Increasing Member Engagement, Enhancing Membership, and Building an Inclusive Environment for the Harvard Vietnamese Association

Abstract:

Cultural and identity-based organizations in higher education, such as the Harvard Vietnamese Association (HVA), often have the mission to foster community and provide space to celebrate a specific culture and heritage. However, due to the highly demanded focus for academics in higher education, there are often low member engagement in social organizations like HVA. This action research project is set to investigate the reason behind HVA’s low member commitment and how to increase its member engagement. Interviews were conducted on fifteen Harva students ranging from the most active members to non active members of HVA. From the interviews, some reasons for low member engagement in HVA were found to be time commitment, different priorities, small size of HVA, amongst other reasons. Suggestions for how to increase member participations, potential events, and how to make HVA more inclusive were collected. A blueprint of actions for increasing member engagement within HVA was produced that put emphasis on outreach focusing on first-years, increasing social media presence, and expansion of type of events while keeping the already existing chill vibe of the organization.

Keywords: Higher education, cultural organization, identity-based, Vietnamese,
Vietnamese-American

Last updated on 05/08/2021