Steering Committee Guidelines

UMW Affinity Groups Steering Committee The University of Mary Washington Affinity Groups Steering Committee, is the overarching body that is charged with helping develop and grow affinity groups. The Steering Committee achieves this responsibility by engaging, supporting and seeking feedback from affinity group leadership through logistical support, providing advice, and augmenting the recruitment and publicity efforts of each affinity group. The Steering Committee itself is comprised of up to five officers, serving a two-year term. Lastly, the Steering Committee shall serve as a supplemental focal point to the University of Mary Washington Office of Alumni Relations upon which any interested person, irrespective of their knowledge of affinity groups, can gain information or relevant introductions to persons who can aid them in starting, joining or growing affinity groups.

Committee Membership The Steering Committee is comprised of any alumni and at least one student that wish to support the committee’s objectives. The committee is led by five officers who are nominated to and appointed by the Office of Alumni Relations. While each officer has duties, these duties are simply separated for the purposes of organization, and the Steering Committee, with direct approval from the Office of Alumni Relations, may change or otherwise reform these duties to suit the Steering Committee’s goals.

List of Steering Committee Officer Positions The Outreach Committee has five office positions: Chair Vice-Chair Student Outreach Chair Marketing/Communications Chair Alumni Outreach Chair Their descriptions and list of proposed responsibilities are below.

Chair The Chair is the head liaison for the Steering Committee. As such, the Chair should be responsible for seeking approval or advice from the Office of Alumni Relations, and keeping them regularly updated on the Steering Committee’s activities. The Chair maintains the agenda and work-flow charts  Meetings: Scheduling and presiding over meetings of the Steering Committee, as well as creating minutes and agendas for distribution between each meeting.

Should prepare the minutes and agenda in conjunction with other officers.

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Work Chart: The Chair should maintain a document that details the items the Steering Committee and each Officer are working on to ensure that no Officer is overburdened with work and important event planning continues.

Point of Contact for Alumni Relations: Responsible for Coordinating and Communicating Steering Committee activities to the Office of Alumni Relations and seeking any items requiring their approval.

Event Coordination: In conjunction with the rest of the Steering Committee, plan campaigns and initiatives, specifically an annual student and alumni recruitment drive (detailed in section III, “Alumni Recruitment Drive” and “Student Recruitment Drive” subsections.)

Vice-Chair The Vice-Chair is responsible for compiling information such as best practices, geographical information, and business relationships that can be used by the affinity groups in support of their mission.  Event and Business Relationship Database: the Vice-Chair shall maintain a list of businesses or organizations with which the Steering Committee or UMW has identified for partnership opportunities. These include being able to offer UMW students and alumni discounts or other special treatment which can be used to encourage affinity group activities. These include bars, sorted by location, which offer happy hours or contact information for event planners, or a list of activities planned by other affinity groups.  Backup to Chair: Should the Chair be unable to perform their tasks or vacate the position the Vice-Chair will assume the responsibility of the Chair.

Alumni Outreach Chair The Alumni Outreach Chair shall primarily be responsible for reaching out to Mary Washington alumni identified as having an interest in an affinity group slated for support from the overall Committee.  Alumni Identification: The Alumni Outreach Chair shall coordinate with the Marketing/Communications Chair to help identify alumni and catalog their contact information for purposes of outreach. The methods by which the Alumni Outreach Chair shall share or update alumni contact information shall be determined by the Office of Alumni Relations in consultation with the Steering Committee.  Tools for Reach-Out: The Alumni Outreach Chair is empowered to use various communication tools in order to reach out to alumni, such as social media, email and person-to-person contact, and as such should have an e-mail address specifically for purposes of reaching out to alumni.  Follow-up Protocol: The Alumni Outreach Chair should personally reach out to alumni who have yet to respond to blast emails, general announcements, or non-

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specified invitations to join affinity groups but have otherwise expressed an interest in joining. Colloquially could be called “following-up”.

Direct Introductions: The Alumni Outreach Chair would service requests for introduction to an Affinity Group made by an alumnus. Specifically, the Alumni Outreach Chair would personally e-mail the Point of Contact at an affinity group and make an introduction to the requesting alumnus.

Student Outreach Chair The Student Outreach Chair is responsible for engaging students and student organizations to become involved with affinity groups. The Student Outreach Chair is expected to plan recruitment events, and recruitment drives, to encourage students to join or start affinity groups with alumni, and partner their student groups with affinity groups where appropriate. ** Position held by a current UMW student**  Gateway: Student Outreach Chair can assist students seeking to find individual alumni to connect with through reference to the Steering Committee database.

This is more orderly and more organized than students attempting to use LinkedIn groups, and is augmented by the Chair’s own knowledge of alumni who are previously identified as having an interest to engage students. Also serves as a gatekeeper of sorts to help set and manage expectations for both alumni and students in their communications with each other.  Marketing: The Student Outreach Chair will share the mission of ensuring affinity group and its events are properly advertised with the student body, and that student events of interest or requiring alumni participation will be advertised to their respective affinity groups.  Liaison: Recognizing that certain student organizations would have a direct or obvious interest in working with some affinity groups, the Student Outreach Chair shall be responsible for reaching out to these groups to invite them to participate or collaborate with their respective affinity group, and vice-versa. To facilitate these collaborations and ensure communications between student groups and affinity groups after leadership changes, the Student Outreach Chair shall create a roster of involved and potential student groups, as well as their relevant contact information and points of contact, which can be accessed by alumni and affinity groups interested in creating an affinity group partnership, and for student groups interested in partnering with an affinity group permanently or for a particular event. This Clearinghouse will also update annually, late in the Spring semester, to ensure that points of contacts for both affinity groups and Student Groups are updated and introduced to their partner.

