Author: greta@academicimpressions.com

Recruiting Latino Students

In this article, we want to highlight the practices from an interview we conducted in November 2010 with Judi Diaz Bonacquisti, the associate vice president of enrollment services at the Metropolitan State College of Denver (MSCD). In the past few years, a number of institutions in Colorado have been investing in efforts to become Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) — institutions at which more than 25 percent of the students are Latino, and which are thus eligible for specific federal funds. The most successful effort in Colorado has been at MSCD, an urban institution with a mission focused on serving the immediate metropolitan area, a significant percentage of which is Latino. Metro State enrolls more than 24,000 students, and in 2010 saw an increase of 1,054 over the previous fall; of those 1,054 students enrolled at MSCD last fall, 735 were Hispanic. As institutions strive to become more competitive in their outreach and recruitment of Latino students, Bonacquisti has advice for what can be learned from recent successes at MSCD. Engage the Community Where MSCD has seen success — and where Bonacquisti suggests other institutions seeking to serve Latino students better might also see the most success — is in engaging the target community closely. This entails moving beyond the traditional […]

Marketing to Adult Students

Increasingly, academic leaders are becoming aware that the traditional, 18-year-old high school graduate enrolling as a freshman at a four-year institution is a shrinking demographic. According to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES): As colleges and universities strive to enroll more of the growing adult student market, they face significant challenges: at most four-year institutions, the website, marketing messages, and the academic experience those messages promote are tailored to the needs of traditional-aged, high-school graduates. We turned to Bob Sevier, senior vice president of strategy at STAMATS, for his insights on factors in college choice for adult students, and where colleges can see gains in marketing to adults. College Choice: Adult Students “‘Adult learners’ is a broad tag that covers many types of adult students with many motivations for returning to college, but in the main, if there’s one thing you need to stress, it’s flexibility.” Bob Sevier, STAMATS It’s key to understand that adult students have more demands on their time. Sevier suggests that adult students are also more likely than traditional students to perceive their college education as a means to an end. “For many traditional students, the campus experience and the process of gaining education is an […]

Crafting a Naming Opportunities Plan

by Vincent E. Duckworth, CFRE

As institutions navigate a prolonged recession, many are launching new fundraising campaigns in response to decreased funding sources — some of them quite ambitious in their scope (most notably, the University of Southern California’s recently announced $6 billion campaign). Even as more institutions look to launch new campaigns, donors are increasingly interested in attaching their names to philanthropic projects representative of their values. To capitalize on this trend, institutions must develop procedures and policies for establishing, managing, and marketing naming opportunities. In 2010, we ran an article featuring advice from Vincent Duckworth, partner and chief marketing officer at ViTreo, offering specific tips for handling the renaming of facilities, and also spoke to the importance of crafting a naming opportunities plan that will allow you to identify and prioritize naming opportunities prior to a campaign. Now, we have reached out to Vincent Duckworth again to learn more about how institutions can identify and manage naming opportunities from the very start of a campaign. An Additional Training Resource: Nuts & Bolts of an Effective Naming Policy Register online now to learn how to develop a naming policy appropriate for your institution. Utilizing real examples from American and Canadian institutions, participants will learn the […]

Fundraising for the Library: Building Shared Purpose

The academic library faces increased demand for services and the increased costs of acquisitions, digitization, and facilities upgrades, even as many institutions are trimming budgets. This has led to a growing awareness that library leaders need to devote more energy to partnering with advancement and academic leaders to raise external funds for the library. Yet because the academic library is a central resource on campus and lacks a direct alumni constituency, fundraising for the needs of the library has often been difficult. We turned to Jeffrey Trzeciak, university librarian at McMaster University, for his tips for success for other university librarians. Trzeciak spoke with us about McMaster University’s unique model that raised more than a quarter-million dollars by involving senior and reunion classes. For this article, we asked him for advice on some of the thinking that needs to underlie such an effort: Here’s what Trzeciak suggests. Partnering with Academic Leaders “We need to focus not just on our own funding needs, but also on playing a role in the fundraising for the institution as a whole — even if it means assisting in bringing in gifts that don’t directly fund the library.” Jeffrey Trzeciak, McMaster University Trzeciak stresses the importance of founding partnerships […]

Stepping Up Orientation for International Students

With the number of international students studying in the US up nearly 3 percent last year (contributing $20 billion to the US economy) and with Canadian institutions also seeing gains, creating a seamless arrival-and-welcome process that ensures the success and retention of these students is rapidly becoming a key area of investment for many institutions. At the forefront, the University of Southern California has piloted a process that includes not only an international orientation once students arrive on campus, but also an overseas, summer orientation on-site in Hong Kong to help students from Hong Kong prepare for their arrival in the US. We turned this week to Tom Studdert and Chrissy Roth, the director and associate director of orientation programs at USC, for a few key considerations for other institutions hoping to develop more effective orientation processes for their international students. Here is some of their advice. Planning Considerations “In one sense, an international orientation is no different than a program for domestic students — in that there are certain rights, responsibilities, and expectations that the students should have of us and that we have of them as members of our academic community. Build the orientation around that. You are working […]

