Dear Fellow Alumni,
As we close out the season of Thanksgiving, I am still feeling grateful for the record number of incredible volunteers who attended this year’s YAA Assembly & Yale Alumni Fund Convocation. There are too many special moments to share, but looking out at the sea of eager, enthusiastic faces while moderating the panels with President McInnis and three of our corporation members is forever etched in my memory.
I wanted to share a portion of my remarks from the plenary session of that event so you can learn more about the work the YAA is undertaking to develop a strategic plan that makes space for all alumni at all phases of their lives.
…I spoke earlier about being more informed and inspired in my second year as Executive Director, and the depth of my knowledge has come from a great deal of listening to all of you. In January, the YAA embarked on an effort to better understand what alumni wanted post-pandemic. The pandemic greatly shifted our work, and we needed to gather data in order to make better informed decisions around programming going forward. Our first step was a questionnaire that went to all alumni which received responses from over 11,000 people. From this questionnaire, four pillars emerged as important across all demographics – lifelong learning, service, social connection, and professional development.
Our next phase has included seven months of dedicated focus groups on these key pillars. Thank you to those who participated and shared their incredibly meaningful thoughts. We have learned so much about what we are doing well and where there are gaps in our programming. My deep appreciation to the current and former members of the YAA Board of Governors who led these listening sessions.
While our focus groups are complete, our listening is not. We still have an opportunity for individuals to share their thoughts on these pillars through a form on the YAA website. Please use the form yourself and share it broadly with your communities. We will send it to all of you as a follow-up to the event.
This learning from all our listening, combined with attendance data from the past three years, will help us develop our new strategic plan, which we will launch next fall. This plan will be grounded in evidence-based decision-making and will also highlight the joy and connection in our work. As Ms. Basil E. Frankeweiler says in her famous children’s book about her mixed-up files, “I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what you’ve learned to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them.” I am certain we can use data to enhance our ability to engage with great feeling!
I am so excited about the results this listening and teamwork will yield, and I thank you for your partnership in it!
Here is a link to the form I referenced in my remarks: https://yalesurvey.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bmvtqIUPKgJbVSC
I hope you will take a moment to fill it out (feel free to do so more than once!) and share your thoughts with us. To develop more robust programming, we need to understand what we are missing and where other organizations are doing exceptional work. Please let us know what you would like to see from the YAA!
I am wishing all of you the happiest of holiday seasons.
Best,
AC
