We’re Addressing the Wrong Problem
Higher education has made meaningful progress in advancing both civic engagement and career readiness. Institutions have expanded experiential learning, strengthened co-curricular programming, and aligned outcomes with frameworks such as AAC&U’s Essential Learning Outcomes and NACE’s Career Readiness Competencies.
Yet a critical gap remains.
We continue to treat student success primarily as a function of what students know and can do—skills, knowledge, and experiences—while underestimating the role of relationships in shaping both career outcomes and civic engagement. Alumni represent one of the most underutilized assets in higher education: individuals who are deeply connected to the institution and uniquely positioned to guide, support, and provide access to opportunities for students.
This is not just a matter of engagement—it is a matter of economic mobility. Research by Raj Chetty and colleagues (2022) demonstrates that access to social capital—particularly relationships that bridge students to individuals in different economic and professional networks—is one of the strongest predictors of upward mobility. Students who have greater connection with these individuals and spaces are significantly more likely to access opportunity. I contacted Dr. Chetty’s nonprofit organization, Opportunity Insights, and connected with Research Scientist Dr. Jamie Fogel. Dr. Fogel shared:
“When we look across communities in the United States, the strongest predictor we find of upward mobility is economic connectedness: whether [students] from lower-income families have relationships with people from higher-income backgrounds.
And importantly, even among schools with similar socioeconomic composition, some places are much more successful at fostering those cross-class relationships—intentional design can improve [students’] long-term economic outcomes.”
From this perspective, alumni are not simply a resource for mentoring or advising—programs that typically serve a small percentage of the student population. Alumni are a critical form of institutional social capital that can shape students’ long-term trajectories.
A growing body of research demonstrates that access to professionals in students’ desired fields influences job attainment, opportunity awareness, and long-term mobility. At the same time, meaningful engagement with alumni strengthens students’ sense of belonging, institutional connection, and civic identity. Yet access to these relationships remains uneven, particularly for students from low- and limited-income backgrounds.
The issue is not whether students understand the importance of engagement. It is that many do not participate.
This is a design problem.
Why Alumni Engagement Efforts Fall Short
Most institutions rely on a familiar model: alumni panels, networking events, mentoring programs, and occasional outreach campaigns.
These efforts are well-intentioned, and often well-executed, but they share a common limitation: they are optional.
Optional programming tends to reach the same students: those who are already confident, those who have prior exposure to professional environments, and those who understand how to navigate institutional resources.
For many other students, especially early in their academic journey, engaging with alumni can feel unfamiliar, intimidating, or even inauthentic.
Research helps explain why. When relationship-building is framed instrumentally—as something students do to “get ahead”—it can feel uncomfortable or transactional, reducing participation (Casciaro, Gino, and Kouchaki, 2014). As a result, institutions often see strong programs that have limited participation.
A Different Premise: Relationships Must Be Designed
If relationships are a key driver of economic mobility, as Chetty’s research suggests, then institutions cannot leave the development of these relationships to optional programming.
What if the issue is not access to alumni, but how that access is structured?
Across institutions, a consistent pattern emerges:
When alumni engagement is optional, participation is low.
When it is embedded as experiential learning into required coursework, participation becomes the norm.
This leads to a shift in perspective:
Alumni-student relationships are no longer incidental—they are institutional outcomes that must be intentionally designed. Access to these relationships cannot depend on student initiative without accountability.
Why Core, Required Courses Matter
If we agree that alumni-student relationships should be intentionally designed, the next question is where to embed the graded assignments that require these high-impact, experiential learning experiences.
The answer lies in core, required courses.
These courses reach all students, occur early enough to shape habits and expectations, and provide structured, credit-bearing learning environments.
Yet they are rarely used for alumni engagement.
Embedding alumni-student relationship-building into required coursework changes this dynamic. Instead of relying on voluntary participation, institutions can ensure that every student engages meaningfully with alumni as part of their academic experience.
This is not an add-on. It is a shift in how we define the learning experience.
Why Supporting Faculty Matters
While integrating relationship building experiential learning into core courses offers real promise, it also introduces practical and professional tensions for faculty. Many are already navigating full syllabi, established learning goals, and limited time. Adding something new—especially something as open-ended as relationship-building—can understandably feel like a stretch.
In focus groups with faculty across the country, a couple of concerns come up consistently:
- I’m not sure I have the background or training to teach relationship-building skills—I’ve never been taught this myself.
- These interactions seem to center on career exploration and navigation, and I don’t feel equipped or responsible for teaching those topics.
These aren’t signs of resistance—they reflect a thoughtful commitment to teaching within one’s expertise and to using class time well. The good news is that these concerns don’t require faculty to become career coaches or networking experts. With the right structure and support, they can be addressed in ways that align with faculty roles and values.
What This Looks Like in Practice
At institutions such as the University of Arkansas, Miami Dade College, and Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles, alumni-student engagement has been embedded directly into core, required courses.
