So sad is the failure we’ve seen to get a feasible solution to the need for an alumni association for the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. So far, we have created nothing more than events, unsponsored and left to the organization tactics of chance-happenings to fulfill their production. I do not take away anything that Jeri and the coordinators of the VSAA-sponsored performance celebrations did; they had produced a celebration for the 10 year birthday of the school and other reconnection events that have us a glimmer of what we really should be doing when we reconnect to the school. But outside the school, alumni are reluctant to take on a volunteer program that suggests needs of both time and motivation, resources that are already being pulled away by family, friends, work and… well, life.
More than anything, I want to open a meaningful discussion to the alumni about how we can improve our communication. Sure we have parties and MySpace/Facebook/Livejournal groups, but could there be more that we can do in this age of communication? Could this network of artists we have been trying to cultivate produce something tangible? Something sustainable for future generations? If you look at the history behind the alumni association, it’s presence intends to meet both the social and philanthropic needs of the growing body of graduates of the school. However, with connectivity and communication enhanced through digital networks (cell phones, online services, etc), the social side of an alumni association is competing with backyard barbecues and bar meet-ups. We end up removing the pomp and circumstance to focus more on the enjoyment of one another, and it works. Why change that? Why not just embrace it and help it grow?
In true VSAA fashion, why don’t we apply fundamental questions to this discussion? No, I won’t list them all off. By now, all that really care to read this know what they are. If not, check the VSAA Homepage and you’ll get it.
We know that students are looking towards their future and hoping they will keep the same ties as they did in high school. We felt that as students, and the school is still hearing that from new graduates. We know alumni, so far, feel like they’ve done a good job in keeping up their own connections to other alumni through online networking, and as more alumni get into the cybersphere we see less insistence on using the alumni association to keep connections going. We also know that alumni don’t have a clue what they really want to do with an alumni association, and that they feel being directly involved with operations is not feasible with their personal and professional lives. We know all this because people in the original alumni association project, at the school and on the social networks themselves have gathered opinions and relayed them back and forth.
We have to consider the perspectives of current students at VSAA, parents, alumni, staff and community members, including the Vancouver School District. Current students would like to keep in touch but don’t want the kind of social-only operations of a normal alumni association. They also want some guidance as they go out and become artists and members of society. Parents are even more focused on future support for their kids. However, they are wary about access to their children given to various individuals without a screening process; with today’s worries about abduction, coercion and influence, parents are taking a more active role in who their kids talk to online and in real life. Staff and community members feel similarly about students being referred to a group of so many people they’ve known previously but whom could have changed since being part of the school. Alumni themselves are interested in getting to know new graduates, more for nostalgic reasons but also to know how the school has developed and what talent is being produced from its halls. More importantly, they are looking to reconnect to that feeling of family and community the art school once offered.
The impact these perspectives have on how an alumni association will be formed, operated and regarded is huge. It tells us what we could and what we should not be getting ourselves into. It also reiterates the need to rely on what works and not overcomplicate things by formalizing our own social network. That impact extends to alumni relationships with the school in the future, both as resident artists and mentors. It affects how the district would be regarded in that an active alumni association is more visible than the simple success of the school itself. We would hope it offers friendships both personal and professional throughout the lives of the alumni. And it would somehow benefit Vancouver and the other local communities by continuing to have an active artist community based around the VSAA.
Importance is based on the risk of having or not having this formal version of what alumni do on their own. Is it important to connect ourselves back to high school? Or is it important to keep our adult relationships separate, living in its own dimension of our living experience? Would we get enough out of it to exchange time and effort originally being given to other pursuits like family and other projects? The risks of losing a part of our lives by further being involved with the legacy of the VSAA rests on the risk of wasted time. That should be a factor in how we create this program. The risk of failure is not a real factor as that kind of risk is in every project you start; instead, we should consider the risk in failing due to lack of resources for programs that need too much money, people or time to meet the needs of those involved.
The alumni association program should also be important to the future of all alumni. It should affect how we communicate as artists between each other and with our community. It should help educate new artists in the market on how artists survive in their craft. It should allow artists to be creative in whatever they do, even if they don’t feel they have the “talent” to be an expert in their primary art form. It should be a way for us to create art and relationships through art. And it should continue the practices and philosophies upon which the VSAA was built.
