Alumni Affairs Strategic Plan
Message from the Senior Vice Chancellor for Alumni Affairs
Our alumni hold a special place within the Pepperdine family. They embody the legacy of past faculty, staff, and administrations, that paved the way for the institution we cherish today. Without their ongoing presence and engagement in mind, body, or spirit, our Pepperdine community wouldn't be the same. We are committed to consistently elevating, celebrating, and honoring our alumni through practices, publications, specialized programming, and community dialogues. Our mission is to unfailingly regard our alumni as esteemed contributors to the current Pepperdine family, thereby upholding the stature of our nationally renowned institution and fostering active engagement with our alumni to support continual advancements at Pepperdine. To measure this, we will assess alumni engagement through their participation, volunteerism, and annual contributions.
The current state of alumni engagement reveals varying levels of participation and untapped talent. While efforts are coordinated within each school, there is a need for coordination across the university and the five schools. Some obstacles to improving alumni engagement include concerns that the focus is solely on fundraising, the perception that an alumnus must achieve a certain level of financial success for them to be engaged, and the belief that the university has specific positions on matters of faith, morals, and politics such that an alumnus from the past may not fit in today. Additionally, there are challenges in maintaining up-to-date contact information in our information system.
To enhance alumni engagement, it is important to provide spiritual fulfillment, offer meaningful experiences that promote and foster connectivity for our alumni with the University and with one another, create platforms for alumni to share their lives, careers and families, celebrate student success, support young alumni as they enter adulthood, respond to evolving workforce needs, foster a culture of inclusivity and recognition, and honor alumni through personal attention and tailored initiatives. We strive to engage with our alumni by sharing some of the experiences we enjoy on our campuses around the world, thereby strengthening our connections.
Our mission as a Christian university to strengthen our students’ lives for purpose, service, and leadership continues as they graduate to the status of alumni. We strive to carry out that mission for our alumni as we develop and strengthen our relationships and engage them in meaningful ways.
Hung V. Le (‘87, MA ‘03)
Senior Vice Chancellor, Alumni Affairs
Alumni Relationship Statement
As a University, we are intentional about developing relationships with our students, from the prospect stage through graduation. We affirm that the student, as a person of infinite dignity, is the heart of the educational enterprise. We work hard to develop meaningful relationships with our students in/outside of the classroom. We use the word “family” ubiquitously throughout our community when communicating with/about our students. We have developed a culture in which the student is valued and honored. We must continue to keep the promise of family we made to our students as they become our alumni.
To keep our promise, we must continue to develop our relationships and engage our alumni with the commitment that we have for our students. Across the University, we must view our alumni as integral members of our University community rather than visitors.
While the spirit of place is important, the strongest connection is through relationships: fellow alumni, faculty, staff, mentors, and other members of the University community. We must seek to develop and strengthen these relationships for our alumni throughout the world. We need to empower our faculty and staff to engage with our alumni in meaningful ways, to celebrate their connections and relationships, and their engagement with one another.
Together, we must work to find meaningful ways to connect our alumni to the life of the University and with one another, make a strong effort to make them feel welcomed when they do return, and develop lifelong relationships that honor and celebrate their lives. We must develop a strong and supportive alumni network into which our students integrate and become active, contributing members.
Just as Pepperdine cannot fulfill its mission without a deep commitment to teaching and the active engagement of our students, we also cannot fulfill our highest purpose without continuing to strengthen our alumni for lives of purpose, service and leadership. We must continually seek to meet our alumni in their lives’ journeys, support one another, grow together, and serve together so that we can be a part of something far greater than ourselves and our time. Our goal is to enable alumni the opportunity to contribute their time, talent, and treasures towards the ongoing support and improvement of Pepperdine, while also honoring, celebrating, and elevating who they are.
Major Alumni Objectives
This strategic plan addresses the launch of a new era in alumni relations. Its emphasis is on building infrastructure, start up assessments, and baseline building so that we can develop more tangible and measurable objectives going forward. As such, the main objectives in this plan focus on building a new foundation for alumni affairs.
To achieve the following objectives, we will successfully implement the major strategies described in this Alumni Strategic Plan.