The University’s alumni community: From unmet expectations to effective management
Source: https://english.spbu.ru/news-events/fresh-start/universitys-alumni-community-unmet-expectations-effective-management Parent: https://english.spbu.ru/
19 March 2026
University: A Fresh Start
The University’s alumni community: From unmet expectations to effective management
Each year, St. Petersburg State University enrols around 10,000 new students, while thousands more graduate. Many graduates stay connected to their university by joining the St. Petersburg University alumni community. The Alumni Office at St. Petersburg State University now oversees these vital relationships — a responsibility previously held by the St. Petersburg University Alumni Association. In this instalment in the ‘A Fresh Start’ series, both past and future graduates will discover why the Association struggled to effectively manage this aspect of the University’s operations.
@ St. Petersburg State University
The University’s Virtual Reception often receives enquiries from graduates. For example: ‘Good afternoon. I hold a St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association membership card, which allowed me to access the University campus without issue for years. Today, however, the card failed to work at the Institute of History, where I currently work. It functioned perfectly in October 2025. Could you, please, clarify whether this is a technical glitch or if graduate cards no longer grant access to the University campus?’
‘Graduates are a key strategic asset for the University’s growth’
Mariia Edinova, Head of the Alumni Office at St. Petersburg State University, addresses these questions and explains what to do.
‘Details about the process for admitting graduates to the St. Petersburg State University campus are available on the University’s website under the ‘For Graduates’ page in the Frequently Asked Questions section, as well as in the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Community group on the VK social network.’
All graduates may access the University premises by presenting an identity document and specifying the purpose of their visit and the name of the University staff member they intend to meet. Alumni cards are no longer issued. Details regarding the termination of the agreement between St. Petersburg State University and the Alumni Association can be found in the relevant sections of the University’s web portal: Rector’s Meetings (see the Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021) and Virtual Reception.’
Association of great expectations
At the launch of the Alumni Association project, media outlets widely covered the initiative: ‘Andrey Yakunin will unite graduates of St. Petersburg State University’ (Delovoy Peterburg, 10 June 2014); ‘Andrey Yakunin is creating the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association... The Association is envisioned as a platform for communication among graduates across generations and professions’ (Sobaka.ru, 11 June 2014). The stated goals were ambitious: ‘to unite graduates into a dynamic and engaged community, fostering professional, creative, and research ties within the community and with the University, and to enhance the University’s competitiveness’ (RBC, 1 December 2014).
The Minutes of the Rector’s Meetings on the University portal, however, struck a more cautious tone: ‘The Rector of St. Petersburg State University, Nikolay Kropachev, announced the signing of a 99-year cooperation agreement between the University and the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association. Over 400 alumni have already joined the Association, most of whom work overseas. Members will enjoy tangible benefits, such as access to the University’s facilities and information resources’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 1 December 2014).
‘The St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association, established in 2014, was designed to bring together all University graduates, including those from previously existing alumni groups organised by academic departments. “The Rector underscored the importance of broadly promoting the Alumni Association. Its membership should expand to include graduates, many of whom are also current University employees” (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting of 2 February 2015).
A general meeting of the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association was convened at the time, with over 200 full members and more than 1,000 active participants. During the Association’s first general meeting in March 2015, attendees ‘defined its goals, objectives, strategies, and priority areas of activity, and unanimously confirmed Andrey Yakunin’s authority as president through an open vote.’
In 2015, the Association’s plans included: ‘developing a funding model for the Association and its projects at St. Petersburg State University, creating a development plan through 2020, building an IT platform to manage the alumni database and projects, and organising at least five alumni gatherings.’ Additionally, the Association aimed to ‘launch and implement projects supporting St. Petersburg State University, such as a “Mentoring Programme for students” and a programme for producing and selling the University’s souvenirs’ (ibid.).
In February 2016, to celebrate the anniversary of St. Petersburg State University, the first Reunion was organised — a gathering of graduates from both St. Petersburg State University and Leningrad State University across different graduating years. ‘The 2016 Reunion welcomed distinguished alumni, including globally recognised scholars, public figures, and leaders in business, culture, and media’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 15 February 2016).
By that time, the Association had attracted around 1,300 members from 29 countries and 39 Russian cities, accelerating the growth of the University’s alumni network. The St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association set two primary objectives: providing financial and personnel support to their alma maters and fostering professional and creative connections among graduates. Plans were also underway to establish an Association office in Moscow.
Expectations fell short
However, the Alumni Association ultimately failed to meet the expectations. The root causes stemmed from critical procedural flaws that undermined democratic principles and created a divide between the Association’s leadership and its general membership.
