Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management ISSN: 2766-824X | Vol. 4, No. 2, 2022 7 On the Effective Development and Management of University Alumni Resources Lanlan Chen Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu 610500, China Abstract: As colleges and universities gradually deepen their understanding of the value of alumni resources, more and more colleges and universities begin to pay attention to the development and management of alumni resources, and incorporate alumni work into the overall development plan. This paper will analyze the important role of alumni resources in the development of higher education, and put forward suggestions on how to reasonably and efficiently develop and manage alumni resources. Keywords: Universities, Alumni resources, Alumni Association, Development and management. 1. Introduction Under the background of the further development of higher education reform, the talent training in Colleges and universities has changed from "elite" to "popular". As the cradle of talent training, the number of college graduates is increasing year by year, and there are many talents in all walks of life. Comrade Hu Jintao pointed out at the national talent work conference in 2003 that "talent resources are the first resource, and alumni resources are the richest talent resources of the University". Nowadays, alumni resources have become an indispensable part of the school running resources of colleges and universities, and alumni work has been included in the overall development plan of more and more colleges and universities. How to make alumni resources penetrate into all links of higher education and play a role and create value has become an important research topic. 2. Alumni Resources Being Valuable Resources of Colleges and Universities College alumni are a knowledge group who has received higher education. They are a group with rich information, intensive knowledge and special feelings with their alma mater. They are an important resource hidden outside their alma mater. Alumni resources include both material resources, i.e. tangible resources, and spiritual resources, i.e. intangible resources. The specific types are as follows: 2.1. Material Resources 1. Industrial resources. The industrialization of scientific and technological achievements is an important part of scientific and technological work in Colleges and universities. Paying close attention to industrial development and rapidly transforming scientific research achievements into social productive forces are the main battlefield of colleges and universities facing the national economy and an important aspect of serving the society. Alumni have great potential in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of the school. They are engaged in a wide range of industries, and there are also many famous entrepreneurs and industrialists. They can not only directly cooperate with the school, but also promote the school to carry out a number of cooperation with the society through the communication and contact of alumni. Most of the alumni of the University in which the author works are distributed in the communication and it industries, which are closely related to the majors of the University. Through the industry university research cooperation with alumni enterprises, the industrialization development process of the university has been strengthened. 2. Financial resources. The experience of alumni living and growing up in school is an important stage of their life, and they will have deep feelings for their alma mater. When you are successful in your career, you often think of paying back to your alma mater and looking for opportunities to contribute to the construction and development of your alma mater. Therefore, they often make donations to their alma mater at the opportunity of school celebrations, homecoming associations or major school activities. Some successful alumni either donate to their alma mater to build teaching facilities, or set up scientific research funds and scholarships. This not only expresses deep feelings for the alma mater, but also increases the investment in funds, equipment and facilities for the construction and development of the alma mater. 2.2. Spiritual Resources 1. Brand resources. Alumni are not only the object of university public relations, but also an important resource of university public relations. College alumni are the result of school education and the product of education. Just as the products produced by enterprises must be tested and recognized by the society, the quality of educational products is directly related to the reputation and image of the school, and even to the survival of the school. Alumni of colleges and universities are important external public in public relations of colleges and universities [1]. They are not only the "talent education product" of the school, but also the "brand image" of the school. Alumni who go out of the school and step into the society are like business cards issued by colleges and universities to the society. Their personality charm, work performance and social achievements mark the educational quality of the school and the image of their alma mater. The higher the social praise of alumni, the higher the social popularity of the alma mater. Alumni have actually become the image spokesperson of the school. It can be seen that the school and its alumni have formed a natural and inseparable 8 community of destiny, which is the most vivid "brand image" and "brand advertisement" of the school. 2. Intellectual resources. As a high-level knowledge group, alumni have outstanding management and professional talents who have made outstanding contributions in their respective work and research fields, and have rich practical experience. They can provide intellectual support in the deepening of ideas, discipline construction, scientific research and testing, talent training, teaching reform, management methods, production services, and the introduction of new knowledge and technology, It is a valuable intellectual resource for the development and expansion of the alma mater. Over the past 60 years since the establishment of the University, the author has cultivated and delivered more than 70000 graduates to the society. They have made contributions to their respective posts, and many outstanding talents have emerged, including many well- known scholars and excellent experts. They have given great help and support to the discipline construction, scientific research, talent training and other aspects of their alma mater [2]. 