Graduate survey results released

Marty France, '81
Board Member

Read the Survey Results

On behalf of your Association of Graduates Board of Directors and the AOG staff, I'd like to thank all of you for participating in our first ever large-scale survey of the membership.  We asked many very important questions and you've responded.  We're listening and now we're analyzing your responses and acting upon them.  First, here's some background on the survey.

The Alumni Relations Committee, at the direction of the board, was primarily responsible for oversight on the design and execution of the survey.  Several AOG members joined committee and staff members to work with our contractor for the survey, Corona Research of Denver, to design the survey.  Corona delivered the final report to us in mid-September and another ad hoc committee of six (one local AOG member, four AOG members from USAFA Management Department, and I) have been busy reviewing it over the last few weeks-it's over 600 pages!

The strength of the survey data is excellent.  We received over 3,100 graduate member responses and almost 400 associate members completed the survey.  The survey may also represent a strong baseline for future surveys.  We also received well over 1,000 written comments that we're reviewing now, too.

As a review team and as part of the Alumni Relations Committee, our goals are to:

• Evaluate survey validity and utility; consider Corona Research's "Key Findings"
• Review survey sections for other important info
• Review open-ended questions ("themes and jewels")
• Report initial findings to the Board and membership
• Evaluate current initiatives in light of the survey results
• Identify "low-hanging fruit" for possible early board/staff action
• Identify longer range, strategic actions
• Plan for follow-up surveys to assess progress

Here are a few key findings from the survey that we'd like to share immediately:

• Responses are more similar than different across class years with a few important exceptions:
• Career services are valued higher by younger grads, as are AOG-offered discounts and services
• Younger graduates are more likely to use "other," non-AOG sources to obtain information about USAFA & AOG issues
• Responses varied greatest depending upon how strongly members "identify" with USAFA
• Communication, in the largest sense, both one-way and two-way, is what is valued and expected most by graduates.  Examples, listed alphabetically, include:
• Career services
• Connectivity with fellow grads, classmates
• Heritage-status, AOG inputs, efforts to promote/retain/honor, etc
• Information about USAFA, cadets, grads, accomplishments
• Inputs to senior USAFA and Air Force leadership
• External communications-serving as the voice of the grad Community
• Candidate recruiting and cadet support
• There's a tremendous demand for networking-especially among younger grads
• We need to better understand what networking means
• Responses differed based also on length of active duty time served
• Checkpoints is very highly valued, though class notes in Checkpoints are not as valuable for younger grads
• Demand for a value-added online register is strong (with small variation by class)
• Desire for more support at the chapter/affinity group level
• Visiting USAFA is important for many grads with wide variation between career military and those who served fewer years on active duty
• Younger grads appreciate financial support to USAFA/cadet programs more than older grads 

Many members used their open-ended questions to thank their AOG for what we do to support USAFA, cadets, and all graduates-and for some of the changes they've seen in the organization recently.  We greatly appreciate that 89% of all survey respondents say they would recommend AOG membership for a cadet or graduate-we hope that number grows!  We appreciate the positive feedback and will not ignore the negative.

We'll follow with more reports as we continue to digest the report, but I wanted to let you know what else we're doing now:

1.  The Board has committed to publishing the hard-copy Register of Graduates for the next three years.  During that time, we'll deploy, enhance, and evaluate a fully functional on-line register that, we hope, will serve the needs of all graduates-eventually replacing the hard-copy register.

2.  We've revised the Life Membership at Graduation program to remove the perception of coercion and provide refunds to those cadets that opt out of the program before graduation.

3.  The on-line e-community for all graduates, ZoomieNation, is in now online at http://www.zoomienation.com.  We think this is a great step towards providing the sort of networking and connectivity you've told us is important.

Again, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for participating in the survey.  The time you spent doing so will make our organization and the Academy strong institutions for the future.