The Alumni Association’s charter was revised three times — in 2014, 2016, and 2019. The first two versions were approved by a general meeting (in line with the charter at the time), while the third was adopted by a conference (contrary to the charter’s provisions). In the 2014 and 2016 versions, the general meeting of members was defined as the Association’s supreme governing body; in the 2019 version, this role was assigned to the conference. All three charters designated the board (collegial) and the executive director (sole) as the executive bodies. Yet, ‘details about how the conference was conducted — including its participants and the legal basis for replacing the general meeting — remain absent from the Association’s website’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021).
How should delegates to the conference be elected? According to the Regulations on the Procedure for Convening and Holding the Conference — approved by the Association’s Board — delegates were to be selected based on a quota system: one representative per 100 Association members. However, ‘the regulations do not specify which 100 members elect a delegate, nor is this information available on the Association’s website. There is no clarity on how ‘electoral districts’ are defined, which district a candidate represents, or whether districts exist at all. Additionally, there is no record of how many votes each elected conference delegate received’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021).
Later, during the Association’s Board meeting on 14 January 2021, Rector Nikolay Kropachev shared the findings of St. Petersburg State University’s legal team — who were also Association members. Their conclusion stated: ‘Unfortunately, the methods used to organise the conference and the regulations adopted by the Association’s Board reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the charter’s provisions designed to ensure transparency, public accountability, and the inclusion of every member’s voice in decision-making. A rigid, literal interpretation of certain charter clauses — without considering their broader legal intent — has resulted in a system where members cannot meaningfully participate in governing the organisation. Consequently, decisions made by the Association’s leadership, particularly on critical matters, fail to represent the true will of its members and are therefore legally invalid’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 18 January 2021).
The proposal was to align the Association’s by-laws with both its charter and current legislation. This adjustment was essential to guarantee every Association member’s right to participate in governance and to ensure that all voices and opinions were heard.
A St. Petersburg State University professor ran for the position of President of the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association and Chair of the Board. To do so, she took part in the conference delegate elections in the summer of 2021, which gave her firsthand insight into how the elections were conducted. She discovered that ‘securing just three votes — one of which could be her own, as self-voting was permitted — was sufficient to become a conference delegate. However, it remains unclear which 100 Association members elected her as a delegate. The Association’s website never published detailed voting results, including the names of participants or the actual vote counts’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021).
The Executive Director’s trick
It became evident that the Alumni Association’s operations had led to outcomes that clearly contradicted its original objectives.
Andrey Yakunin’s term as President of the Alumni Association officially ended in March 2020 — he was elected in 2015 for a five-year term, however, in spring 2020, presidential elections were not held. Similarly, no elections were organised for the Alumni Association’s Executive Director or Board.
On 24 December 2020, at the initiative of the Rector of St. Petersburg State University, a meeting was convened between University representatives and the Alumni Association’s Board. The focus was on addressing the organisation’s operations (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 28 December 2020).
On 14 January 2021, a meeting of the Association’s Board took place, with St. Petersburg State University’s Rector and other University representatives in attendance. The Board was alerted to the fact that the Association’s by-laws failed to comply with current legislation. However, discussion on this matter proved impossible after Sergei Belov — Dean of the Faculty of Law and Chairman of the Standing Legal Committee of the St. Petersburg State University Academic Council — was denied the opportunity to speak. As a result, the University representatives withdrew from the meeting (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 18 January 2021).
At that time, the Executive Director served as the Association’s sole executive body, authorised to manage its day-to-day operations. Notably, while the 2014 and 2016 charter versions mandated new elections following the dismissal or expiration of the Executive Director’s term, the 2019 charter — adopted by the conference — eliminated this requirement.
This was an update: ‘The 2019 charter introduced a provision allowing an elected Executive Director to appoint an acting replacement, transferring all powers not only during temporary absences (such as business trips, vacations, or medical leave) but also after the elected Director’s dismissal. Critically, the charter, adopted by the conference in 2019, imposed no term limits on the acting Executive Director and placed no restrictions on their authority’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021).
This was democracy redefined. The previous Executive Director appointed an Acting Director, who was then empowered to manage the Association — a public organisation — without any time constraints.
How did this impact the Alumni Association’s operations? On the one hand, the general meeting of members (or conference) was officially recognised as the Association’s highest governing body, with the authority to address any issue within its scope. On the other hand, the Acting Executive Director was responsible for organising the conference to elect a new Executive Director. However, under the 2019 charter rules established by the Association’s Board: ‘It is the Executive Director (in this case, the Acting Executive Director) who approves the conference agenda. The conference itself has no authority to introduce or consider additional issues, nor can it amend the agenda’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021).