University of Arkansas Assistant Professor Dr. Derico Setyabrata teaches a lower division course in which he has a graded assignment that asks students to have a one-on-one, live conversation with an alum with the same major. He said, “With freshmen, it is very difficult to get them thinking about a career when they are just starting college and still adjusting, and I want students to see the importance of talking and building relationships early.”
Miami Dade College, after successfully piloting with STEM students, will be embedding a relationship building assignment into their First-Year Seminar courses this Fall. Dr. Beatriz Gonzalez, President of the Wolfson campus with 30,000+ students, says, “At Wolfson, career readiness grows conversation by conversation, through faculty mentorship and honest talk about life and work after college. In our First-Year Seminar, we’re intentionally scaffolding those career conversations so students and faculty can practice reaching out, listening well, and reflecting on what they learn. This is our EQ and relationship-skill work in action, structured so every student can access the networks and support that open doors. Career readiness is relationship readiness.”
Dr. Elizabeth Sturgeon, Interim Assistant Provost, Professor of English, and Director of First-Year Experience at Mount St. Mary’s University, Los Angeles, says, “We decided to partner with Career Launch, who has been a responsive and collaborative partner, providing certification trainings for all our faculty and staff in the First-Year Seminar and beyond, fostering a team-infused ethos among all instructors. They also supplied all of our FYS students with the tools they needed to discern their ikigai [sense of purpose], research career options, and proactively connect with industry professionals.”
Rather than asking students to attend optional events, these institutions embed structured one-on one in-person or video conversations with alumni and professionals as part of their coursework.
These experiences are intentionally designed. Students are given clear prompts and guidance for outreach. Conversations are framed as opportunities to learn and explore. Reflection is built into assignments, as is teaching students how to maintain and build the initial conversation into future interactions and meaningful connection.
Most importantly, participation is no longer limited and optional—it becomes universal.
Strengthening Civic Engagement Through Alumni Relationships
While alumni engagement is often discussed in terms of career outcomes, its civic dimension is equally important.
This relational dimension also matters in the current climate facing higher education. As institutions navigate a growing crisis of confidence, strengthening authentic connections between students and alumni can reinforce trust, relevance, and shared purpose. These relationships make the broader value of higher education more visible—linking academic experiences to real lives, communities, and contributions beyond the campus.
Alumni represent lived examples of how education connects to society—through careers, communities, and civic life. When students engage with alumni, they gain insight into how individuals contribute beyond themselves and navigate complex societal challenges.
In this sense, alumni-student relationships serve as a bridge between career readiness, civic engagement, and economic mobility.
Reducing Anxiety and Building Agency
One of the most consistent outcomes of embedding alumni engagement into coursework is a reduction in student anxiety.
Larry M., a student at Santa Clara University, reflected, “I always thought networking meant asking for something or trying to impress someone. This felt more like learning from someone’s experience, which made it a lot easier.”
Another student, Juana K. at Miami Dade College, reflected, “If this wasn’t part of the class, I probably wouldn’t have reached out to anyone. But once I did it the first time, it wasn’t as intimidating as I expected.”
These responses highlight a critical insight for academic leaders: Students do not need more encouragement to engage. They need environments that hold them accountable for taking action. This blend of learning how to have agency to build relationships and accountability through a graded class assignment is critical.
As Julia Freeland Fisher, Director of Education at the Christensen Institute, explains, “[Students] should be equipped to hold their own…but they should also be held by the communities around them. They should be capable of self-determination but also immersed in contexts that offer scaffolds and support for the parts of them that are still developing.”
Structured alumni engagement within coursework creates exactly this kind of environment—one in which students are expected to take initiative, but are supported by design.
Implications for Academic Leaders
This approach has several practical implications for fostering alumni-student connections.
First, move from events to curriculum. Alumni engagement should not be confined to panels and events. Embedding it into core courses ensures scale and equity.
Second, start early—and reinforce often. Introducing alumni engagement early helps normalize participation and builds long-term habits.
Third, align academic, career, and advancement goals. This model creates alignment across academic affairs, career services, and advancement offices.
Fourth, treat relationships as a shared institutional responsibility.
Teaching students how to build relationships with alumni should not be treated as an additional requirement, but as a vehicle for achieving existing learning outcomes such as communication, reflection, and civic engagement. Providing faculty with structured curriculum—clear assignment templates, outreach guidance, reflection prompts, and assessment rubrics—reduces the burden of implementation. Embedding alumni engagement assignments becomes less about adding complexity and more about redesigning existing learning experiences that help optimize for students’ economic mobility.
References
Casciaro, T., Gino, F., & Kouchaki, M. (2014). The contaminating effects of building instrumental ties: How networking can make us feel dirty. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59(4), 705–735. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839214554990
Chetty, R., Jackson, M., Kuchler, T., Stroebel, J., Hendren, N., Fluegge, R., et al. (2022). Social capital I: Measurement and associations with economic mobility. Nature, 608, 108–121. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4
Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital.
Freeland Fisher, J. (2026). What we miss when we’re missing relationship data. Christensen Institute.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties.
Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action.
Römgens, I., Scoupe, R., & Beausaert, S. (2019). Unraveling employability.
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