There’s no area across the institution where alumni can not support the institution’s goals, from helping prospects, students, alumni, faculty, and even staff. All without another app in their (or your) busy lives.
Here are a few of the innovative colleges and universities who are using Protopia to connect all of their alumni and students.
Duke University partnered with Protopia in 2018 to revolutionize how Blue Devils connect for advice and networking. Read the Duke University case study.
The London School of Economics and Policitical Science uses Protopia’s AI to connect its entire global community for networking. View the LSE case study.
Denison University launched Protopia as a best-in-class collaboration between alumni affairs and career services. View the Denison University case study.
Appalachian State University connects future, current, and past students for advice and networking with Protopia. Learn more in the AppState case study.
Assistant Vice President Student Professional Development Center, Elon University
Senior Director of Alumni Engagement, Elon University
This webinar explores how Elon University successfully launched Elon Q&A, an AI-powered platform designed to break down barriers between students and alumni. Join Brooke Buffington from the Student Professional Development Center and Kendra Haskins from Alumni Engagement as they share their comprehensive strategy for implementing this innovative tool.
Discover how they generated excitement and achieved remarkable results, including securing internships for students and fostering meaningful connections across the Elon community.
By watching this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
Tune in to gain valuable insights from Elon University’s success story and discover how to replicate their achievements at your own institution.
Supplemental material:
Max Leisten: Welcome, everyone! I’m Max Leisten, CEO and founder of Protopia. I’m thrilled to have you join our webinar on launching an AI-powered community at Elon University. I’m joined by a fantastic team. Before we introduce them, a couple of housekeeping items:
(Wearing an Elon shirt with the Elon campus in the background) I’m based in Raleigh, so Elon is close by. It’s a beautiful campus.
For those unfamiliar with Protopia, here’s what we do: We unlock the amazing goodwill within a campus community – between students and alumni. Everyone wants to connect, but there’s often friction: time constraints, anxieties, busy lives. We make it easy using AI to help people network and meet. Human connection is at our core. When humans meet, amazing things happen.
We do this by facilitating questions. Every relationship starts with a question. We get those questions into the hands of the right alumni and donors, making it easy for them to share insights and offer support.
I’m excited to introduce you to Elon Q&A, Elon University’s implementation of Protopia. It allows their amazing alumni and student community to connect without friction. Let’s meet Brooke and Kendra!
Brooke Buffington: I’m Brooke Buffington, the assistant vice president of the Student Professional Development Center – our centralized career services office. We support all undergraduate students, most graduate programs, and students in our School of Health Sciences.
Kendra Haskins: I’m Kendra Haskins, the senior director of alumni engagement. I’ve been at Elon for over 2 years, overseeing all alumni engagement across the university.
Max: Brooke, for those not familiar with Elon, can you give us a snapshot?
Brooke: Elon is a private, mid-size liberal arts institution with over 7,000 students, primarily undergraduates. We have a traditional student base and a very young alumni base of 35,000+. We have six academic schools and are known for our undergraduate teaching, strong faculty, and required internships. Study abroad is a big part of our culture; we’re ranked number one! We’re considered highly innovative.
Max: Speaking of innovation, what problem were you looking to solve with new technology?
Kendra: We share a common problem: how to connect alumni with a geographically dispersed population. And on the student side, how do we help them connect with alumni when in-person interaction isn’t always possible? Mentorship is important to our students, but how do you continue that after graduation? We tried many programs, but none were successful.
We needed an easy, sustainable way for all ages and stages of alumni to engage, something easily implemented without travel. We were surprised to learn that alumni wanted to be a resource for students, and students wanted to connect with successful alumni.
Brooke: We also wanted to create access and equity. Some students come with strong networks, others don’t. How do you create scale and access for all students?
Max: How did you find Protopia?
Kendra: I was looking for something digitally based, easy to fit into busy schedules, accessible on their phones. I heard about Protopia through colleagues. We needed something with no logins or apps to download.
Brooke: We had just hired an alumni career advisor who kept hearing about Protopia in best practice calls with other institutions. It was a win-win for connecting alumni with alumni and students with alumni.
Max: How did you build alignment across the organization and socialize this new approach?
Brooke: Collaboration was key. We combined our expertise in marketing to students and alumni. Kendra and her team created an impressive launch plan.
Max: (Showing a multi-page document) Kendra, can you talk about developing and socializing this action plan?
Kendra: Our goal was to integrate this into Elon’s culture. We identified everyone on campus who interacts with students and presented to them. We started with university leadership, deans, faculty, student organizations, athletics, and coaches. We emphasized Protopia’s ability to connect users with specific individuals and industries. We focused on getting students to ask questions, which would then encourage alumni engagement.
Max: How did you incentivize participation?
Brooke: T-shirts, marketing materials, and identifying campus influencers were crucial.
Kendra: We wore t-shirts to student-centric events, creating walking billboards.
Max: What would you do differently next time?
