Saskia Janicki, Alumni Stewardship Officer and Prakriti Roy, Alumni Engagement Officer recently joined the Alumni Engagement team at Leeds Beckett University, pursuing their first roles in the educational advancement sector.
In this profile, they discuss their career experiences to date and what it’s been like as newcomers entering the world of alumni engagement. Working closely together in a ‘small shop’ team, they’ve worked hard to foster a supportive work environment and have utilised CASE services to aid their start in the sector.
Saskia: I come from a non-profit background, working in development for the arts which had some crossover. My role covers all aspects of fundraising together with our department head Jackie Holden (Alumni Relations Manager). An element that I particularly enjoy is working collaboratively with our database consultants –it's amazing having dedicated time with data specialists to understand the database's full potential. I like how they work very methodically too as it’s quite different to my creative problem-solving mindset.
Prakriti: I previously worked in India, first as a journalist, then onto a role in the secondary education sector, a couple years in academic higher education publishing, and finally a nonprofit communications role before coming to the U.K. to complete my master's at Leeds Beckett. As an international student and soon-to-be alumna, I bring unique insights to the job as I often ask myself, ‘what would I want to see as part of the alumni community?’.
Part of my role is looking at improving engagement on our alumni networking platform, Beckett Connect, so I meet and engage with graduates as much as possible to see what’s working.
How does the alumni team collaborate with other advancement functions at Leeds Beckett?
Saskia: We recently discovered at a CASE conference that we’re a bit of an anomaly as a lot of alumni teams sit within larger development or fundraising departments, whereas we are more of a ‘small shop’.
Prakriti: Our team sits within the larger External Relations service, which includes Communications, Digital, and the Creative teams, whom we occasionally work with. We do tend to lead on a lot of our own communications and content, but of course, collaborate with these teams on various other activities when we can.
Saskia: Our team also works closely with the Events team, as there is a natural overlap with graduation and alumni campaigning. We are at the start of building these new relationships, with the aim to do things bigger and better in the future.
You’ve indicated that your team is relatively new, how have you managed this transition together and how do your workstyles complement your team dynamic?
Saskia: With Prakriti and I both being new, we are learning on the job together and I think not many teams can boast that. It’s been nice to share that experience. It also helps that our manager, Jackie, has worked in higher education for a long time and has a lot of knowledge. Both our roles had been vacant for quite a while due to university recruitment slowing and COVID, so I think she's almost certainly grateful that she's not doing everything herself anymore!
We’re both ‘just get up, go, get it done’ type workers, which gives our manager confidence that we can make positive changes. Part of the beauty of our new team is that we can look at something with fresh eyes and go ‘Well, you tried doing this before and that caused some issues, so let's try it this way’. We’re also both planners and try to future-proof as much as possible, but understand the need to still be flexible and adapt, especially when managing a large alumni database.
One of our team’s main successes is how open we are; there are a lot of plates spinning at the same time, so we each have to be clear on our responsibilities and communicate with each other constantly. It’s a perfect storm of productivity.
Overall, we are both so driven to make the most of the opportunity we’ve been given and it’s a great feeling when your line manager values the different experiences that you bring.
You attended the CASE Europe Annual Conference (CEAC) last year in the Newcomers track – how was this experience?
Prakriti: It was a great conference to attend, with so many people from different backgrounds and experiences, who are doing similar work but in different ways. It was so insightful.
One of my main takeaways from the Newcomers track was the importance of streamlining processes and considering how to manage expectations, both my own and others. We started conversations with our manager on which processes to prioritise as soon as we returned!
What plans do you have for future professional development?
Prakriti: I attend CASE webinars and access the Library to find out more about insights, learnings and tips that I could use in my work. Both Saskia and I are excited to return to CEAC in 2024.
Being in this role has made me think that higher education might be the industry for me. There are also so many different types of roles that you can do, it's all about building and utilising transferable skills. I could continue in alumni relations or move into a development, communications or marketing role– across the sector.
To explore CASE’s upcoming webinars please see: learn.case.org
Registration for CEAC is now available online with early-bird rates running until 9 July: case.org/ceac
