University of Chicago builds online learning community for alumni

To help it extend its reach and engagement with its vast alumni population, the University of Chicago implemented an online community using Jive Software, where it provides interactive online classes, seminars and other graduate programmes.

Case study key facts

Organisation	University of Chicago
Industry	Higher Education
Project goals	Against a background of ambitious funding goals, the University of Chicago was looking for new ways to engage alumni, and build on its commitment to providing support for lifelong learning.
Current approach	The university decided to build an online community where its alumni could attend classes, and interact with faculty members and other graduates from the same background, echoing the discussion-centric nature of their student experience. The community provides a quarterly programme of courses, discussions and debates, delivered and hosted by faculty members.
Outcome	One year after its launch, the AlumniU community has around 3,500 alumni members from various schools and divisions within the university, and around 25% are active within the community each quarter. The platform has been extremely well received by both alumni and faculty members, with many of the latter embracing online learning for the first time. For the university’s Alumni Association, AlumniU has enabled them to reach a group of alumni who have either not engaged with the University recently or who have low sentiment toward the University. This provides new opportunities to build and develop those relationships to enhance the reputation of the university and ultimately generate additional funding.
Tools and suppliers used	Jive Software

Organisation background

Founded in 1890, the University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It offers more than fifty undergraduate major and forty minor disciplines, with almost 6,000 undergraduate students and more than 10,000 graduate, professional and other students studying each year. Ranked joint third in the US, and tenth globally, the university employs over 23,000 staff, including 2,800 faculty members, and has 169,000 alumni across 133 countries.

The University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies teaches a range of degree and certificate programmes to over 4,500 adult learners each year. Described as “the centre of innovative lifelong learning for the University”, the school is particularly well-known for its data science and liberal arts programmes, and specialises in the socratic method of teaching.

The University of Chicago Alumni Association provides a range of complimentary benefits and services to former students of the university, including networking events, career programmes, clubs, campus privileges and ongoing learning opportunities. In 2014, the university announced a five-year fundraising campaign called “Inquiry & Impact”, which aims to raise $5 billion from alumni and trustees to support University of Chicago faculty and students. To date, the programme has raised $3.81 billion from more than 104,000 alumni.

Project background and drivers

In mid-2014, University of Chicago was looking for new ways to engage its alumni community. Existing engagement strategies – both those driven centrally by the university and on a regional basis by volunteers – had focused on in-person events, both for networking and for continuing learning, following the patterns established in the university itself. The University President charged both the Dean of Graham School and the university’s Campaign Director (who also manages the Alumni Association) with exploring a digital approach to engaging the university’s alumni members, with a view to reaching a wider audience, providing a more extensive set of services supporting lifelong learning, and ultimately helping to improve relations with the alumni community, which of course helps to increase funding for the university.

Led by Emily Bembeneck, the Associate Director of Innovative Pedagogy, a team comprising members of Graham School and the Alumni Relations and Development department began work on identifying the best approach to take. A survey of the alumni population identified a latent need for more asynchronous engagement approaches, enabling people to connect in a more continuous way, as well as for greater interaction – both between the alumni themselves, but also with the university’s faculty personnel. The team saw an opportunity to try to replicate the strong discussion culture that alumni would be familiar with from their time as students, but in a more digital way.

At that time, the university’s experience of digital engagement with alumni was very limited. Although there was an online space where alumni could see a calendar of events, or access materials from previous career webinars, this was a relatively static site that did not invite or support real interaction. The team decided to explore the concept of an online community for its alumni: a platform where alumni could both attend classes, and also engage with one another in a persistent learning environment. This was also an opportunity for the university itself to experiment with online learning, both from a strategic, institutional perspective, and also from the perspective of individual faculty members who had not previously delivered online programmes.

Solution overview and status

In September 2016, University of Chicago launched a new online community for alumni, called “AlumniU”. Built on technology from Jive Software, AlumniU hosts interactive online courses, seminars, debates, discussions and careers programmes delivered by faculty and university staff, all of which are free to access for the university’s alumni, with activities scheduled throughout the academic year.

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