Including Social Media in Your Crisis Communications Plan

In a 2009 interview with Academic Impressions, Cindy Lawson discussed some of the risks presented by social media in the event of a crisis, such as the potential for the rapid spread of misinformation. This week, we spoke with Lawson again to learn more about the opportunities social media channels present in the event of a crisis. Handled appropriately and well, social media channels can empower campus communications professionals to disseminate critical information widely and virally during and after an emergency. “Social media is the new inbox, with multiple channels linked to mobile devices. Social media allows you to be your own publicist, bypassing traditional media to communicate directly with your constituents. Politicians and celebrities are already doing this regularly.”Cindy Lawson, U of North Carolina Wilmington Lawson recommends adding these items to your crisis communications plan: Create social media “blind sites” that can go “live” in the event of a crisis During a crisis, assign staff or volunteers to monitor social network sites, just as you would monitor traditional news outlets Have a plan in place for using social media channels (housed on external servers) as a back-up in the event that other communications infrastructure fails Being Proactive For these […]

Branding Your Community College

August 2011. As more community colleges compete for a limited pool of students — and for the students most likely to complete degrees — a growing number of two-year institutions are looking into branding efforts. However, given the constraints on the marketing budget of a community college, most institutions have faced significant obstacles in launching a new or updated brand. We turned this week to Mike Barzacchini, the director of marketing services for Harper College, who offers the following practical tips for branding your two-year institution — on a budget. You Don’t Need a Huge Budget “Look at your brand as an asset you invest in, just like any other intellectual asset. Too often we default to “We don’t have the budget” or “We don’t have the time,” but it doesn’t take a big budget to communicate how your college is different. It doesn’t take a big budget to achieve consistency, discipline, and relevance in your marketing messages.” Mike Barzacchini, Harper College The secret to branding on a budget, Barzacchini suggests, is that “you don’t have to make a whole new logo, a tagline, an entire marketing campaign. Make your brand visible and practical, and apply it in the communications you already do. Tell […]

Make Your Threat Assessment Team Effective: Part 2

This is the second of two articles offering practical advice on making behavioral intervention teams effective. You can read the first article here. August 18, 2011. In today’s difficult economic climate, most institutions of higher education are facing significant reductions in counseling and mental health budgets at a time when the mental health needs of students, faculty, and staff are on the rise. In a recent survey by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, 77 percent of counseling center directors indicated that the number of students on campus with severe mental health issues had increased in the past year. And while most available studies focus on student mental health, last year’s shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville offers a tragic reminder that faculty and staff may also face mental health issues. We asked Gene Deisinger, deputy chief of police and director of threat management services at Virginia Tech, for his advice on pitfalls to avoid when establishing early behavioral intervention teams or threat assessment teams. Deisinger is both a police officer and a clinical psychologist, and has been involved with such teams for over 15 years. He notes these five pitfalls that you can avoid with a little careful planning: First Pitfall: Focusing Solely […]

Moving Your Marketing Office from News Bureau to Strategic Partner

August 2011. Institutional marketing departments are increasingly asked to be all things to all people and are frequently under-resourced and under-staffed. In order to be effective and meet the competing demands of various campus constituents, department heads need to think creatively and strategically about structure, staffing models, and resource allocation. We turned this week to Elizabeth Scarborough, CEO of SimpsonScarborough, for her advice on leading an effective marketing department. She frames the challenge in terms of moving from operating simply as a service provider to operating as a communications strategy partner. “Ten years ago,” Scarborough notes, “most marketing departments were thought of as a news bureau or as the internal Kinko’s. Now, offices are beginning to shift from operating like a print shop to operating like a strategic marketing innovation center.” Scarborough offers these four recommendations for marketing and communications departments in higher education: Stop taking orders for publications, and instead work with other offices to address their marketing challenges in more strategic ways Set strategic goals and measures for your marketing operation Ensure that the marketing office owns the functional responsibility for the website Staff your office with “marketing strategists” Stop Taking Print Orders “On many campuses,” Scarborough notes, “marketing […]

Lessons Learned from Piloting the iPad: Part 2

August 2011. A growing number of colleges and universities have launched pilot projects to test how the iPad might be used to produce a positive impact on student learning and engagement. Pepperdine University has just completed the first two terms of its three-term iPad Research Initiative (consisting of classroom observations, surveys, and focus groups), looking at how students are actually using the iPad in class when given the opportunity, and what opportunities exist for faculty to use the tool to improve teaching and learning. For the preliminary findings from the first term, check Part 1 of this article (January 2011). To gather their lessons learned from the second term of the research study, we returned this week for a second interview with Dana Hoover, assistant CIO for communications and planning for IT, and Hong Kha, project manager for pedagogy development and special projects. Hoover and Kha offer their advice for: Selecting the right faculty for piloting iPad adoption Providing instructional design and guidance Inviting faculty to bring a vision to the table Incentivizing student usage of the tool Selecting Faculty Hoover suggests that the most important criterion in selecting faculty for your pilot project is the faculty members’ willingness to change. “Don’t introduce any new technology if […]