FIRST DRAFT ESF STRATEGIC PLANNING VISIONING REPORT Branding and Visibility AN INTRODUCTION Bob French and Bob Malmsheimer were asked to co-­‐chair a visioning process and produce a draft report exploring the strategic planning question: How can ESF create a unique brand and maximize its visibility and reputation? The co-­‐chairs met with several staff members from ESF’s Office of Communications and Office of Undergraduate Admissions on September 17, 2014 to better understand current branding and visibility efforts and provide a context for this question. The co-­‐chairs then produced a “white paper” posted on the strategic planning website to briefly explore several college branding concepts and act as a “thought starter” for visioning session participants. Campus-­‐wide visioning sessions on branding and visibility were held on September 24 (18 in attendance) and October 1 (18 in attendance) and moderated by the co-­‐chairs. Comments recorded from each session are posted on the strategic planning website. The comments have now been organized into nine thematic categories to facilitate further consideration (see Appendix). TWO QUESTIONS ARE BETTER THAN ONE We believe that this strategic planning question can be addressed more effectively as two separate questions: (1) How can ESF create a unique brand? (2) How can ESF maximize its visibility and reputation? We must first recognize that college branding goes well beyond the development of advertising tag lines, logo designs or the graphic standards used on a college website. College marketing professionals tell us that: •
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A brand is a valued and differentiating promise that a college makes to its most important customers and supporters to meet a need or fulfill an expectation; Faculty, staff, students and alumni must believe in the brand before it can be effective and believable with external audiences; Brand differentiation depends on developing and communicating college attributes that are valued by customers and supporters and rarely offered by competing institutions (Adapted from Robert Sevier, Building a Brand That Matters, 2002). These three points draw a useful distinction between the strategies that a college might employ to develop and deliver a unique college experience (brand development), versus the marketing and communications strategies used to promote that college experience to targeted audiences (including advertising, public relations, social media, etc.). Strategy questions related to both brand development and brand promotion will be addressed in this draft report. HOW CAN ESF CREATE A UNIQUE BRAND? A unique and highly valued brand can provide a competitive advantage to ESF as we compete with other colleges and universities to attract outstanding students, achieve success in fundraising, and increase our media coverage. Our new President has identified these specific objectives as among the most critical for ESF’s new strategic plan. As we envision the image and brand position that we would like ESF to hold in the future, it is important to recognize that successful college brands are built over time, and that ESF has built up significant brand equity over a long history. ESF has an existing brand that has served us well in communicating the College’s unique attributes to a variety of audiences. This may suggest that our best strategy would be to enhance and extend our existing brand while we focus on building additional brand awareness with new audiences. ESF’S MISSION AND BRAND As we begin our strategic planning process, we should recognize that the ESF brand must remain closely tied to the College’s academic mission and vision in order to be relevant and believable to our customers, supporters, and internal stakeholders. Significant changes in ESF’s mission or vision would of course suggest that related changes in the ESF brand should follow. Comments received in our visioning sessions clearly supported the idea that the College’s mission must be the “driver” for ESF’s brand development. Some participants wondered if we could move forward with branding questions while the College is at the same time examining its mission. ESF’S CURRENT BRAND POSITION ESF has a number of college attributes and characteristics that define our brand today. Several of these attributes are not unique to ESF, but their combination is clearly quite unique. Can you think of another college or university that combines the following attributes? •
An academic portfolio singularly focused on environmental education, research and service. •
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Offering more than 50 environmental degree programs with strong experiential learning and career opportunities. A well-­‐established history of environmental leadership (founded in 1911). One of America’s smallest doctoral level research institutions. Research that solves environmental problems. Unsurpassed opportunities for field study and research on regional campuses with 25,000 acres of forest and wetlands. Part of a multi-­‐campus state university system, but uniquely co-­‐branded with a top ranked private university partner. Affordable state-­‐supported tuition. Ranked a “best buy” college in numerous college guides. Arguably America’s top ranked environmental college. Currently ranked: Ø #30 among Public National Universities and #76 among all National Universities (public or private) by U.S. News & World Report. ESF is the only environmental college ranked in the top 100, and only one institution is smaller (Cal Tech). Ø #3 in the nation on Forbes list of America’s best colleges for women studying science and engineering. Comments received in our visioning sessions show substantial support for the idea that the College’s current brand position is unique and our reputation is growing. Many participants felt that the College should make small adjustments in brand messages, but invest more energy and resources to promote the brand we have established. Other participants suggested a need for more significant changes in the ESF brand to emphasize different aspects of what we do. IDEAS TO CHANGE ESF’S BRAND Visioning session participants offered a number of suggestions for changing ESF’s brand messages. In many cases, these ideas do not suggest major changes in the current ESF brand, but instead suggest that some elements of the brand should be highlighted more. The best examples of this might come from the variety of comments that suggested we place greater emphasis on the College’s applied approach to education, use of field studies and internships, and the strong interests embodied in our students for solving “real world” environmental problems. There were also comments suggesting more substantial changes in ESF’s brand. These suggestions most often centered around two themes: (1) placing much greater