The Powers of Alumni Network

Alumni are the ambassadors of the institutions they attended or graduated from. We have seen many schools declaring the list of their notable alumni as a way of connecting the success of those past students with what the school has provided them.

Obviously, you are not proud that you attended BSS/CSS Nanka even for a few years. Scrolling through the pages of a notable school alumni's website, you discover many successful people have attended this college: from past federal Ministers to present State Governors, to captains of the industry and commerce.

Alumni sites like this provoke the same curiosity about our contemporaries that social media sites do, but with a touch of nostalgia and pride seldom felt by those whose alma maters have not produced similar success. And then you wonder what BSS/CSS Nanka alumni network has for you! But a school's alumni presence generally serves a greater purpose than merely a bragging tool for its old students. Many alumni associations help feed this notion. With events, magazines, and now social media driving communication, such associations are, in essence, forums for social and business networking.

Some associations even hold alumni events overseas, giving those in diaspora and other expat hotspots a chance to reunite under the alma mater's umbrella… and extend social and business networks without any form of interactions with the schools they graduated from. These are social clubs, far from the quintessence of an alumni network.

Alumni associations allow old students not only to look back and re lect on the past, but also to look forward to becoming change-agents and part of the transformation of a school community that nursed their formative life age. It's a family link and a show of gratitude and af inity towards a family circle in which the student once grew.

The Alumni plays key role in helping to shape the future of the alma mater. Its in luence and activities are pivotal in the development its former school and in creating new learning opportunities for its current students. Creating an engaged, supportive alumni is therefore crucial to success of any school, especially in today's Nigeria in which educational institutions have suffered unquanti iable neglect and reckless abandon.

How Do We Develop a Strong and Successful Alumni? – It's A Cycle of Success. We are, super icially it seems, proud of our humble beginnings and the value they bring us, but far too many students get their WAEC or transfer certi icates, walk off the school's premises and into the next stage in life and never look back.

Admit it, dear friend. The first time you got an invitation from the BSS/CSS alumni association asking you to join the alumni forum, you were a bit taken aback because you knew they would soon ask for donation. Perhaps, you have a considerable amount of financial goals, and even if you've already built a successful career or business, you probably don't feel financially ready to start doing any "charity work".

You may think that alumni works are for rich, successful people who have had time to build multi-million business, accrue high-flying jobs, own houses all over the town, and start good investment and funds for their children's future. But alumni associations aren't just charitable organizations. Yes, they rely heavily on the gifts of former students, but alumni network also offers former students a wealth of opportunities (outside the scope of this topic).

It is the work of Alumni Network to keep old students, scattered across the globe, properly informed, engaged and abreast with the progress of their alma mater. And no matter the success story of any school, old students still have some special (umbilical) connection with their alma mater and are likely to be some of its more loyal supporters. If communication stops once students leave the school, their understanding of the state of their alma mater will become stale. Alumni Network ills this gap.

And it's been demonstrated consistently over the years that the best way to create a group of engaged, committed – and generous – alumni are to begin with a group of engaged, committed students. Yoi Kangae Yoi Seihin (Good Thinking Good Product - courtesy of Toyota Motors Japan).

What are we doing to create positive experiences for students while they are in school that will build the foundation for strong alumni network? A strong successful alumni association would be interested in the success of its members. Of course, they're hoping that successful members would use their success to help the association and the alma mater. The success of the current students also is an alumni's best asset.

So, to develop a strong and successful alumni Network, the CSS Nanka and its Alumni must target a strong and successful student population. One thing to keep in mind is that they are students for one to six years and alumni for the rest of their lives, yet it is their few years in school that form the foundation of their relationship with the school.

The Alumni Network must become the true ambassadors and must work with the alma mater by integrating alumni into school activities, hosting an alumni event and creating incentive programs to attract the brightest students for enrollment, helping students in various University entrance programs and even study abroad awareness events, connecting students and alumni for career mentoring, and working with student clubs.

And it doesn't stop there. As ambassadors, the Alumni should continue to seek and recruits old students. Its main purpose is to keep past students connected to the School, and it aims to do that through regular communication and facilitation of reunions.

You must not only be willing to join the BSS/CSS alumni Network but also must recognize it's a privilege. It's a privilege to those who understand the value of tried and tested experience and wisdom that comes about through failure; the ability to overcome, then to take what is useful and apply it to oneself. These traits are the true value of the Atama Stars... whose perseverance and resiliencies have repeatedly upheld the timeless aphorism in "Success Through Hard work".

Jonathan Obele, M.S. (Tennessee), B.Sc. (Ibadan), is the founder of ktnResources, inc (www.ktnrsources.com), a digital technology company engaged in business and education technology transformation and innovation. Their products include the award-winning smartSchool EMIS based on the World Bank Group's SABER (Systems Approach for Better Education Results).