3. The Significance of the Development of Alumni Resources to the Development of Colleges and Universities Alumni resources refer to "the value of alumni as human resources and the sum of financial, material, information, cultural and social influence resources owned by alumni." Recognizing the importance of alumni resources is an important prerequisite for strengthening alumni development, improving alumni management system and making use of alumni value effect. 3.1. Alumni Being the Perspective Mirror for Optimizing Talent Training Alumni are the witnesses of the changes and development of the University and the witnesses of the educational reform of the University. The professional knowledge, professional ability and creative thinking they learned in the university play the most direct feedback on the education and teaching level and talent training mode of the University. By establishing a sound feedback mechanism, we can avoid the disconnection between talent training and social needs in Colleges and universities, further clarify the training objectives, optimize the training mode, promote educational reform, promote discipline construction, and improve the teaching mechanism. Education is the primary responsibility of colleges and universities. For students, the experience of alumni is a vivid textbook. The exemplary role of outstanding alumni is the auxiliary force of College Students' moral education. The publicity of outstanding alumni can correctly guide college students' Outlook on life, world outlook and values. 3.2. Alumni Being the Catalyst to Promote Students' Employment The employment of college students often has the disadvantages of "high vision but low hands" and "utilitarianism". Today, with the increasing number of college students and the increasingly serious employment problem, it has become an urgent task for colleges and universities to help students establish a correct view of job selection and promote their successful employment. Excellent alumni return to the school in the form of lectures and deeds publicity, and give employment guidance to students with their employment experience, practical experience and successful experience, which can help students find a correct position and get out of the employment misunderstanding. Alumni 'rich experience and life experience can broaden students' horizons, and their work units can also provide internship bases and jobs for students. 3.3. Alumni Being the Bridge of Cooperation and Communication Between Universities and Society Colleges and universities play an important role in technology supply in industry university research cooperation. Alumni just become the link between the University and enterprises. With the help of the enterprise platform, they help the alma mater introduce scientific research projects and promote the incubation of scientific research achievements of the alma mater. The advantages of the two sides are complementary and mutually beneficial. The organic combination of knowledge acquisition, production experience and scientific research experiment can make the talent training of colleges and universities fully meet the social needs, enhance the comprehensive social competitiveness of students, and better serve the society. 3.4. Alumni Being the Strong Backing to Support the Development of Higher Education Alumni, as the result of talent training in Colleges and universities, are a powerful support to improve the social recognition of the university, help the alma mater establish a brand, win a reputation, and contribute to the sustainable development of the alma mater education; Excellent alumni can become non staff teachers in Colleges and universities as off campus tutors. Their practical experience is a powerful supplement to classroom theory teaching; The financial and material support that alumni groups with extensive social relations bring to their alma mater is an important way for colleges and universities to raise funds for running schools[3] . 4. Measures to Fully Develop Alumni Resources Due to historical and institutional reasons, the development of alumni resources in Chinese universities is far behind that of foreign universities. When people began to realize the importance of protecting alumni resources, they also had a blind, random and extensive development stage. Only by developing alumni resources scientifically, normatively and systematically can alumni continue to return to their alma mater and enhance the cohesion between their alma mater and alumni. In the early years, only the groups with academic relationship with colleges and universities were generally regarded as alumni. With the development of the times, the definition of alumni was also expanding. Nowadays, the recognition scope of alumni basically falls into the following categories: postgraduates (masters, doctors), undergraduates, junior college graduates, graduates, dropouts and advanced students who have received full-time or part-time education in Colleges and universities; Former teachers and employees in Colleges and universities, as well as researchers engaged 9 in post doctoral work; All kinds of trainees who have participated in the training organized by colleges and universities for more than three months; Part time professors, visiting professors, consultant professors, honorary professors and other part-time personnel who have been employed in Colleges and universities. In addition, honorary alumni can also be awarded to those who have made significant contributions to the construction and development of the school. With the further deepening of China's educational system reform, the school's power to run schools independently of the society has gradually expanded. Many colleges and universities have begun to realize the important role of alumni work, and have set up alumni associations, alumni work offices, etc. to carry out alumni work in different organizational forms and have achieved some results. However, effective measures are needed to effectively and fully develop and utilize the rich resources contained in the alumni and gather the wisdom and strength of the majority of alumni. 