The Questionnaire
Results vary widely across alumni “Lifecycle” segments
The graph below shows that “aggregate results” can sometimes misrepresent the opinions of one alumni segment. We see results for each of the Lifecycle alumni segments: Recent Graduate, Young Adult/Discovery, Building Growth, Stable Midlife, and Mature. In this graph, although all alumni express some level of satisfaction with the Alumni Magazine, Recent Graduates are only marginally impressed. In contrast, the University Web Site registers very strong satisfaction for Mature alumni yet significant agitation for Young Adult/Discover and Recent Graduates. These split results are even more pronounced on the next three topics: Invitation to Alumni Activities, Invitations to University Activities, and the Alumni Web Site.
These results clearly show that while older alumni (red and yellow bars) tend to be very satisfied with communication from the university, younger alumni (black, light blue, dark blue) are equally agitated on these same issues. These results, when reported at an aggregate level or “for all alumni,” convey a lukewarm feeling among alumni about how well the university communicates with them. Only when we examine the results by key alumni segment do we see enough specific information to develop strategic plans to target those results.
The Alumni Attitude Study supplements these alumni segment reports by providing Study benchmarks for each segment, to put your results in perspective and identify high priority issues.
