 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||
Jump to: First Workshop | Second Workshop | Third Workshop | Main Workshop Page
Second Workshop: The Care and Feeding of Partnerships - 1/16/07
Partnership Design | Organizing Volunteers | Communication
The Brown Bag Workshop Series continued Tuesday, January 16th with "The Care and Feeding of Partnerships." 17 representatives from 8 alumni clubs and
2 Chicago Public Schools discussed effective strategies for designing a partnership, organizing volunteers, and communicating with a partner school.
Read about the discussion below, or download a
printable workshop summary
.
Thank you to all who participated, and if you have questions about something that was mentioned or want to anything to add to the information below, please
, APS Project Manager.
Introduction
Objectives
- To provide strategies for the successful design and ongoing maintenance of APS partnerships
- To share tactics for preventing and addressing common problems
Questions to Consider from the Partnership Design Survey
- Who is the alumni contact for your partnership? What is his or her role in the alumni club?
- Who is the school contact for your partnership? What is his or her role at the school?
- What is one difficulty you have run into during the partnership? Did you find a solution for this problem?
- What is one strategy you have found effective that you would advise other partnerships to consider?
- Are there alumni who graduated in different decades active in your partnership, or are volunteers primarily from one decade?
Partnership: One Principal's Perspective
Gail Ward, former principal of Walter Payton College Prep, spoke about her experience working
with volunteers from the Harvard Club of Chicago. The partnership began when several Harvard alumni
approached the school to discuss possible activities and how they might sustain a partnership. Ms. Ward met with interested volunteers, had them fill out a
volunteer packet
, and asked them about their interests, which ranged from providing
internships to doing yoga and playing ping pong with students.
At first volunteers focused on pre-organized activities in which alumni could easily participate
without excessive planning. Tutoring was a need at Payton, so the school matched tutors with students via email based on requests from parents. Other activities
included coaching Payton's basketball team and helping with College Advisories. (Learn more about
one volunteer's experience with college advisories and read an example of the
lesson plans
Harvard volunteers used.) Partnership
communication was conducted between Payton's secretary and a designated team within the Harvard club.
One challenge the partnership faced was an occasional difficulty in getting students to meet their appointments, stemming from a lack of accountability. However, for the most part students appreciated having visitors come into the classroom. Another challenge was finding tutors within the Harvard Club who were comfortable tutoring Payton students in Math and Science.
Designing a Partnership
Partnership Issues Raised by Participants
- Forming a core group of volunteers for ongoing activities
- Communicating effectively within the alumni group
- Mobilizing alumni when the school gives short notice for an event
- Planning activities around alumni's busy schedules
- Involving older alumni to provide networking opportunities and appealing to alumni's self-interest
- Sharing responsibility and involving more alumni in managing the partnership
- Communicating effectively with a partner school
- How can alumni use their individual experience to work with a specific classroom?
Resources
- See the Getting Started page or the Next Steps Checklist
for suggested steps toward partnership.
- Use a Partnership Plan
to document
partnership activities and organize ideas when meeting with your partner.
Discussion
Stacye Howard-Nance, College Counselor at Kelvyn Park High School, spoke about KPHS's partnership with the Smith Alumnae Club of Chicago, including the needs of her students and ways alumni volunteers could help out. Stacye and Kelvyn Park's Principal, Dr. Sandra Fontanez-Phelan, work with one contact person within the Smith club to arrange activities rather than a committee. Many KPHS parents are wary of letting their children attend college far from home, and Stacye has found that students who go on to college sometimes have difficulty assimilating with a core group of students, which means they often lack the support they need to face challenges.
Alumni volunteers can help students develop a thirst for new experience, and teach skills for situations like job interviews and college fairs. Stacye has found that some students are seldom challenged to express their opinions, so it is helpful to work on articulate and eloquent speaking. Smith College held a recruiting tea during the 2005-2006 school year for which students dressed in business attire and had to conduct themselves professionally. Boston College volunteers coached students from UPLIFT Academy, their partner school, on how to talk to recruiters at a college fair.
Organizing Alumni Volunteers
Resources
- Use the Alumni Survey
to gauge alumni's
interests and availability and determine the ideal characteristics of a partner school.
- The Volunteer Organization Tip
Sheet
provides guidance and suggested strategies for recruiting and engaging alumni volunteers.
Discussion
Saya Hillman, Boston College, discussed how forming relationships with students could be used as a "hook" for involving alumni on a more ongoing basis. Interactive, hands-on activities are often most stimulating for volunteers, even more so when alumni are utilizing a skill or interest such as speaking a foreign language. Rhonda Bell, University of Wisconsin, suggested asking alumni whether there is an activity they do regularly to which they can invite a student or two, such as one Wisconsin alum who invited two students to join them for a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert.
Chris Stacey, Columbia University, suggested having committed alumni from different alumni clubs work together to form a core group, which has also been considered by some alumni clubs belonging to the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and the Big Ten. Forming a subcommittee is often a good way to engage alumni in a partnership, especially when committee members are assigned specific tasks and responsibilities.
Alumni from Boston College group, as well as those from other partnerships, are usually close together in age, and reaching alumni from different decades can be difficult. One reason for this might be that many partnerships use email as the primary method of communication, which may not include older alumni who either don't use email often or whose email addresses are not included in the club's database. Using alternative means of communication, such as print newsletters and letters describing the partnership, may be one way to prevent this. Even if dates for future activities can't be included, it can still be helpful for alumni to hear about past partnership activities and relationships that volunteers have formed with students.
One way to combat the problem of scheduling events around alumni's schedules is by piggybacking on schools that are already on a school's calendar. Most schools have events like Science or History Fairs, Literacy Nights and other opportunities already on their calendar. It can be useful to meet with the principal or other school contact at the beginning of the year to get dates for these activities that can be passed along to alumni volunteers.
Communicating with a School
Resources
- Read the Communication Tip
Sheet
for advice from other partners on how communication works best and what to do when you run into a problem.
- By completing the Activity Reporting Form
for each partnership activity and submitting it to the APS Project Manager, you can
track your partnership's impact in number of volunteers, students and staff who are involved in a given year. This form will soon be available as a form that can
be submitted online.
Discussion
Models for communication vary between the partnerships, but usually the school principal should be the one to decide who will manage the partnership on the school's end. Other possible contacts include the counseling staff, the Local School Council, and the Assistant Principals at a school. Visit the CPS website to learn more about Local School Councils.
When working with a school on activities that require some funding, some schools will match funding contributed by the alumni club. Also, some schools have funding through the Community Schools program. Boston College alumni have found that alumni can often contribute in-kind donations instead of purely monetary support.
Jump to: First Workshop | Second Workshop | Third Workshop | Main Workshop Page
Page updated 26 February 2007