Marketing/Communications Chair The Marketing/Communications Chair is responsible for facilitating the flow of information between affinity groups, Alumni and Students regarding the affinity groups project and its constituent events. Through the use of social media accounts and a regularly-published newsletter, the Marketing/Communications Chair will generate interest for affinity groups to help recruit new members and publicize events. The Marketing/Communications Chair shall publish information across multiple platforms for purposes such as: recruitment, event planning, event participation, feedback solicitation, sharing of best practices between affinity groups, or troubleshooting problems (i.e. crowd-sourcing a solution faced by one affinity group by emailing all affinity group leaders to see if they encountered a similar problem). The Marketing/Communication Chair shall also ensure, along with the rest of the Steering Committee leadership, that each officer is properly communicating with other officers, committee members, and any other relevant stakeholders.  Social Media: The Marketing/Communications Chair would manage the Steering Committee’s social media accounts on behalf of the Steering Committee, and may recruit other Steering Committee officers or volunteers to help generate and publish content for these accounts. The Marketing/Communications Chair would also assist affinity groups in creating and maintaining their social media accounts, as well as identifying web-based tools which could aid an Affinity Group in executing their mission (i.e. Doodle for event-planning, Google Drive for clouddocument management, etc.).  Index: The Marketing/Communications Chair would create an index of all the affinity groups and their respective social media accounts/contact information/websites. This index will assist with Twitter "retweets", hashtag creation, and crowdsourcing, as well as general publicity.  Newsletter: In order to showcase what each affinity group is doing, the Marketing/Communications Chair shall create the text for a periodic newsletter, which he or she will work with the Office of Alumni Relations to formally distribute it. This newsletter will highlight and describe upcoming and past events or initiatives planned by each affinity group. The newsletter text must be approved and created using the official account of the Office of Alumni Relations.  Coordination: When an affinity group seeks help in advertising an event, the Marketing/Communications Chair can assist the affinity group through drafting blast emails, social media messages, and word-of-mouth to advertise the event effectively.

Duties and Requirements of the Steering Committee Terms of Appointment: The five officer positions shall be appointed for a single two-year term. Interested volunteers shall complete an application created and maintained by the Office

of Alumni Relations, and submit the application to the same office at a deadline determined by that office.  Student leaders shall be appointed by the Office of Alumni Relations in all instances, even for affinity group leadership positions, and shall serve a singleyear term unless otherwise determined by the Office of Alumni Relations.

Alumni Recruitment Drive: The Steering Committee must have yearly, planned alumni recruitment drive to encourage alumni to create or join affinity groups of their choosing. This must be a campaign sustained over a small period of time, which utilizes every reasonable and available method of communication to reach out to alumni, for duration to be determined by the Office of Alumni Relations and the Steering Committee.

Student Recruitment Drive: The Steering Committee must also make a sustained campaign to recruit students for affinity groups, and student organizations to partner with affinity groups when an interest has been expressed. This should occur around when new leadership at each organization is elected to facilitate the introduction of the new leadership of a student group with its partnered affinity group.  These efforts should include: o Bring forth the important events and news to the Inter-Club Association (ICA) meetings o Try to get clubs to promote the affinity groups themselves via blast e-mail to their membership. o Post flyers on designated campus areas and get events on SAE page and weekly school newsletter. o Get events posted in academic buildings and sent out through academic newsletters.

Index: The Steering Committee shall coordinate with the Office of Alumni Relations to establish a catalogue of all affinity groups established, as well as alumni who have expressed an interest in starting an affinity group but lack the required number of leaders.

“One-Stop-Shop”: Upon the creation of the Steering Committee, the Steering Committee shall brainstorm and create a “one-stop-shop” channel, in conjunction with the Office of Alumni Relations that gives all necessary information for people to establish, join and build affinity groups.

Meetings: Regular meetings shall be held to recap individual efforts with a possibility for remote participation through phone or electronic methods. By default these meetings are monthly, but can be amended by a general vote of all Steering Committee members, with majority controlling.

Information Technology: The Steering Committee shall be responsible for securing computers and telephones for use in Steering Committee Activities, unless otherwise directed by the Office of Alumni Relations.

Confidentiality and Decorum: Steering Committee members are specifically barred from maintaining any alumni data or contact information gathered for the purpose of the affinity group initiative outside of places approved by the Steering Committee and the Office of Alumni Relations. This includes, but is not limited to, copying the alumni contact list and using it for personal or non-UMW affinity group purposes.

Contact Policy: Steering Committee members are barred from contacting persons in any way inconsistent with the professional expectations of the Steering Committee or UMW at large.