emphasis on the research, science and engineering elements of our brand, and (2) developing a brand that can connect more strongly with urban environmental issues and urban audiences. Several participants felt that ESF’s current brand does not project our research capabilities sufficiently to attract prospective graduate students and supporters from government, business and industry in particular. In some cases, these participants also favored changing our name to position ESF as a university (rather than a college) in order to more strongly emphasize our research and graduate programs. NAME CHANGE AS A BRANDING STRATEGY When your college has a name that is quite possibly the longest in American higher education, you have to ask how it impacts your brand, and the full name of our college clearly presents some branding challenges. In fact, each part of our name presents an image that may or may not resonate with certain targeted audiences. What image comes to mind when you hear State University, or New York, or College, or Environmental Science, or Forestry? These images are positive for some and negative (or perhaps neutral) for others. Comments received in our visioning sessions generally indicated that the length and images associated with “State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry” are not viewed as optimal for branding the College, but that choosing and implementing a new name would be difficult. The sessions were not focused on generating alternative names, and only two participants suggested specific alternatives. There was extensive discussion of the images associated with the terms “college” and “university” and disagreement over which term would best describe ESF. ESF faculty, staff, alumni, and students have questioned the College’s name for years, and the most recent name change (1972) caused considerable controversy. It seems reasonable to propose that any suggested change in our College name should be: (1) widely supported by ESF stakeholders, (2) broadly descriptive of our College mission and programs, and (3) tested through marketing research. Any name change will risk the loss of “brand equity” that ESF has developed over many years, and require investment of significant resources in “re-­‐branding” the College. A name change would likely be the most significant re-­‐
branding strategy we could undertake, so the risks and rewards should be weighed carefully. HOW DOES CO-­‐BRANDING IMPACT ESF? Small colleges are sometimes able to improve their visibility and reputation by affiliating their brand with the brand of a larger and more prominent university or university system. Think of how the three NY state colleges at Cornell brand themselves as part of that university, or how the multiple campuses in the Penn State system all use the same Nittany Lion logo to connect with their main campus. This is called co-­‐branding. Co-­‐branding presents both compelling opportunities and complex questions for ESF’s branding strategy. We have two dramatically different co-­‐branding opportunities available to us, and each offers several advantages and disadvantages: (1) Co-­‐branding ESF with SUNY As a member of the 64 campus SUNY system, the ESF brand will always have some level of co-­‐branding with the larger system, but we can choose to either expand this co-­‐brand or to minimize it through marketing communications strategies. Here are some of the considerations that could contribute to our decision-­‐making: • The SUNY brand sends a strong message of access and affordability. This is attractive to many prospective students and parents, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Affordability and access may be less important brand attributes when communicating with other audiences (e.g. foundations). • A second theme in SUNY’s system-­‐wide branding is that SUNY is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive public university system, but this is a “something for everyone” message that does little to improve (and may actually conflict with) ESF’s brand as a small, specialized campus with higher levels of academic quality and admissions selectivity. • It has been difficult for SUNY to build an image of academic quality in its system-­‐
wide brand. The 64 campuses vary widely in mission, academic quality, and admissions selectivity, and there is no dominant flagship campus to build the system’s brand around. The lack of a dominant flagship campus has also limited SUNY’s ability to generate media coverage and visibility for the system through Division I level athletics (think of Ohio State by comparison). • The brand positions held by individual SUNY campuses sometimes have greater impact than the system-­‐wide brand, and several campuses (especially the University Centers) attempt to minimize their SUNY affiliation through their branding strategies. (2) Co-­‐branding ESF with Syracuse University With ESF located on the same campus as Syracuse University, and with ESF students highly engaged in Syracuse University courses, student services, and student activities, our College also has the unique opportunity to co-­‐brand with a larger private institution that has comparable academic quality and admissions selectivity , but a much more visible and prestigious brand. But this is a more complicated co-­‐branding opportunity than it may first appear to be. Here are some considerations that could contribute to our branding strategy: •
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Target audiences (including media, legislators, foundations, students and parents, etc.) have difficulty understanding the “ESF plus SU” relationship. There are very few (any?) examples of a small public college partnering with a large private university so extensively. It is easy for potential customers and supporters to conclude that ESF is part of SU. Prospective students seeking the supportive environment of a small college sometimes view ESF’s relationship with SU less positively. •
The SU brand communicates quality and prestige more effectively than it communicates access and affordability. Like many university brands, the SU brand is closely connected to the University’s location and “place.” •
Co-­‐branding with SU too strongly can attract applicants for admission who are a “poor fit” for ESF academically and/or socially. A case can be made that the efforts that ESF has undertaken in recent years to enhance our institutional identity and pride among faculty, staff, students and alumni have strengthened our brand and had a positive impact on admissions, retention, and fund raising. Adding our own residence hall, our own student center, our own athletic teams, new campus signage and banners, and many other initiatives to improve the College have enhanced the ESF brand with both internal and external audiences. A stronger ESF brand also allows for wider use of co-­‐
