Brain Waves Blog

The culminating representation of many years of hard work, exploration, change, and perseverance, graduation is a pivotal moment for grads and their friends and families, one they anticipate all year long. There are high expectations for everyone involved! 

When developing a strategy to enroll Black students your first step is to yield. Historically, the Black student experience is riddled with disparities and broken trust, but you can activate change by reflecting and acknowledging your institution’s history with Black students and having the hard conversations. Next, prepare yourself to participate in a public conversation about advancing future Black lives in this country. Finally, secure the resources to build a community where Black students are truly comfortable, welcomed, and embraced. 

It’s no secret that online spaces provide students with opportunities to connect to others and build community, but do you know how often that’s happening on your campus’s Reddit page? A quick peek at your page will often reveal questions, comments, and potential concerns—all right on a public page that anyone can see. Higher ed communicators are community builders, and understanding what happens on forums could help your campus grow a stronger real-world and digital community. 

Looking back on conversation topics and trends we’ve seen in our five+ years of industry research, we see lessons and insights you can use moving forward to make the most of yield season (or the recruitment process at large) and build a robust incoming class. 

I had the pleasure of presenting a workshop at the 2022 AMA on “Combining Marketing and Communication for Long-Lasting Brand Impact” with all-star higher ed leaders Jenny Petty (University of Montana), Binti Harvey (Scripps College), and Teresa Valerio Parrot (TVP Communications). We showed campuses how they need both marketing and communications professionals to collaborate to achieve institutional goals. 

Brand fragmentation is a consistent theme we see in our industry and client research. There are lots of reasons for this, but mainly the folx charged with “managing the brand” are thinking about “the flagship.” When you embrace the adage that “brands aren’t what you say they are, they’re what they [your audience] says they are,” the fragmentation is obvious.