Our students and Alum were originally populated using data refresh with data from Raiser's Edge.  In RE the provinces are all 2 character abbreviations (drop down list).  In the on products, the drop down list is the full province name.  If address information is edited (salutation, changing Avenue to Ave. etc) then the province is changed to blank.  Now that we have ConnectRE, the provinces in RE are slowly being changed to blank.  Current students are currently all in our home province, but alum can be from any of our wonderful provinces.