branding with SUNY and/or SU by ensuring that the ESF brand does not get “lost” in the larger co-­‐brand. Our visioning sessions provided only six participant comments related to ESF’s co-­‐branding relationship with SUNY and with Syracuse University. This was somewhat disappointing given the importance that these co-­‐branding relationships appear to have on ESF’s prospective undergraduate students. Market research surveys completed by accepted freshman applicants for admission to ESF consistently indicate that ESF’s relationship with Syracuse University is an important consideration in student enrollment decisions. Survey research also indicates that college affordability (generally associated with the SUNY brand) is one of the most compelling reasons to apply and enroll. The College’s current strategy is to take advantage of the co-­‐branding opportunities we have with both SUNY and SU, and communicate the elements that contribute most to the unique ESF brand. HOW CAN WE MAXIMIZE ESF’S VISIBILITY AND REPUTATION? Branding, marketing and media relations strategies are frequently employed by colleges and universities to increase their visibility and reputation with important targeted audiences, and to influence the behavior of those audiences. The targeted audiences generally fall into one of four groups: •
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Customers – prospective students (several market segments) •
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Resource providers – legislators, foundations, donors, tax payers (Adapted from Robert Sevier, Building a Brand That Matters, 2002) Each of these targeted audiences can be more receptive or less receptive to the specific branding messages and communication strategies that ESF may choose to use. While we would clearly benefit from improving our visibility and reputation with ESF’s full range of potential audiences, there is no single strategy that is likely to be effective in achieving our objectives with all audiences. In addition, the resources required to greatly expand our visibility and reputation will be hard to come by. ESF will need to be smart and creative in developing new strategies to attract “free” media coverage from regional and national sources. Paid advertising and direct marketing strategies (such as mailings, email, phone, social media contacts) can be used more effectively to communicate with more specifically targeted audiences. The College also must maintain a strong web-­‐based marketing and communications capability to properly serve the needs of the many audiences who reach out to us for ESF-­‐related information. A brainstorming session with staff members in our Admissions and Communications offices (see 9/17 meeting notes), comments collected from strategic planning visioning sessions, and comments provided by a media consultant from DePaul University have yielded a number of ideas, questions, and potential media strategies for further consideration. Here are several examples: •
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Help ESF faculty increase the College’s visibility through their research This can be accomplished by helping faculty members conduct important research, and by providing travel funds to present that research at national/regional conferences. Also help faculty produce more publications and compete for more grant funding. This is how research universities most often gain national visibility. A visioning comment suggesting closer cooperation between the Office of Research Programs and the Office of Communications to profile and highlight news worthy research projects has already led to actionable strategies to improve cooperation. Use ESF’s President to gain media attention College presidents have media credibility and can be “thought leaders.” But media are looking for stories/comments that are out of the ordinary and (sometimes) •
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controversial. Making a public statement on fracking (pro or con) would get media attention for example, but do we want to be that controversial? Develop a plan for our president to meet with editorial boards at major newspapers and magazines (NY Times, Scientific American, Sierra Club, etc.) and submit op-­‐ed pieces on environmental issues. Offer a massive open online course (MOOC) Many people feel that massive open online courses have substantial public relations value. If ESF could get hundreds or thousands of people engaged in a free online course, our visibility could grow across a wide geographic area. An ESF student suggested development of a MOOC that would include segments featuring several ESF faculty members contributing to a team taught MOOC. Produce a documentary or television/radio segments Seek grant funding to produce a major documentary or PBS type series focusing on “species exploration.” This would fit well with our annual Top 10 New Species list. On a smaller scale, develop an “Academic Minute” type series for radio, or short video segments to expand ESF’s “Going Green” series. Develop a “Spatial CV” website as a feature on ESF’s website This idea came from a faculty research associate who suggested that the College develop a site that “creates an interactive and searchable visualization of ESF’s scholarly footprint.” Geospatial representation would depict ESF research activities in places or regions of interest worldwide and bring together information from individual CVs and web pages. The content could be sorted or filtered by research topic, investigator’s name, or other attributes to match the interests of potential students and collaborators. Personalize our brand through success stories Several participants in our visioning sessions suggested wider use of faculty, alumni and current students in stories and testimonials to reinforce our brand messages: the careers and work of our alumni, the projects of current students, the research and achievements of our faculty. A staff member also suggested crowd sourcing to support faculty, alumni and students in telling their own stories and gaining exposure for their achievements. Differentiate student recruitment messages Current marketing communications techniques allow us to segment our student audiences and send differentiated brand messages to match their interests. Several comments were aimed at our need to emphasize the scholarship and research elements of the ESF brand when communicating with prospective graduate students and targeted supporters, while prospective undergraduates are focused on a broader college experience and career. This will not necessarily require a change in ESF’s brand, but rather a more strategic approach to market segmentation. •
