A New Breed
Recruiting partners
The recruitment of legacy students is one area in which advancement and admissions have long collaborated. Lauer believes that as competition for students increases, more institution officials will view their alumni base as a self-perpetuating recruitment opportunity. Wheaton used such a strategy when the former women's college became coeducational, Jackson says. "At most places alumni recruitment happens in the admissions office," she says. "At Wheaton we very purposefully put the alumnae/i admissions program in the alumni office." The theory was that as the college adjusted to coeducation, legacy admissions would be critical. "We knew that the adjustment turning point for many alumnae would be when they started thinking about Wheaton for their own sons, grandsons, or nephews," she says. (For more about alumni association roles in legacy recruitment, see "Learning Curve" on page 35.)
Looking at the alumni base as a catalyst for student recruitment makes such marketing sense, Lauer says, that more institutions will do so with increased effort. And that could mean the development of a hybrid staff—like the model at Wheaton—that can address student recruitment as well as advancement goals.
New pathways
Seamlessly serving the multiple interests of the donor-messenger-advocate-alumnus as well as the students this kind of multidimensional approach can deliver to an institution will require advancement and admissions professionals to develop new skills. "It certainly indicates new career tracks," says Petura, who began her career in a university news bureau in 1970 when "advancement" wasn't even in the campus lexicon.
Marketing skills and experience, institutional knowledge, and the ability to run a complicated, deadline-oriented operation are transferable skills, thus "advancement chiefs have always looked to admissions offices for people to 'steal,' " Jackson says. Such shifting career tracks are likely to be the norm in the future. Petura, who experienced the era in which chief fund raisers became heads of advancement, says that has given way to a new "ideal" CAO skill set that includes integrated marketing communications, branding, and market research. She advises advancement newcomers to broaden their training by taking positions in both admissions and advancement. The link is marketing. Those who have a gift for marketing, she says, will be ready to become the next generation of integrated advancement leaders.
This article is from the April 2005 CURRENTS.