4.1. Extensive Collection of Alumni Information Is the Basis for the Development of Alumni Resources Collecting alumni information and mining alumni information sources are the first step to develop alumni resources. The collection of alumni information is a hard and arduous work. Due to the large number, wide distribution and historical reasons of alumni, the alumni information of colleges and universities can not be accurate to everyone. However, the latest information of alumni is very important for alumni's work. Therefore, we should adopt a variety of ways to mobilize all forces and widely collect it, so as to expand the ranks of alumni and enhance their strength. Information collection is a complicated and long-term basic work. It is necessary to form an alumni work network composed of university leaders, functional departments, colleges and other special personnel, establish a sound information collection work, and adopt the "point-to-point combination" method based on the principle of "horizontal to edge, vertical to the end". As shown in Figure 1, under the supervision of school leaders and the overall planning of Alumni Association, all secondary colleges generally cast nets through counselors and students, and collect and count alumni databases by major, grade and class[4]; The Alumni Association collects local outstanding and well-known alumni data through contacts with local alumni associations; At the same time, alumni register relevant information in the "looking for alumni" module of the Alumni Association website, and the administrator obtains the corresponding database through background monitoring. 4.2. Effective Management of Alumni Information Is the Premise for the Use of Alumni Resources If the collection of alumni information is the foundation, then the management of alumni information is the key. The effective management of alumni information is the premise for the use of alumni resources. With the continuous popularization of computer network, the deepening of alumni work, the increase of alumni information in Colleges and universities year by year, alumni resources are becoming more and more abundant. It is urgent to build an effective alumni information management system. The purpose of establishing alumni database is to use modern management methods to make the management of alumni information resources more scientific and orderly, and facilitate the mining of valuable resources. This requires that the basic functions of alumni database should be complete, information query and analysis should be convenient, a large number of historical data and summary data should be stored safely and reliably, and relatively stable and professional personnel should be required to manage, collect, sort out and update in time. Hierarchical management of alumni information is an important way to realize alumni relationship management strategy. Differentiated hierarchical management can maximize the value of alumni resources. Classify according to the contribution of alumni to the school, so as to better distinguish and define the value of alumni, carry out targeted management separately, and improve the management efficiency of alumni relationship. 4.3. Sharing Alumni Resources Alumni resources have multiple and two-way characteristics: alma mater and alumni, alma mater and society, society and alumni. From the perspective of educational economics, this is the inevitable result of the exchange of beneficial resources among schools, alumni and society to realize the promotion of their respective values. Therefore, alumni resources should not take the realization of any single benefit as the value orientation, but maximize the sharing of alumni resources and achieve "three services", that is, serve alumni, including alumni and their families, and further extend the function of Alumni Association; To serve alumni units, only by supporting alumni to serve units, can we strive for more lasting and comprehensive cooperation; Serve the school, serve the mainstream work of the school, improve the school brand, and realize the mutual benefit and win-win of alumni, the school and the society. 4. many problems in the development and application of alumni resources In the process of developing Alumni Resources in Colleges and universities, the following problems generally exist, which need to be paid attention to and improved in the development and application of alumni resources in Colleges and universities in the future. (1) The phenomenon of valuing material resources and neglecting educational resources. Some people develop alumni resources mainly to develop alumni who donate money and materials to the school. They think that their effectiveness is far more important than that of alumni's educational resources. This is a manifestation of eager for quick success and instant benefit. (2) The phenomenon of attaching importance to alumni resources and neglecting quasi alumni resources. Some people think that Alumni's work is aimed at alumni after graduation, and they do not pay attention to cultivating the alumni's awareness that students are prospective alumni. In fact, students are also part of alumni's resources. Establishing the idea that students strive to be famous alumni and strengthening the idea that "today I am proud of my alma mater, tomorrow my alma mater is proud of me" plays a strong role in improving the quality of alumni's resources. (3) The phenomenon of emphasizing key alumni resources over ordinary alumni resources. In the work of alumni, it is easy to ignore the general alumni because of their different contributions and relationships to the school. This is a big 10 taboo in alumni work. Remember that "all alumni are equal". Countermeasures for the development of "three alumni" resources The importance of alumni resources has been recognized by the majority of university workers. Therefore, we must improve our understanding of alumni work and carry out the sustainable development of alumni resources[5] . In this process, we must strengthen a sense that alumni should be the center. Everything starts from the needs of alumni, provides sincere services for alumni, integrates the resources of the school and alumni, helps alumni make contributions, helps the construction and development of the school, and realizes the win-win cooperation between alumni and their alma mater. Scientificity refers to the scientific and reasonable development of alumni resources based on their own characteristics. Alumni resources are both tangible and intangible; There is both certainty and uncertainty; It is both individual and group. This series of characteristics determines the complexity and arduousness of alumni 'work. Therefore, in the development of alumni resources, we must establish a scientific concept of development, implement scientific planning, coordinate the development, and promote it selectively, step by step, planned and strategically. Alumni resources are endless in time. For the alma mater, alumni will only change in quantity, but will not die out or change. It has continuity, and there is no problem of resource depletion. It can be seen that the development of alumni resources is a long-term rather than phased work. Therefore, attention should be paid to the sustainable development of alumni work: first, pay attention to rationality, that is, pay attention to irrigation and training of prospective alumni resources while developing alumni resources; Second, pay attention to the long-term nature, resolutely put an end to short-term behaviors that damage the interests and feelings of alumni, and resolutely do not engage in one-time development and utilization; Third, we should adhere to continuity, track and master the changes of alumni 'mobility in time, and maintain long-term close contact with alumni through various channels. 