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Help faculty advance and promote their work Provide help and support to create and improve faculty web pages. Also help faculty use new social media and digital media tools. Provide “Improve Your World” examples Empower ESF faculty, staff and students with a clear understanding of how ESF is actually impacting our world today, so they can be better ambassadors. This could include a “top ten” list of current ESF projects and a related lecture series. Try taxidermy! Consider working with the Roosevelt Wildlife Station to create eye-­‐catching taxidermy displays and place them in public spaces such as airports or malls to raise ESF’s name recognition while engaging in public education about the complexities of modern wild life conservation. APPENDIX (SECTION 1: BRANDING) Branding’s Relation to ESF’s Mission Ø Branding centers on what our mission is, and it appears we are updating the mission. Don’t know if you can identify the brand until a mission is in place. Ø Updating the mission to reflect what we are. Ø Our brand should reflect more than just what we are good at, but what does society want us to be good at. What do external stakeholders feel our brand should be? Ø Our motto is practicing what we teach – need some work in transforming the work we are good at into practice. Ø The brand should match what we do. Ø 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. Ø Pervasive sense of all being part of the same mission. Ø 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. Ø 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, and campus vehicles. Ø 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. Ø This change in, dare I say it, vision, is demanded by the digital revolution in higher education. The world of higher education is changing rapidly and disruptively, and whether we like it or not, ESF is embedded in that world. The most disruptive challenges are coming in the world of technology, media and information. Indeed, they are already here. The future will belong to those institutions that face these challenges creatively. The question the College must answer is: will we be one of them? Ø Doing so will involve a radical re-­‐envisioning of nearly everything we do: how we teach, how we conduct our scholarship, how we serve the public that supports us and how we reach out to the world that would benefit from what the College has to offer. To compete effectively in the digital media world that is unfolding before us, the College will need a technical infrastructure to make the re-­‐envisioning real. As it stands now, however, the College is woefully underequipped to meet those challenges. Yet, this seems to have no place in the strategic planning process that is unfolding. ESF’s Current Brand Position Ø We are already unique; however it can be refined or articulated better. Our focus should be increasing our visibility and reputation. Ø We have been working on for a number of years now the message that we are a world class university. It is a much different institution than even 10 years ago – offering a lot more for students now including athletics. Ø The development office has changed their approach to donors – in years past we highlighted that we were poor, needy, thrifty, and outdoorsy. Now the ask is based on our excellence and needing the help to continue to achieve that excellence. Ø The rankings we now receive have given ESF students, faculty and alumni more reason to support and believe in our brand (it’s real). Ø When targeting prospective undergraduates, we have always played up the small size of the institution, affordability, success of our alumni & relationship with SU. Ø If we were located say where Paul Smiths is, it would be a very different institution. Our location has played a large part in who we are. Ø More and more people seem to know about ESF. Ø Our size allows our undergraduates to get exposed to graduates and research. They get a tremendous amount of exposure to everyone up the academic ladder. In a larger institution that’s not possible. Ø There is a positive side to our small size when it comes to marketing to undergraduates (less for graduates). Ø ESF is by far the smallest institution on the “National Universities” list in U.S. News. Ø When I reviewed the qualifications for some of the rankings we appear on – I was shocked that we made it into the top 100. We must definitely be doing something right. Ø Since our brand is already unique, I feel like the focus of this session should be how do we get what we do out there. Ø 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+. Ø 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. Ø At the second session it was stated that "There is no other institution in the US (or possibly worldwide) that is a doctoral granting institution with only 2200 students on campus." In that session is was stated that the next smallest school in this category is twice our size. Caltech is an exception, also having 2200 students. What makes Caltech an exception? Ideas to Change ESF’s Brand Ø We need to find a way to be more attractive to the urban population – we tend to over advertise our relationship with the Adirondacks and rural areas – need to find a relevance for the urban kids. Ø LA program was the very first urban program. The last 40 years has been predominantly urban/suburban design work. And in the last 15 years many of our other programs have shifted as well. Ø If we did brand towards a more urban population, it would increase our ability to recruit as far as athletics goes in urban areas such as Philadelphia. It would be good for those students to come to campus and see students like themselves. Ø We have a lot of graduate students at ESF (about 500 graduate and 1700 undergraduate) so our brand needs to reflect that, emphasizing research especially. That makes ESF different from Geneseo for example. Ø Always see advertising/publication emphasize that we are the oldest college devoted to the environment. It’s great to be the oldest, but would like to see we are the “best” college or university for sustainability or the environment. Ø Due to the size of the College, in order to get things accomplished, many departments need to work together in an interdisciplinary way. Ø We are problem solvers and should try to build a theme around that. Ø Highlight we have an applied approach vs. theoretical. Ø We are very active in terms of being out in the world, and going out and finding problems to solve. We are all over the world – undergraduates as well as graduates and faculty. Ø Branding to prospective students should include we are field based – hands-­‐on style is very important to students. Ø Brand to students: We are out in the world. Ø In our definition of our brand – how do we emphasize our banner projects – ways we really improve the world? For ex: leading institution for women in STEM. Maybe under the broader brand we highlight temporal projects we are doing at that time. Make it more real. Use examples behind the brand to