If we didn’t have so much invested in social networking today (say, if we were pursuing this ten years earlier), there may be a need to have association-sponsored events to connect alumni together. That is not the case, however. The same can be said about having an alumni association at all; ten years ago, it would relatively be unheard of to have a group of art students create a group that would benefit both the artist community, the personal lives of the alumni and the academic pursuits of current students of the school of subject. We would just be a social club, and anything more would be up to the alumni themselves to coordinate. However, when considering a district- or school-initiated alumni association, I would think the program would start up much like the school did in the first two years: activities being developed on the fly, lack of planning, lack of funding and low morale of those involved. Most importantly, something like that would not be initiated in the spirit of the alumni, but rather those who think they know what an alumnus wants.
So we come to the last consideration, the final fundamental question: what is the next step from here?
The PTSA has expressed their decision to decline any program that involves setting up activities on social networking web sites. The parents are freaked out about access to MySpace or Facebook, as perhaps they should be when talking about current, underage students. Therefore, any current-student involvement would have to be done through the program itself. It seems to be reasonable to maintain a representative of each graduation year, but with the co-mingling of grade levels it is hard to single that grad year out as all being the same friends. A great example of that is the 1998/99 10-year reunion, which is shaping up to be a year-long set of mini-events so that everyone can attend at least one. In this case, the organizers were whomever wanted to be involved, and it turned out that some from both years volunteered. So we have to determine the answer to both sides of graduation day: before and after, how will the students connect?
Then we need to decide what, in fact, the association will do. We can see a need to limit the number of social events we are coordinating. Perhaps a yearly alumni body super-gathering, or a semi-annual gathering so people can be at events on their schedule. The idea of a super-gathering is to get the entire alumni body connected, something a web site may not be able to do effectively. From there, we can discuss per-grad-year celebrations and whether that will be needed. Is it better to take a three or four year span - perhaps a gathering of everyone in the four-year high school grade level from one year to the other, like 1998 to 2002 - and make that the group celebrating? That’s certainly a consideration, seeing as not only do grade levels co-mingle when in school but past grads end up following the exploits of friends not yet graduated. I know I did, even coming back and helping in projects when they needed it. So the audience our events will cater to will be a factor.
We also need to determine the feasibility of producing art projects through the association. The basis of having an alumni association in other disciplines is to develop an individual professionally as well as personally, and there is no better way to improve the marketability of an artist than to give them both experience working in a collaborative group and portfolio material to show future clients. Even if you’re looking to work in marketing, PR or other creative administrator position, having some examples to show potential employers helps your interview and shows that you have something relevant to bring to the position. We can create projects that are more meaningful to the alumni (the artists) and the audience than any other discipline (medical, automotive, business, etc). It should be a goal of the alumni association to sponsor those projects, in all art forms.
After we consider all that, the next step is finding the people who will make this happen. As I have said before, I am very interested in getting this off the ground, and with my business/project management degree behind me I am more ready to see this through. But I can’t do it alone. I will start taking volunteers from both the alumni themselves and the community after we draw up a charter that includes the vision of the association and how we will meet the needs of planning and running the association. I don’t mind coordinating the effort, though I am like others who have a very busy life (I have four kids, a loving wife and a career to pursue). I just can’t do it alone.
I have been working on some other ideas as well. I am trying to startup a small business for cultural development, specifically supporting local artist communities through collaboration projects, communication tools and community involvement. I’m starting with Vancouver and working my way out from there. The company may go non-profit, but for now it’s just a social services company. Something similar could be done with the alumni. There is no reason the alumni association would have to run through the PTSA. We can be our own entity. The only drawback to that is getting the funding and board members to create the non-profit. If we are a for-profit company, we would not get donations and some sponsors would refuse to fund us. However, it would be possible to setup a for-profit company and just publish profit at a loss until we can organize the incorporation.
I would love to hear from any alumni or students on your thoughts with this. If I put my other projects aside, I could have this up and running in 6 months, along with the non-profit company status. The project just needs people to get involved.