Brooke: Include those who will be your best marketers in the pilot program. This builds confidence and allows them to effectively relay information to students.
Kendra: Select alumni influencers for the pilot to generate early buzz and feedback.
Max: Any launch activities that didn’t work out?
Kendra: Some things didn’t perform as well as we hoped. A “ask a question” contest worked well with students, but not as well with alumni. We have a long-term relaunch plan to revisit this each semester and keep the platform top-of-mind.
Max: What do you do monthly to drive adoption?
Brooke: We integrate it into career appointments, workshops, and presentations. It’s becoming part of the conversation throughout campus.
Max: (Referring to a slide) Let’s talk about results. You created an impressive impact report card. Can you talk about the launch and how you plan to repeat that success?
Brooke: We focused on students initially, informing leaders and student-facing offices about the launch. Building anticipation was key. We surpassed the goal of 90 questions in 90 days – we had 90 questions in 90 hours!
Max: That’s incredible!
Kendra: The alumni feedback has been positive. They are genuinely interested in supporting students. Some alumni have even expressed that they want more questions directed to them. This allows us to push for updates and encourage alumni to keep their information current.
Kendra: The “donor alert” feature has been helpful for our advancement colleagues. It notifies them when someone they have a relationship with answers a question or volunteers, providing a natural conversation starter.
Max: Brooke, can you share your perspective on engaging students with alumni during the summer?
Brooke: We monitor the questions and help students refine their networking skills. For example, a student asked about a documentary internship in Los Angeles. I offered some suggestions on how to improve their question, and they emailed back saying they had already connected with two alumni and secured an internship! It’s a win for everyone.
Max: How has the platform helped students with low social capital connect with alumni?
Kendra: Our alumni community is incredibly positive and nurturing. One first-year law student, feeling lost, asked a question and received five responses from alumni offering support, calls, and even coffee meetings. Many alumni offer their contact information, going above and beyond to personalize their responses.
Max: What’s next?
Brooke: We keep going! We need to introduce Elon Q&A to students returning from study abroad and build a culture of engagement. We’ll continue our roadshow, highlighting success stories and impact.
Kendra: Faculty buy-in is crucial. Integrating the platform into classrooms has been invaluable. We’ve had instances where a class project generated 20 questions in a single day.
Max: Let’s open it up for questions.
Justin: (Moderator) Can you talk about data quality and how much of a barrier that was?
Kendra: Our data quality is okay, but we’re using Protopia to help improve it. The system prompts alumni for updates. We’re also running re-engagement campaigns. This is part of a larger effort to improve our data quality. Protopia is an addition to our existing strategies, not a replacement. As of yesterday, we’ve received 499 updates through Protopia, which is fantastic for just three months!
Justin: Meg asks about integrating AI into the platform.
Max: We use AI to analyze the intent of questions, extract key information, and match them with the best alumni to answer. We consider diversity, location, and donor status. We do not use alumni data to train AI.
Justin: Diana asks about integrating with other alumni databases.
Kendra: We use Raiser’s Edge, but the two systems don’t connect directly. We provide Protopia with the necessary data, keeping our database separate.
Justin: How much work is it to administer?
Brooke: We integrated it into our existing marketing efforts. We’re already promoting programs and services, so we added Elon Q&A to our existing activities.
Justin: Are there any audiences on campus who have been particularly receptive?
Kendra: Faculty in the business and communications schools have been early adopters, integrating Elon Q&A into their curriculum.
Brooke: It’s a low-risk, high-reward tool for faculty to integrate into their classrooms.
Justin: Jessica asks how Protopia directs questions to the right alumni with limited career information.
Max: Alumni are motivated to help, even if the data isn’t perfect. They will often provide updated information in their responses. Even with limited data, we can still connect students with alumni who share similar educational backgrounds or interests.
Kendra: Many of our students are not yet focused on careers, so their questions are broader, opening up the pool of potential alumni respondents.
Justin: Marissa asks about an alumni directory.
Kendra: We don’t have a separate alumni directory, so Elon Q&A provides a way for alumni to connect with each other.
Justin: Can you tell us more about your alumni influencers?
Kendra: Our alumni influencers are those who are active on our boards, in our networks, and on social media. They were excited about the opportunity to give back. We also send them a weekly newsletter with unanswered questions. This allows them to feel connected and impactful.
Max: Thank you, Brooke and Kendra! This has been inspiring. Everyone, connect your students and alumni. Alumni want to help, and students want to connect.
Thank you for attending!
Let’s find a time for Max & team to show you just how smart, simple, and scalable it can truly be for alumni and students to connect to one another for advice and support. We promise you’ll be inspired by how artificial intelligence can be a force for good.
Protopia’s artificial intelligence technology makes it truly simple for everyone in your community to connect for advice and support. Without another app to sign up for or learn.
Delivering Alumni As A Service across the entire learner’s journey.
Welcome to the Future.
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