reinforce something stronger. Ø A brand needs to have only 3 or 4 major points, more than that people don’t remember. Ø In the age of social media, can’t get away with branding ourselves as something we are not. Thankfully our students are very positive about ESF and their experiences here, and willing to share that. Ø Recall several years ago when Geneseo decided to become very select and very elite. Dropped their scholarships. It worked for them – their recruitment went thru the roof. Maybe exclusivity rather than access is what students are looking for. Ø It is important that we seek and find urban initiatives and then advocate ESF. Ø Our honors program could be an important marketing tool to attract top students. Our UG honors program had six students in 2010 and right now we have 80. It could be used as a draw for prospective students as well as donors. Ideas to Change ESF’s Brand (continued) Ø 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. Ø 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. Ø 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. Ø One thing that does unite all students is they are all scientists – would be something to promote. Ø There have been sustainability programs popping up everywhere – how to differentiate ESF from all the others – focus on the science aspect. Ø Continue to attract students from urban areas Ø Define environmental problems in cities (locally and nationally), and focus on helping solve those problems. Would possibly bring in donors. Ø 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?” Ø The brand (words) need to be large enough – descriptive and inclusive of what we do here. Ø An important part of the college is engineering and it doesn’t come across in any of our publications. Ø Branding comes down to research. We need a more concerted effort in recruiting strong graduate students. Ø World class scientists who have a commitment to educating students , and hold a “students first, always” mentality. This “students first, and then care of the world’s environment and people will be more assured when these students become decision makers and doers” is a takeoff of an old idea at ESF (my catch phrase “students first” is taken from the calculus folks – I think they hold this up as their focal “how” to their work). Ø I would like to put forth an idea that I think currently fits best under the “Branding and Visibility” area for strategic planning, but has much broader implications. My thinking is that this cuts across all the Big Questions and what will eventually be our College Priorities, programs, centers, etc. We have the very real potential to provide THE Top Environmental Honors Program in the Nation. What a market differentiator that could be, and it would certainly draw the attention of the top students for recruitment, and of the most prestigious of foundations and high profile philanthropists for investment. In 2010, there were approx. 6 students in our undergraduate Honors Program., Today there are approx. 80. This explosive growth rate can be attributed to a number of factors (Bruce Bongarten, Bill Shields and I just finished analyzing this success in a report for our lead donor for the program)– I think all of which can be built on for both continued and even stronger program development. Ideas to Change ESF’s Brand (continued) Some of our self-­‐designated “peer” institutions are already recognized as having top programs, but more in general and not focused on environment. Here is a list, for example. Top 10-­‐ Overall Excellence (honors curriculum, prestigious undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships, honors retention and graduation rates, honors housing, study-­‐abroad programs, and priority registration): 1. University of Michigan 2. University of Virginia 3. University of Texas at Austin 4. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 5. Arizona State University 6. University of Washington 7. University of Minnesota 8. Michigan State University 9. University of South Carolina 10. University of Georgia I would appreciate it if this idea makes its way into the planning for further consideration, and I would love to help make it happen. Name Change as Branding Strategy Ø How plausible would it be to change the name of the institution? Ø The name should describe how every discipline has something to do with the global environment. Ø A name that would be more obvious about what we do. Ø SUNY College of the Environment Ø University of the Environment Ø What do people feel about University vs College? Ø Are there state guidelines on it? Ø This is a university and we should market it as such. Ø When applying for grants I leave off the word college – SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry. Ø The trend now is to change from college to university. Ø Some places their names don’t mean anything – Kodak. We could use SUNY ESF or just ESF. To go by the shortest name possible would help. Ø Within SUNY there has been a “you can do whatever you please” (with name) attitude. Ø Just a thought…we have 104 years of brand equity in the ESF name already – is there a limit on how wise it would be to change our name? Ø We haven’t been the Forestry School since 1972 but there are people still using it (even some of our own faculty/staff). Ø University signifies big, bold; whereas College = small, personal. Both of these have branding advantages. Ø Does the word Environment have baggage? No, but it does narrow the market, but not necessarily in a bad way. Specialization is a good thing – it brings in the students who are interested in what we do best. We can state we are about this and attract those who want that too. Ø One word college name would be cool to have. Name is too long. Ø Most colleges are named after (1) a person; (2) the location or (3) what kind of school it is. Ø 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. Ø Second, I think we would benefit from what I'll call "bold and memorable resident identities". We agonize over our name(s) -­‐-­‐ SUNY College of..., State University of..., SUNY-­‐ESF, SUNY ESF, ESF (even CESF) -­‐-­‐ none of which are bold, and all of which have memorability issues. There are potential solutions! Ø In the second session we talked about the implications of our name. I thought of a tag line (not a name) that plays on the ESF acronym "The Environmental School of the Future." Co-­‐Branding with SUNY and/or SU Ø We underestimate our relationship with SU – a lot of alumni follow not only ESF but SU. Part of our brand needs to recognize that relationship with SU. Ø Play up our ties with SU. Ø When you are small and very well known, can target exclusivity. But the SUNY brand = access and affordability rather than elite and selective. Ø With international students – SUNY is a good thing, it means something to them. They are thinking NY = NYC. Ø 