So, who truly holds the highest authority in the Association? The answer became clear during the summer 2021 conference: ‘Delegates were denied the opportunity to address any issue not pre-approved by the Acting Executive Director. The question of modifying the agenda was never even put to a vote. The conference Chair declared that the agenda had been approved in advance, in accordance with established procedures, and therefore was not subject to change’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021).
There were other violations of basic democratic governance principles. Ten candidates initially expressed interest in competing for the Executive Director position. However, ‘the conference delegates were presented with only one candidate — whom they were instructed to approve with a “yes” vote. This candidate had been pre-selected and endorsed by a committee, formed by the Board and chaired by the Acting Executive Director. The conference Chair provided no clear justification for excluding the other candidates, nor was there any transparency about the committee’s formation, its members, or its authority. The Association’s website offers no record of this committee’s existence, its composition, or the basis for its decisions’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021). In effect, the Acting Executive Director effectively appointed his own successor, leaving the conference with no real alternative but to rubber-stamp the appointment. The conference’s role was clearly reduced.
‘A committee — of unknown origin, unclear approval, and granted powers beyond mere advisory — selected a single candidate from the original ten for the Executive Director role. The Acting Executive Director then structured the agenda to allow a vote on only that one candidate’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 8 June 2021). The 2021 conference revealed a stark contrast to the democratic principles that were publicly championed at the Alumni Association’s founding. In the years since its foundation, those principles had eroded dramatically.
Results of activities
After identifying irregularities in the procedures for electing delegates to the general meeting (conference) and for electing the leadership of the Association, a professor from St. Petersburg State University — who was a candidate for president of the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association and chair of its Board — submitted a request to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation to examine the activities of the Alumni Association. The Ministry’s response after the inspection confirmed multiple violations of current legislation.
Following discussions on this matter, the Collegium of Honorary Professors of St. Petersburg State University developed a set of recommendations: to establish a new association for graduates of St. Petersburg State University and Leningrad State University, and to initiate the process of terminating the existing agreement between the University and the previous Alumni Association.
During the Rector’s Meeting held on 15 June 2021, participants noted that the University and the Alumni Association had not collaborated on any joint events for several years. They highlighted that ‘the Alumni Association had not been involved in organising the University’s key events — such as: Career Day; Applicant Day; matriculation ceremony for first-year students; Open Day; the University’s anniversary celebrations; or student start-up competitions. Additionally, despite the University hosting hundreds of extracurricular events (including cultural, sports, and academic activities) annually, the Alumni Association had not participated in organising any of them’ (Minutes of the Rector’s Meeting dated 15 June 2021). In contrast, dozens of the University’s regular partners actively co-organise these extracurricular activities.
The St. Petersburg University Alumni Association implements a scholarship programme designed to support talented young scholars and students of St. Petersburg State University. In 2021, 22 students from 13 fields of study were awarded scholarships, each receiving 20,000 roubles per month. In comparison, St. Petersburg State University itself offers a variety of scholarships to its students. For instance, through the St. Petersburg State University Endowment Fund, the University has established and annually awards over 17 types of scholarships. More than 170 students across all fields of study receive these scholarships each year, and new scholarships are introduced regularly. The amounts vary from 10,000 roubles per month to full coverage of the annual tuition fee for contract-based education at the University (ranging from 70,000 to 433,000 roubles per year). Additionally, the University’s regular partners provide over 340 scholarships annually to undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students.
At the Rector’s meeting, it was also emphasised that: ‘Under the agreement, St. Petersburg State University granted the Alumni Association the exclusive right to sell merchandise featuring the University’s logo. However, purchasers receive receipts not from the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association, but from a private company, ‘1724’ LLC. Furthermore, the CEO of this company is an employee of the Association and holds 75% of the company’s assets. The Association did not coordinate with the University before transferring the right to sell University-logo merchandise to third parties. According to the licensing agreement, the Association is obligated to submit a report to the University; yet, no such report has been provided’ (Regarding the sale of University-logo merchandise by ‘1724’ LLC on behalf of the Alumni Association).
In the spring of 2021, an analysis of the Alumni Association’s website and its other social media resources was conducted. The findings indicated that: ‘The Association does not follow the policy of promoting or covering the University events. The University-related events and activities account for only 3.3% of all publications on the Association’s website. This suggests that the Association’s information policy fails to align with its stated goals and is not supportive of St. Petersburg State University.’
On 10 June 2021, the Alumni Association received formal notice of the termination of the cooperation agreement between St. Petersburg State University and the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association, originally signed on 26 November 2014. Following this, all ties with the organisation were severed.
For a time, the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Association continued to operate independently — without affiliation to St. Petersburg State University — but was ultimately compelled to halt its activities entirely.
