In June, we sent out a survey (to the alumni list serve) to get your feedback on alumni programming at Phi chapter. So far, we’ve gotten some great feedback with over 40 responses. We’ll leave the survey open to keep that anonymous communication channel available, or you can always contact the alumni council at alumnicouncil@phionline.org with any feedback. In the meantime, we’d like to share with you what we’re hearing.
First, we wanted to know a little about who was providing feedback. As of July 12, we have about 40 responses, and participants are skewed heavily to the 2000’s era. We need to keep in mind that this feedback isn’t necessarily representative of our entire alumni base, but we still received some very good feedback.
Of the participants, 30% haven’t been back to Pig Banquet or Homecoming in the last 5 years. The reasons cited were mostly time constraints and distance. There’s not much we can do about the distance, but we’re open to exploring the idea of changing Pig Banquet dates from year to year to make it easier for people to make it. This year’s banquet is already set for March 29th, but we’d love to hear from you about dates that work best.
We asked about preferences for a Pig Banquet venue, and the feedback was pretty mixed. There wasn’t a strong preference for which formal venue to book, but there was a bit of a debate between formal venues versus informal venues. Hotel banquet halls are great venues for this event, but they can be cost prohibitive for some of our younger alumni and undergrads. We’re exploring ideas to mitigate that, and we’d love to get more feedback on the venue question. For now, we’ll continue to host an informal meal at the chapter house for lunch and a formal meal for dinner.
For Pig Banquet entertainment, you’re telling us that you want to hear updates from the active chapter, stories from alumni, talks from campus officials, and you want us to keep it short. We’re trying to get the NDSU archivist to speak briefly, and we’ll see if we can get updates from the active chapter and bring back the rocking chair symposium for a second year.
The question that probably had the most concensus was the question about attending additional alumni gatherings outside of Homecoming and Pig Banquet. There is certainly demand for additional gatherings, but the challenge is going to be finding people in different geographic areas who are willing to sponsor these events. The alumni council is at your disposal to help coordinate the logistics, so if you’re interested in putting something together, please let us know. You can reach the council at alumnicouncil@phionline.org or just contact a member directly.
Participants were happy with what we do for homecoming. This year we will be changing things up anyway, because NDSU is moving the parade to Friday night downtown. We will still have an open house from 9 am to 11 am where you can socialize, show your family around the house, and get information about the state of the Capital Campaign. Then you can head up to tailgating where we’ll have a clearly marked spot for Theta Chis to enjoy some good food and beverages.
The feedback on the Arrow was that it has been much better over the past few years, but we need to be more punctual with its arrival (or you don’t get it at all). We’ll do our best to get the Arrow out in record time this year. If you’re not getting the Arrow, that means we don’t have your correct address – please visit www.phionline.org/update-information/ to provide your current contact information. Several participants volunteered to write articles, and we’ll be putting them to work over the next few semesters.
Overall, the feedback we’ve received through the survey has been positive, but we know there are always things we can do to improve. So thanks to those who have provided feedback, and if you disagree with anything in this letter, please make your voice heard by contacting the council or by filling out the survey.
The URL for the survey is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VYM2TBK.