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. Ø 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. APPENDIX (SECTION 2: VISIBILITY AND REPUTATION) Visibility and Targeted Audiences Ø I know the president wants to focus on foundations, but we should focus on visibility for philanthropy in general. Ø Does our size put a cap on our visibility? Is there a state school as small as we are? When you have 10,000 – 15,000 students a lot more people are talking about you. Ø 20% of our students are from outside of NY. We rank 3rd in SUNY based on percentage. Ø We need to focus our target on neighboring states as well as urban areas. Ø Prospective students are very important, but we need to also target supporters – foundations, etc. Ø Visibility comes from research. We need to focus on recruiting graduates students for research Ø Expand the support for faculty to do research and present their research at national conferences. Ø How do we attract more media attention when there no money for a national advertising campaign? How can we feature our faculty and students? Ø 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. Ø What is needed, it seems to me, are creative visions for increasing the visibility, reach and effectiveness of the diverse creative energies that are represented among the faculty, rather than figuring out how to cram them into a few “centers” with clever acronyms. The latter is an “industrial age” solution, much beloved, no doubt by the administrative university. What will best secure the College’s future are “information age” solutions that most broadly empowers the diverse minds that compose this faculty. Ø I think that one of the most effective ways that ESF can maximize its visibility and reputation is by empowering all of the ESF family, faculty, staff and students with a clear understanding of how ESF is actually impacting our world -­‐ maybe even just at the “elevator speech” level. At our session today, Julia started talking about some of the great ways that ESF is conducting work that is truly changing our world, but her list ran out after only two ideas – which I would say is very typical of many of our ESF family. And a faculty member talked about building sustainable habitats and that no one knew about it – I know I didn’t. We sort of know about projects we’ve been exposed to, but we might not know much about any other areas at the college. A clear, concise articulation of how ESF is impacting the world could be really helpful in boosting ESF’s visibility and reputation, and I think an opportunity for the college to take the lead role in how it wants to be recognized as improving our world by prioritizing what these “Top Ten Things ESF is Doing to Improve Your World” are, and take an active role in promoting them. (I know I probably just articulated the thinking around the “5 big questions for strategic planning” is all about, but I am talking about leveraging these for increasing visibility and reputation). Ø First, to gain visibility on the cheap, I think we need to build on our successes, which come in two flavors: Visibility and Targeted Audiences (continued) 1) Substantial success, e.g., chestnut restoration, willow biomass, termite mound architecture, etc. -­‐
-­‐-­‐ successes associated with work that we do. 2) Popular success, e.g., Top 10 Species, Snakes of NY, etc. -­‐-­‐-­‐ successes associated with 'resources' we offer. Via these 'successes', ESF is variously known by literally hundreds of thousands of people who would never otherwise have heard mention of us. As ongoing ventures, each success offers... avenues of ingress? Inroads? Touchpoints? Each is certainly accompanied by communications channels, most of which can be widened and deepened at little (but not no) cost. Communications and Media Strategies Ø You mentioned brand = promise. Are there different promises for different audiences? The president has asked the strategic plan to focus on two main audiences – prospective students and foundations. We would communicate somewhat different messages to those audiences. Ø There should be different messages undergraduate vs graduate prospective students. Graduate students are interested in what the institution is about – what can we do through scholarship and research – a message more like what the foundations would get. Undergraduates are here for the experience -­‐ a tool set. Their focus is on a broader education and career, while graduate students are more narrow in their focus. Ø How can we make it easier for faculty/staff to put the things that are going on at ESF on their social media? Ø The Communications Office is working on setting up a blog that will come from faculty, staff and alumni. They will be writers of their own stories. Ø The Inside ESF magazine (even though only twice a year) is moving their focus to alumni. This next magazine will feature five or six alums. Ø We should feature our alumni in multiple venues. Testimonials are an important advertising tool. “These are the kinds of people we produce.” Ø Would it be more compelling to students to hear from older or younger alumni? Ø Personally I would like to hear more about what current students are doing. It might excite prospective students to hear some of the things they could be doing. Much more tangible to hear from peers. Ø I had students talk about exciting internships they participated in (such as Disney’s Imagineers) and the students were mesmerized, much more interested than when the older alums visit. Ø Emphasize the success of our graduates in their particular areas. It would help prospective students who might have anxiety – whether it be getting a job, etc.. It might help them make a decision to come here. Ø Connecting with students who have just graduated and their success is an extremely powerful tool for assessing who we are. Recent grads are willing to tell us where we need to tweak things or make changes. Ø Market our specialty programs to elite companies who have an interest in those programs to get support from them. Ø Highlight our legacy students. LA has had at least one alum’s kid attend each year. Right now there are four in the program. It builds endowment in the long run. We have had multiple generation legacy students. Shows longevity/stewardship/pride. Ø We do the undergraduate education really well but the white paper did not address that. Ø Donors are interested in well prepared graduates and research connections Ø Spotlight faculty/student research working on current environmental problems – we have been working these problems for years and don’t need to catch up Ø Largest donors for the College are our alumni. Their biggest drive for donating is honoring the role ESF played in their success. Communications and Media Strategies (continued) Ø 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. Ø 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. Ø 