Strategic Visioning Session – ESF Branding and Visibility
September 24, 2014
408 Baker – 12:45 pm – 1:45 pm
18 in attendance
Bob explained that he and Bob Malmsheimer are the Visioning Group Co-chairs for Branding, Visibility
and Reputation, and the goal of this visioning session is for the participants to offer insights,
questions and suggestions about the following two strategic questions:
1) How can ESF create a unique brand?
2) How can ESF maximize its visibility and reputation?
Part 1 - How can ESF create a unique brand?
 The brand should match what we do.
 We do the undergraduate education really well but the white paper did not address
that.
 Undergraduates at ESF are part of a really unique culture – they quickly embrace when
they get to campus the idea of the stumpy, green, tie dye, hippie, don’t walk on the
quad culture.
 A culture of student activism. We treat the students as if we really want them to save
the world – they quickly take on an adult, mature role – more than students on any
other college campus.
 Very wary that we push that persona of hippie, tie dye, activism – can make some
students not feel included – not all students at ESF are that way.
 One thing that does unite all students is they are all scientists – would be something to
promote.
 There have been sustainability programs popping up everywhere – how to differentiate
ESF from all the others – focus on the science aspect.
 Our students quickly understand when they get to campus they can work directly and
get responses from those in charge. It is not on many campuses that you can go to an
office and meet directly with those in charge. This is the culture of this campus.
 Pervasive sense of all being part of the same mission
 There is a partnership with students – they participate in the mission of the college and
are part of this community more as peers than students.
 Prospective students are very important, but we need to also target supporters –
foundations, etc.
 Donors are interested in well prepared graduates and research connections
 Spotlight faculty/student research working on current environmental problems – we
have been working these problems for years and don’t need to catch up
 Continue to attract students from urban areas
 Define environmental problems in cities (locally and nationally), and focus on helping
solve those problems. Would possibly bring in donors.
 Largest donors for the College are our alumni. Their biggest drive for donating is
honoring the role ESF played in their success.
 Expand donor base beyond alumni – look for those whose personal mission matches
what we do here at ESF. Something that has a real impact on the world, such as the
American Chestnut Restoration.
 We need to live our brand here on campus - students come in with a certain idealism
about practices here and then they see what is really happening and are disappointed –
such as recycling, the appearance of the campus, waste stream, campus vehicles.
 Continue to make sure we appear in college rankings. About 25% percent of students
surveyed report rankings are important to them. We are fortunate that we do very well
in US News & World Report. We can legitimately claim we are the top ranked
environmental college in the country. U.S. News has no other environmental college in
the top 100+.
 There seems to be a reputation at ESF that our students have an idealistic view of
preservation versus real problem solving. Should the barefoot, tie dye, hippie students
be the “brand?”
 The brand (words) need to be large enough – descriptive and inclusive of what we do
here.
 To attract donors there needs to be a clear message on what the College is doing to
change/improve the world. We do have many programs/projects – willow, snow
leopards, Chestnut, etc.
 How do we differentiate ourselves from SU – many from the Syracuse area think we
work at SU. Over the past several years this has improved greatly – almost never have
to correct the media any longer. This is a concern, but we have a much wider area that
we need to concentrate on. We have been working our way out of this too close brand
with SU, but our affiliation with them is still very important.
 One word college name would be cool to have. Name is too long. Most colleges are
named after (1) a person; (2) the location or (3) what kind of school it is.
 SUNY ESF seems to work well. Co-branding with SUNY is important to use with in-state
students but most out-of-state students don’t know about SUNY. Having to explain
what SUNY and ESF mean is too much. Our international students love being a part of a
New York University system. They don’t care as much about the name ESF. Some see
value in ESF and others in SUNY. Using the SUNY co-branding when beneficial.
 Internationally we are known. We have excellence in what we do and rather than
change the brand, we should just make it better and finer – enhance the brand we have.
 Are we a college or university? College doesn’t sound as prestigious. Some may feel a
college is inferior to a university; however some feel it is an advantage because it’s
smaller.
Part 2 - How can we maximize ESF’s visibility and reputation?
 Visibility comes from research. We need to focus on recruiting graduates students for
research
 Expand the support for faculty to do research and present their research at national
conferences.
 An important part of the college is engineering and it doesn’t come across in any of our
publications.
 How do we attract more media attention when there no money for a national
advertising campaign? How can we feature our faculty and students?
 We have some faculty doing amazing research, but their web pages are terrible. There
is a lack of support/skill set to improve faculty web pages. Provide help to create and
update webpages. Offer workshops to learn the needed skillset. Increases visibility and
opportunities for faculty to get invited to present and speak.
 Offer more MOOCs. It would be great visibility for this campus - could raise our national
level and be a potential revenue stream. There is limited ability to do a live MOOC.
Need to find a way to identify faculty who could/would be willing to do a MOOC. It is
very time consuming, and we are one deep in most expertise areas. Perhaps offer a
more general course that could introduce young people/public to the environment/
science.
 What about a smart (interactive) classroom that faculty could collaborate with other
colleges (even internationally).
 Media attention – what is the best way for faculty to get their research/information to
Office of Communications. Feel free to approach the Communications Office any way
you would like – stop by the office, email, phone.
 We don’t have the funding to compete globally or even nationally – should we focus on
competing on a more local level – NYC? Most colleges are moving away from targeted
high school visits.
 Consult with faculty what their network. Graduate level recruitment starts with
individual faculty rather than the college.
 Branding comes down to research. We need a more concerted effort in recruiting strong
graduate students.
 Increase our community service efforts. It makes a big impact – at least on a local level.
 Who came up with the updated draft mission? President Wheeler, but he is open to
changing some or all of it. These are big words, but it’s not obvious how some of our
departments fit into this. We need to live what we are teaching, and tell us how to
communicate how we fit into this mission statement.
 Empower our ESF family (faculty, staff and students) with a clear understanding of how
ESF is actually impacting our world so they could be better ambassadors for the college.
Perhaps promoting a “Top Ten Things ESF is Doing to Improve Our World” with a lecture
series or a week long focus celebration of work being done in one of these areas (could
be accompanied by a fund raising effort to leverage the press).