As alumni director Jenn Maroney prepped a presentation about a new alumni outreach program, she found herself turning to Lilo & Stitch for inspiration.
The Disney flick introduced ohana, the Hawaiian term for family, to the mainstream lexicon: “Family means no one gets left behind,” Lilo earnestly declares.
Dedication to ohana shows through just as earnestly in the School of Accountancy’s recent alumni outreach efforts, led by Maroney, who joined the school last fall after working with the BYU Math Department to launch its alumni program.
“I sometimes hear from alumni that they feel forgotten,” Maroney says. “No one wants to feel that way. They want to feel connected.”
The alumni outreach plan took shape in two directions: reaching forward by helping current students stay connected to classmates when they transition from student to graduate, and reaching into the past by reconnecting with alumni.
Bright Future
Jeff Wilks, EY professor and director of the School of Accountancy, says that the forward-reaching approach lays a foundation for a strong alumni network for years to come.
“If you can get that connection right before they leave, then it’s so much easier than trying to find people after they’ve gone,” he says. “We want them to know the relationships they have here at school will last throughout their lives.”
One new initiative to strengthen those relationships is called, fittingly, the Ohana Program. It is essentially a mash-up of the Marriott School junior core and LDS home and visiting teaching. Among the fifty or so students in a section of junior core classes, two students are assigned as section leaders. They work together to contact each member of their section at least once a semester during school, and twice a year for at least five years after graduation. They are encouraged to know each member by name and reach out to anyone in need. They also make sure everyone is connected on LinkedIn, which ensures every student has forty-nine solid professional contacts after graduation. So far, Ohana groups have been organized for students and alumni from 2010 to 2015; there are plans to organize groups for junior core sections from previous years.
Even though the Ohana Program began this year, section leader Lauren Belt, a senior from Lakewood, California, says she has already seen a difference.
“I feel that I know each individual better, not only as professional colleagues but also as close friends,” she says. “As we begin to go our separate ways in the accounting world, I am looking forward to witnessing my peers use the Ohana Program to connect with each other and to reach their career goals.”
The school is also connecting with outgoing students by hosting a graduation celebration and convocation reception, holding graduation exit interviews, and launching the Ultimate Currency Challenge.
Past tense
To reach out to alumni where they are, the school has hosted a series of events across the country. It’s the perfect opportunity to hear the latest news from the School of Accountancy and BYU, and to reconnect—or make new connections—with fellow alumni.
So far this year, events have been held in Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Huntington Beach, California; New York City; Pasadena, California; Round Rock, Texas; San Francisco; San Jose, California; and Seattle. Alumni can join the BYU Accounting page on LinkedIn and Facebook to find out about upcoming events.
Alumna Paige Goepfert, a tax manager at McGladrey, recently attended an alumni event in Chicago.
“Jenn did a fantastic job giving us all the important updates,” Goepfert says. “It was great to learn about what’s been going on with the SOA since I graduated in 2004, and I’m looking forward to future alumni events.”
Goepfert says she has also seen evidence in her own life of the alumni network. During her time in the MAcc program, she became good friends with several other women. Eleven years later, now scattered across the country, they are still friends.
“We’ve been able to reach out to each other to discuss situations we’re facing at work, as well as job changes, getting married, and having and adopting children,” she says.
Yet another way the school is revamping its alumni outreach is by moving from a newsletter to an annual report, allowing the school to provide more depth and breadth of coverage.
The shift builds on decades of work by professor Robert Gardner, who has served as editor of the School of Accountancy newsletter.
“He’s incredibly dedicated and has really made the newsletter a wonderful communication tool for our alumni,” Wilks says. “He’s put a lot of energy and love into that.”
Full Circle
To bring it all together, the school has boosted its social media presence, particularly on LinkedIn and Facebook. The pages feature handy information about upcoming events and job openings, as well as fun stuff like pictures of alumni’s babies sporting a #JustDeductIt onesie or nostalgia-inducing posts about case competitions and finals week.
Aside from the feel-good factor of connection, Maroney says staying up-to-date on what alumni are doing helps her know who to recommend when headhunters call, or who to reach out to when a student is looking for an internship or job at a particular firm. It also helps donors to the school see the impact of their contribution.
For Wilks, expanding alumni outreach reflects of the value of alumni to the school.
“The school has an amazing reputation because of the alumni,” he says. “They have gone on to have wonderful success, working hard and being great employees and leaders wherever they are.”
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ULTIMATE CURRENCY CHALLENGE
BYU School of Accountancy grads have solid footing when it comes to financial currency. But everyone (accountants included) knows that life is more than being financially solvent—it’s about emotional, physical, and spiritual growth. That’s the idea behind the Ultimate Currency Challenge, which pushes students to pursue activities in categories including service, health, art, the outdoors, and global connections.
Recent graduate Greg Christopher says that the challenge nudged him to take advantage of his remaining time at BYU—he attended plays, musicals, and campus events and volunteered at an assisted-living home. He graduated this summer and is currently the coowner and head of business development for a startup called Tessel and an associate auditor for KPMG in Salt Lake City.
“I had dedicated myself so fully to the halls of the Tanner Building that I had missed out on the many opportunities that make up a well-rounded education,” he says. “Through the challenge, I began to realize what constitutes true and enduring learning.”
More than one hundred students participated in the optional program. Outdoor activities were the most popular pursuit, with a stream of smiling mountain-vista mugshots filling the BYU Accounting Facebook page. In one case, two students came upon a fellow student on a hike who had fallen and cut his leg; they administered first aid and helped him travel two miles to get crucial medical care. Students also found meaningful ways to serve, like a student who gave a used car to his sister and a group of students who bought meals for needy families in their ward. For the global connection, some students went on study abroad trips or reached out to people they had met on their LDS missions.
Ethan Graham, who also graduated this summer, says the challenge helped him realize “there’s more to life than accounting—a fact which is hard to remember after three years in BYU’s rigorous program.”
He even found that he had more interesting things to share about himself during job interviews because he had done the challenge. He is now working for Intel in Portland, Oregon.
“The challenge helped me keep things in perspective,” Graham says. “Work is a portion of my life, but it isn’t the whole of it.”