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. Ø Consult with faculty what their network. Graduate level recruitment starts with individual faculty rather than the college. Ø Increase our community service efforts. It makes a big impact – at least on a local level. Ø 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). Ø Promoting the Top Ten… If there was a “Top Ten Things ESF is Doing to Improve Your World” type of promotion strategy, one could envision the opportunity for more campus presentations by faculty and or student researchers who are working on some of these very important efforts. Ten campus lectures a year, like the Dale Travis lecture series tonight being done by Robin K. Another idea is perhaps a week-­‐long focus/celebration of the work being done in one of these Top Ten areas. And I could even envision that being accompanied by a fund raising effort to leverage the press and campus activities to enable people to engage and actually support a specific area where ESF is really improving their world. This would give the ESF family an opportunity to know more and be an even better ambassador for the college. Perhaps some of these could capture local and national news interest, but at the least could be used in our social media feeds, other communications channels, etc. Imagine how effective it could be for every one of our ESF family to be able to answer the question from someone, ”So what does ESF do?” with a clear and concise description of the banner projects we are working on that really are changing the world. This type of personal communication really sticks with people much better than just reading it casually on a website or an article in the paper, because information is coming from someone they personally know and that person has the opportunity to express some enthusiasm and excitement about the work they're describing. And it would expand beyond just our current ~3,000+ ESF family, as students graduate and share with others “Well when I was at ESF we were applying genetic engineering to restore the American Chestnut to it’s native forest land in North America…”, followed by, “I wonder what they are doing now?” Ø As one example of a potential action to increase ESF visibility and name recognition, we should consider working with the Roosevelt Wild Life Station (possibly in partnership with one or more national conservation organizations) to create eye-­‐catching taxidermy displays and place them in public spaces such as airports or malls in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver, and other cities to raise awareness of ESF name and to engage in public education about the complexities of modern wild life conservation. Communications and Media Strategies (continued) Ø What our brand should be is really a topic that the other visioning questions address. But whatever we decide the points of our brand should be, we want to demonstrate how we're educating students in them, how our research and outreach serves them, and how our alumni are going out into the world to further them. We can find stories to reinforce these in all sorts of places: the careers and work of our alumni, the research and achievements of our faculty, the projects of our current students. If we would like to broaden our image as a science school, we could highlight how many of our graduates go into management. If we would like to reach out to more diverse student populations, then we should tell the stories of faculty, graduates and students who belong to those populations. We already do these things via press releases, videos, social media and stories pitched to local and regional media. To expand on this, we need to broaden our networks of contacts and make better use of the ones we have, by continuing to build active relationships with faculty, alumni and the media so that they will feel good about supporting us via their own networks. Given our limited financial and staff resources, if we want to produce more of these stories, then we need to crowd source-­‐-­‐support faculty, alumni and students in telling their own stories and assisting them in getting exposure for their achievements. This is something we're already willing to do; expanding it will involve improved intra-­‐organization communications to let more people know about the opportunity. Ø If we want to expand public awareness of ESF, our alumni might be the best vector for this. If we want more people in California to hear our name, then we should find our alumni and projects in California and get their successes out there. By sharing credit with them and their organizations, we can make it worth their while to help distribute those stories via paths we don't currently have access to. Drawing more attention to the achievements of our alumni-­‐-­‐especially our recent graduates-­‐-­‐may be a great way to increase our influence with all the groups we want more attention from: prospective students and their influencers will pay attention when they see that ESF means prospects for their careers; alumni will be pleased to see us taking pride in them as they take pride in us; and donors and foundations will be able to see that money that supports us will be put to good use. Ø Some ideas for leveraging the campus community to publicize ESF: a) encourage faculty, staff, and students to incorporate the ESF logo and motto into their email signature files b) when positive news stories are emailed to Campus News, provide buttons to enable faculty, staff, and students to share these items on social media. I think few people read ESF News items, so the buttons already present on these are not going to be used. c) When distributing "ESF in the News" items, add encouragement to go to the website of the news item to share it on social media d) train faculty and staff to use Research Gate, LinkedIn, etc., for increasing their visibility Advertising Strategies Ø It would be great if we could get some ads on internet radio – NPR. I hear many ads about our sister institutions but never anything about ESF. It would help to get our name out there locally. Maybe students don’t listen to internet radio but parents and supporters do. Ø Most of our advertising for prospective students at this time is direct mail advertising (130,000 high school students contacted each year!). Last year we also advertised on some cable TV stations, targeting the shows where students most likely would see it. Ø We need creative ways to get media attention. There is little money for advertising. Ø I listen to NPR and I know everything there is to know about SUNY Oswego. Even though students don’t listen to NPR, may be a good way to reach parents. Ø Would love to hear on radio how highly ranked we are. Ø Why not advertise our new programs – like Environmental Health on the radio? Ø Being on the radio would get our name out there. There is a benefit to people knowing