strategy that comes across as authentic and therefore, trustworthy. Ask alumni to tag your school in graduation posts or list you in the education section of their LinkedIn profiles for organic traffic.

Source: Instagram

Mentorship and Career Services as a Unique Selling Point

An active alumni network can significantly enhance a school’s career services by establishing mentorship opportunities and creating a direct pathway for graduates to secure employment. When alumni hold influential positions in various industries, they become a valuable resource for current students and recent graduates looking to break into their fields. Schools that foster strong alumni engagement can tap into this network to offer students real-world insights, industry-specific guidance, and professional connections that go beyond what traditional career services can provide.

By collaborating with alumni who have become hiring managers, entrepreneurs, or industry leaders, schools can develop a reliable talent pipeline that benefits both graduates and employers. Alumni who feel a deep connection to their alma mater are more likely to offer internship programs, job placements, and networking opportunities tailored specifically to students from their former institution. These partnerships not only enhance job placement rates but also reinforce the credibility of your programs, proving to prospective students that your institution delivers real career outcomes.

Moreover, alumni mentors can serve as role models, helping students navigate their career paths through professional guidance and hands-on training. Schools can structure formal mentorship programs where alumni are paired with students based on career interests, fostering long-term professional relationships that extend well beyond graduation. These interactions boost student confidence, provide practical career advice, and offer an inside look at industry trends and expectations.

When alumni return to recruit from their alma mater, it strengthens the institution’s reputation as a trusted source of skilled professionals. This cyclical relationship, where alumni continuously contribute to the success of new graduates, creates a sustainable ecosystem of career support and growth.

Example: McMaster University has an Alumni Services page that highlights all of the career advantages that come with being part of their alumni network. Be sure to put all of the career benefits that your alumni network offers on full display so that you can leverage them as part of the FAB marketing strategy (features, advantages, and benefits), an effective form of brand storytelling that encourages prospective students to vividly imagine their success at your institution.

Source: McMaster University

Building a Strong Alumni Network

If you want to harness the power of alumni networks, it starts with cultivating meaningful relationships from the moment students enroll. Establishing a culture of connection early on makes it easier to keep graduates engaged long after they receive their diplomas.

One of the most effective ways to build a thriving alumni network is through dedicated alumni associations. These groups should not merely exist on paper but should be actively nurtured with opportunities for engagement, such as career workshops, networking events, and mentorship programs. Leveraging digital platforms, such as LinkedIn and exclusive alumni portals, helps create spaces where former students can stay in touch, share job openings, and collaborate on projects.

Personalized outreach is key to maintaining long-term engagement. Schools that take the time to check in with alumni (through newsletters, exclusive events, or professional development opportunities) demonstrate continued investment in their graduates’ success. This encourages reciprocity, as alumni become more willing to give back, whether through donations, guest lectures, or referrals.

Video testimonials featuring alumni discussing how your programs shaped their careers are incredibly effective. Highlighting their professional achievements, career transitions, and personal growth builds trust with prospective students who are weighing their options. Success stories can be embedded into your website, showcased on social media, and included in email campaigns.

Featuring alumni in live webinars or Q&A sessions allows prospective students to ask direct questions about career outcomes. This real-time engagement adds credibility to your institution’s claims, reinforcing the message that your graduates excel in their fields. Schools that leverage alumni networks in these ways transform passive viewers into engaged applicants.

Example: Get creative with your alumni recruitment strategy! Here, Stellenbosch University promotes its alumni network app, Maties Alumni, on YouTube – an exclusive, all-in-one platform for nurturing alumni relationships, career opportunities, mentorship, and personal connections.

Source: Stellenbosch University | YouTube

Elevating Your School’s Reputation Through Alumni Success

Ultimately, the strength of your alumni network is a reflection of the strength of your institution. Schools that prioritize alumni engagement are not only fostering lifelong relationships but are also investing in an authentic, powerful marketing strategy. By celebrating alumni achievements, maintaining strong communication channels, and integrating success stories into recruitment efforts, you can build lasting credibility and attract the next generation of students eager to follow in their graduates’ footsteps.

If your institution is looking for ways to enhance engagement and incorporate alumni networks into your marketing strategy, Higher Education Marketing can help you develop targeted campaigns that amplify your alumni success stories and drive enrollment growth. Your graduates are your greatest success. Make sure their voices are heard!

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Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Why is alumni networking important?

Answer: It plays a crucial role in helping graduates navigate their professional journeys, opening doors to job opportunities, industry insights, and collaborative ventures.

Question: What is the value of alumni networks?

Answer: Alumni networks are excellent social proof, provide great opportunities for organic traffic, and showcase how your school facilitates career development.

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March 12, 2025