Students are joining the Alumni Association before they graduate at higher rates than in past years thanks to an ongoing effort by the organization to increase its membership by offering more tangible benefits to members.
Current students can join the Association as a Student Life Member while still enrolled at the University if they commit to paying a membership fee either before or after graduation.
Since this semester started, 300 new Student Life Members joined the Alumni Association, a 67 percent rise in new members compared to this time last year.
The Alumni Association now is in the middle of a five-year effort to get more students to join, said Helen Stephan Dwyer, assistant director for Alumni Affairs.
Organizers hope that "45 percent of all students would like to be Student Life Members" by May 2000, Dwyer said. Forty percent of the class of 1999 became Student Life members. The Association is aiming to reach the 50 percent mark within the next three years, Dwyer said.
Marketing research showed that while in the past students joined the Alumni Association out of a sense of tradition, about five years ago the organization learned this was no longer true.
Student Life Members were interested in seeing "more relevant benefits for themselves while in school," Dwyer said.
"Students were more interested in getting value for what they're paying for," she said.
This prompted the Alumni Association to offer many new benefits and services as a way to attract members, she added. Some of these include discounts on hotel reservations, Kaplan Test Preparation courses and Peace Frog Travel merchandise.
The Alumni Association has "spread the word" to students at several events since September in an effort to cultivate interest in the organization, Dwyer said.
Such events included the Activities Fair and Class Dinners, which were particularly successful in getting students to join as Student Life Members, said Mandy Cloud, Alumni Association Public Relations intern.
Membership applications now are also available on the Alumni Association's Web site, where Dwyer says a large number of students have signed up.
Student Life Members have the option of deferring the $450 membership fee until after graduation, or they can pay in full prior to graduation. Students pay a reduced rate of $350 if they opt for the latter payment plan.
"We are very flexible," Dwyer said. "Our goal is to just keep you connected" to the University.
While membership levels for alumni are not increasing at the rate of Student Life Memberships, there still is an emphasis within the Alumni Association on attracting more members after graduation, she said.
The Office of Development has worked directly with the Alumni Association "to provide more programs across the board for alumni," Vice President for Development Bob Sweeney said.
Such an effort is an attempt to increase monetary donations to the University as part of the Capital Campaign, Sweeney said.
"Obviously the more engaged and involved in the life of the University they are, the more likely they ultimately are to give gifts," he said.
About 37 percent of University alumni belong to the Alumni Association and the University has the fourth highest membership rate compared to its peer institutions, which includes schools such as Stanford and Ohio State, Dwyer said.
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