our name. Ø Maybe it’s awareness – maybe a signature line. We have one – Improve Your World. Should we encourage people to be using it as a tag line? Ø What about advertising our branch campuses? Would it be beneficial – ESF branch in NYC or Costa Rica? Broaden the scope of where we fit. Ø We need to get the face of the alumni out there (newspaper, website, social media) to potential students or donors. Celebrate their achievement and successes. “This is who you could be.” Ø Is there any negative point to radio advertising if we are indeed looking for exclusivity? Not necessarily, our message could be we are looking for the best students. Also we could be celebrating faculty/alumni achievements as opposed to “recruiting” on the radio. Ø ESF often mentions the Adirondacks as part of its brand, but we do virtually no marketing in the Adirondacks, despite the fact that many prospective students, donors and other leaders spend significant amounts of time there as second home owners, vacationers, etc. We may be missing an opportunity by not projecting our 'Adirondack' brand as several other universities and colleges are currently doing. Web/Social Media Strategies Ø 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. Ø 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. Ø What about a smart (interactive) classroom that faculty could collaborate with other colleges (even internationally). Ø My interest are in graphic design and communication, and while I think that our website gives a nice introduction to the college, I also think that it could use a bit of work in terms of the display. As a designer I look for a visually interesting presentation of information and since the website is in many cases the first thing that a person sees of ESF it should be captivating. Ø I also believe that some departments should have the decision to make their own websites to share more information in relation to that specific subject area. This could also provide an opportunity for some departments to take on their own brand if they see fit. That way they can attract individuals who share the same interests. Ø I believe the ESF landscape architecture department needs a proper branding effort. Sticking to the ESF main template limits the department to attract new students and harvest the design culture. As design students we cherish content but also the graphical representation of webpages and our designs. Every little line has a meaning. I believe the current department website does not attract top design students or display the unique design culture and successes the department has. Some of the top landscape architecture firms in the world have ESF Landscape alum’s as principles. The department is doing a good job educationally, the public image is the missing piece of the puzzle. Some interesting and intriguing top landscape school website are linked below… https://stuckeman.psu.edu/larch http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/#/news/all-­‐news/feed.html http://soa.syr.edu \http://design.lsu.edu/landscape-­‐architecture/ Ø I concur that our ESF website -­‐ or at least 'landing' portions of it, where visitors first see us -­‐ would benefit from an overhaul to bring us into web 2.0 territory that is highly graphical, interactive, intuitive, mobile-­‐friendly, etc. This is one specific aspect of the technology challenge that Scott Turner mentions in his comments. Web/Social Media Strategies (continued) Ø One idea for enhancing our outreach and public brand, bringing together Dana's idea for “How ESF Improves Your World" and developing a state of the art website, would be a 'Spatial CV' feature that allows visitors to search the "global footprint" of ESF teaching, research and service. Jess Clemons and I wrote a proposal along these lines to IMLS, which was not funded, but we could very inexpensively develop this internally. Here is some text from the proposal: The motto of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry is Improve Your World. Indeed, the research activities of ESF faculty and students have a global footprint, addressing a broad range of environmental, resource stewardship, renewable energy and urban sustainability issues across the planet. While global in scope, the research programs at ESF improve our world by both creating and applying knowledge at local and regional levels, where it can make the most positive impact. Yet there is no resource at ESF (or elsewhere to our knowledge) that describes this global footprint and allows colleagues, students, policy-­‐makers, and the public to explore the myriad ways that ESF research is seeking to improve the world. We expect the Spatial CV will help to build collaborations, recruit students, and broadly demonstrate the scope and value of ESF scholarship and service as a return on the investment of public funding for science education, which has dwindled considerably in recent years At present, it is quite difficult to learn where and how ESF is improving the world. A recent effort to do this created a very basic map interface (www.esf.edu/world) but no capability to sort, filter, or query content. Moreover, the content represents a tiny fraction of ESF faculty and includes static descriptions of the projects, without keywords, links, or other metadata. Content is not accessible via the map. A related effort by ESF’s Office of Research Programs is a static PDF image of a similar map (www.esf.edu/research/whereinworld.htm) and a list of projects that is not interactive, editable, searchable, or even legible for some users. The existence of these efforts indicates a recognized need to visualize the ESF scholarly footprint, but neither effort had the technical capability or the resources needed to establish a functional, interactive and useful application. Creating an interactive and searchable visualization of ESF’s scholarly footprint in the Spatial CV will benefit our faculty, graduate alumni, prospective students, and outreach staff, and should raise the awareness of ESF’s research programs across the globe. At the institutional level it will help researchers identify potential collaborators and datasets that can strengthen their work. More broadly, it will bring together widely disaggregated information from individual CVs and web pages into a common geospatial context. Geospatial representation will clearly depict research activities in a place or region of interest to potential students and collaborators, sorted or filtered by investigator names, research topic, department, funding sponsor, and other attributes (metadata). This granularity is valuable for connecting researchers with potential graduate students and collaborators; and for outreach and marketing purposes. In this way, the visualization of research areas may serve as a recruitment tool to match students with research areas and also with specific faculty.