Creating a community internationally

Curtin is a very internationally focused university. Many of our students at the Bentley campus are international students. There are also other campuses in WA, over East, and in many other parts of the world. When students who study locally go back home overseas, it becomes hard to keep a Curtin Alumni community strong. Previously, I was discussing the idea of centralising or decentralising our efforts to keep in contact with our Alumni. The Chapter idea is being kept as a primary way of strengthening our international community.

The ISSUE: Managing these communications with the Chapters so there is harmony and unity amongst messages and representation.

At the moment, the Chapters are practically autonimous. They are managed by enthusiastic and passionate staff and alumna. We are there to provide funding, support, or organisational efforts, or just contacts.

Previously, there has been a lack of communication between these Chapters and the Alumni office. The Alumni office has not been active enough in maintaining and nurturing these relationships. At the meeting we decided that as a central office, we MUST be active and not passive. We must establish and target those regions that produce the greatest number of graduates / applicants and work on developing a stong international Curtin alumni community.

So, we picked 5 regions that produced the greatest number of graduates, or had the greatest number of contactable graduates. We plan to work closely with those relevant Chapters and make those regions our focus for the short term to kick off our plan to create a better, stronger international alumni community.