Programs Overview
The HAA facilitates a number of centralized programs to support Clubs and SIGs in their efforts to connect alumni to each other and to Harvard. A brief listing of programs is included here; contact your staff liaison for more information.
Each year, the HAA honors the extraordinary contributions of individual Clubs, Shared Interest Groups (SIGs), and volunteers to Harvard’s alumni engagement efforts.
- The Outstanding Alumni Community Award recognizes a Harvard Club or SIG for exceptional efforts resulting in outstanding, improved, or innovated programs in areas including membership, technology, succession planning, community service, outreach, schools and scholarship efforts, programming, or overall general improvement.
- The Outstanding Volunteer Leadership Award recognizes a Harvard Club or SIG volunteer who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to make an exceptional contribution to his or her Club/SIG.
Nominations can be made via the Officers Lounge; awards are presented annually at the Alumni Leadership Conference.
Inspire students to consider a path towards higher education and serve the local community by encouraging young people to continue their education and fulfill their potential through the HAA’s Early College Awareness (ECA) program. A great public service initiative for Clubs and SIGs, this program provides Harvard alumni the opportunity to facilitate sessions in local middle schools to encourage students and their parents/guardians to consider and plan for a college education.
Introduce talented young people to the opportunities available at Harvard, recognize their scholastic and personal achievements, and raise the visibility of Harvard in your local community through the Harvard Prize Book program, which invites Harvard Clubs & SIGs to sponsor Prize Books awarded at local high schools of their choice for the costs of the books.
Hometown to Harvard
Clubs and SIGs connect to Harvard and benefit their local communities by sponsoring local educators and nonprofit leaders to participate in Harvard professional development programs online or on campus.
Learn from the extraordinary Harvard faculty and reconnect your alumni with the classroom experience through the HAA Speakers Bureau Program, which provides domestic Harvard Clubs and SIGs with the opportunity to host distinguished members of the Harvard faculty and administration. For international Harvard Clubs and SIGs, the HAA makes every effort to inform international Clubs and SIGs of any Harvard faculty members traveling to their area.
Summer Community Service Fellowships
Help make a summer of public interest work possible for a current student and impact your community by providing a stipend to enable a Harvard undergraduate working with a nonprofit host organization in your local community or whose mission is aligned to that of your organization.
Welcoming Admitted and Incoming Students
Harvard clubs often provide admitted students with their first in-person welcome to our Harvard community through yield-building events in the spring and welcome events in the summer (northern-hemisphere seasons). The HAA is eager to support your efforts with these two opportunities -- New Admits Yield Increase Welcome Events (March/April) and Welcome to Incoming Students & Their Families (July/August) -- to help new admits and incoming students connect to the Harvard community.
Winter Recess Student Programming
Winter/January Recess provides Clubs and SIGs an opportunity to engage with undergraduate students who might be in the local area for the break. The HAA supports student-inclusive programming during Winter/January Recess through email promotion to current students. Both single-day and multipart programs are welcome, and programs focused on career pathways are particularly in demand.