The alumni community as a strategic asset
Neither in 2021, after the University ended its partnership with the Association, nor later did graduates move quickly to formally establish a new community. Currently, alumni engagement is coordinated by the Alumni Office of St. Petersburg State University. On the University’s portal, under the ‘For Alumni’ section, there is a dedicated ‘Join the Community’ button.
By completing the questionnaire, a St. Petersburg State University graduate provides details about their academic programme, graduation date, current employment and position, University projects they are willing to support, and their potential involvement in University life. With this information, the Alumni Office can integrate them into the broader ecosystem of the alumni community and the University.
The Alumni Office tailors its engagement strategies to different audiences — including senior alumni, potential experts, partners, and recent graduates — offering each group distinct opportunities for collaboration.
For instance, younger graduates tend to focus on professional and career-oriented events. For recent graduates, navigating their professional path is a priority, and the Alumni Office supports them in this process. ‘In 2025, eight online broadcasts featured meetings with St. Petersburg State University alumni and partners, covering career and psychological topics. Speakers shared insights on using social media to build a professional personal brand, the nuances of investing, effective team communication, modern leadership trends, and other relevant subjects,’ shared Mariia Edinova, Head of the Alumni Office of St. Petersburg State University.
Older graduates often show interest in cultural events and visiting St. Petersburg State University’s museums, and the alumni community facilitates these opportunities. Senior and experienced alumni sometimes wish to revisit their student years, reconnect with professors and groupmates, and return to the University buildings and classrooms where they once studied. ‘In 2022, the University hosted 15 reunions for graduates of its academic and research departments, including milestone events like the 65th anniversary of the Chemistry programme. Many graduates, now in their nineties, returned to the Large Chemistry Auditorium — where they once attended lectures. In 2025, the University two cohorts of graduates of Law programmes celebrated the 25th and 20th anniversaries of their graduation, with over 150 and 100 attendees, respectively. The annual reunion of graduates of the Faculty of Economics was held,’ continued Mariia Edinova.
We also run a project called NetConference, designed to engage experts and bring together St. Petersburg State University alumni to discuss current trends in the professional market. These meetings gather professionals from the same field to explore emerging trends and analyse compelling case studies. At these conferences, alumni can share their career paths, highlight their achievements, and collaborate on planning future projects — drawing on the experiences of their peers. These events create a unique environment for strengthening connections within the University community. Current students are also invited to attend, giving them valuable insights into the industries they aspire to join. For example, last year’s conference included discussions on how virtual reality helps people to adapt to different life situations and why visual content is more effective at boosting employee engagement than lengthy instructions.\ In partnership with the St. Petersburg State University Career Centre, the Alumni Office organises master classes and ‘Gain Experience’ sessions, where accomplished alumni share insights into their career trajectories and the skills vital for professional success. Equally engaging are the meetings of the St. Petersburg State University Alumni Discussion Club, which address current issues across diverse fields — ensuring that events remain informative for professionals in the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences alike.
Another key initiative of the St. Petersburg University Alumni Office is the development of the mentoring programme, which supports talented students and those just starting their careers. ‘We implement a model of informal communication based on partnership dialogue in individual mentor-mentee pairs. Mentors are accomplished graduates who have achieved career success in their fields, while mentees are students eager to develop the skills needed to stand out in the job market, recognise their strengths, unlock their potential, and create a personal career plan — all of which they present at the programme’s final meeting,’ explained Mariia Edinova.
For the University, mentorship is a means of maintaining strong connections with graduates and fostering a strong professional community. The mentoring programme has been running for five consecutive semesters and continues to grow, driven by the enthusiasm of both students and mentors — with over 50 mentor-mentee pairs participating each season. While the programme does not focus on securing employment or internships, many St. Petersburg State University students receive invitations to join their mentors’ companies after completing it.
The University regularly organises events such as Alumni Day, Career Day, ceremonies honouring outstanding graduates, and other events. In December 2025, St. Petersburg State University hosted the international forum ‘Networks Matter: Graduates and University’, which brought together representatives from over 40 universities across nine countries. Participants came to a conclusion that alumni influence a university’s reputation, international presence, partnerships, demand for its academic programmes, and students’ career trajectories. In return, the university — embodying a shared system of values — becomes a powerful point of attraction for them.
More than half of the members of the Board of Trustees of St. Petersburg State University are alumni of the University. Their contributions help to drive the University’s growth as a leading international centre for research, education, and culture, shape its strategic vision, and foster collaboration with government agencies and public organisations. St. Petersburg State University takes immense pride in its graduates, who have made enduring contributions to science, culture, art, and sports. The University has served as an alma mater for brilliant minds, a cradle of schools of thought, and a guardian of knowledge.
Today’s alumni community successfully addresses the challenges of uniting students across generations, correcting the mistakes of their predecessors.