Dear Fellow Yalies,
It is hard to believe that I have been in this role for almost a year! It has been a whirlwind – in the most wonderful way. After 10 months of meetings with alumni leaders and campus partners, I developed the following priorities I want to share. We Yalies love our acronyms, and I am no different! The word you will be hearing much more of, and I hope you enjoy, is CASTLE.
C – Campus Connections: Connecting Yalies to one another and also to the opportunities and priorities on campus.
A – Alumni Listening: Learning what alumni are looking for from the YAA post-pandemic. More about that below.
S – Student Engagement: Developing an engagement curriculum for students while they are on campus so they know all the ways the YAA and alumni can support them from matriculation and beyond.
T – Technology: Investing in tools that help our volunteers do their work more efficiently and help us capture accurate data about how alumni are engaging with Yale.
L – Lifelong Learning and Travel: Making these integral experiences more accessible and inclusive for all alumni.
E – Education Across YAA: Enhancing collaboration across all of our teams to provide the best possible experience for our alumni.
In this note, I would like to focus on one particular priority – alumni listening. In January, we sent a questionnaire to all alumni, asking them to identify areas in which they would like the YAA to be involved in their lives. Thank you to the over 10,000 alumni who responded with wonderful feedback. The collective response received has provided valuable insights, particularly as we plan Phase Two of our alumni listening. This phase will focus on virtual and in-person focus groups to further explore the findings from the questionnaire.
The focus groups will take place over the next few months and help us delve into several topics that emerged from the questionnaire, including learning, building and maintaining friendships, community service, and careers and professional life. We will be reaching out to many members of the alumni community to take part in the focus groups and look forward to learning more. You can also proactively volunteer to participate in a focus group by filling out this form. Learn more about being a focus group participant here.
I remain committed to hearing from as many alumni as possible to ensure that the YAA connects and communicates effectively with all alumni. To that end, I created an Executive Director’s page on our website, which will provide updates on the CASTLE priorities and outline ways that alumni can contribute to making them a reality.
Hope to see you at a future event or on campus soon.
Best,
AC