4.4. Establishing A Full-time Institution for Alumni Work Except for a few well-known universities, the number of alumni working in domestic universities in the past was either very small or mostly part-time. The establishment of full-time institutions and the allocation of professionals are the necessary prerequisites for the extensive development of alumni resources. Full time personnel are the implementers of the development and utilization of alumni resources and the organizers of activities to gather alumni. The development of alumni resources can only be done well if the functions of developing resources, preparing activities, and donation management in the institution work together[6] . (2) Establish alumni information platform For colleges and universities that started their alumni work relatively late or have experienced splitting and merging, how to collect alumni information is a difficult problem in front of them. Today, with the increasingly powerful information technology, it is an efficient way to collect huge alumni resources through the establishment of alumni information platform. The establishment of self-help alumni electronic information database, the opening of official microblog (or other network communication communities) of Alumni Association, the construction of Alumni Association website and other information platforms can promote the development of alumni resources from passive to active. (3) Establish special funds for alumni work In addition to manpower and technology, the investment of funds is essential. The construction of alumni information platform, the issuance of alumni publications and the development of alumni fellowship activities all need a lot of financial support. With the attention of the school's party and government leaders and the investment of special funds, it will greatly help the actual development of alumni 'work. 4.5. Efficient Management of Alumni Resources (1) Multipolar management echelon In order to manage alumni resources efficiently, the Alumni Association, as the main management organization, should update the management concept and strengthen the management awareness [7]. The full-time staff of alumni work must have good professional quality and skills, especially for the handling of donations and materials and the management of funds and scholarships. Generally, colleges and universities have a large number of secondary colleges, from school to college to department (Institute) to major, which can form a multi polarized management echelon. With the school as the leading force, the college alumni branch and local alumni branch are the backbone, forming a huge alumni contact network from bottom to top. Promote and cooperate at all levels to effectively carry out alumni work. (2) Dynamic information platform The interaction between alumni and alumni and between alumni and alma mater is no longer limited to the annual school celebration. The construction of network interactive platforms (microblogs, communities, forums, etc.), the establishment of alumni websites, and the publication of alumni publications can make alumni more timely understand the current situation of alma mater, and also make alma mater more convenient to learn about the development trend of alumni. Dealing with alumni information is a complicated task. It is an inevitable trend to change from the original static information base to a dynamic self-service information platform. 4.6. Management Principle -- People Oriented and Win-win The work of the alumni association used to be synonymous with "raising donations" and "school celebration activities." under the new situation of people-oriented and building a harmonious society, the alumni association should be transformed into a service-oriented Alumni Association that cares for the life of alumni and focuses on continuing education. " [2] In addition to receiving rewards from alumni, such as talent training, employment assistance, industry university research cooperation and donation support, colleges and universities, as their alma mater, should also consider providing better services to alumni. Open the door to the sharing of public resources of the alma mater for alumni, create an information exchange platform for business cooperation between alumni, provide help for the further study, development and vocational training of alumni, and provide intellectual support for the scientific research of alumni and their units... "The needs of alumni for the alma mater are divided into safety, social interaction, growth, self realization and respect" [3]. As long as they are intentional, every bit of innovative services will make the alma mater an 11 emotional home for alumni A haven. 5. Conclusion Only when the "people-oriented" concept is brought into the daily alumni management, and the "one-way feedback" is changed into "two-way mutual win", can we better carry out cooperation, co construction and exchange activities between alumni and alumni, and between alumni and their alma mater in various aspects of education, scientific research, employment and culture, strengthen the cohesion between alumni and their alma mater, and make the alumni team develop and grow sustainably. References [1] He Meiying, Qian Xikang Recognition of alumni resources in Colleges and universities [j] Educational research of Tsinghua University, 2019, (6). [2] Panmaoyuan Speech at the 14th National University alumni work seminar Human resources, 2019supplement. [3] Zhou Ziqiang, Bai Ming Comprehensive understanding and rational development of University Alumni Resources [j] Journal of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (SOCIAL SCIENCE EDITION), 2015, (12). [4] An Integrative Model of Alumni Loyalty—an Empirical Validation Among Graduates From German and Russian Universities[J] . Iskhakova,Hilbert,Hoffmann. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing . 2016 (2). [5] Optimizing engagement: brand identification and alumni donation behaviors[J] . Amber L. Stephenson,David B. Yerger. International Journal of Educational Management . 2020 (6). [6] Study Abroad Programs: Using Alumni and Graduate Students as Affiliate Faculty[J] . Sheri Palmer,Debra Wing,Leslie Miles,Sondra Heaston,Karen de la Cruz. Nurse Educator . 2019 (5). [7] Alumni Associations at Swiss Hospitality Schools: Alumni’s Expectations and Satisfaction[J]. Michael Vieregge,HeatherJ. Robinson,Luca Drago. Journal of Hospitality 0 &Tourism Education . 2019(1).