Transcript
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The High Red Marketer podcast is sponsored
by the ZEMI APP enabling colleges and universities
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to engage interested students before they even
apply. You are listening to the Higher
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Ed Marketer, a podcast geared towards
marketing professionals in higher education. This show
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will tackle all sorts of questions related
to student recruitment, donor relations, marketing
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trends, new technologies and so much
more. If you are looking for conversations
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centered around where the industry is going, this podcast is for you. Let's
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get into the show. Welcome to
the High Red Marketer podcast. I'm troy
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singer and, as usual with Bart
Taylor, we cohost each week a podcast
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that we hope, by US interviewing
higher red marketers, will benefit and for
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the betterment of the entire higher d
community. Today we're going to talk to
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Shan a Davis and Mary Lappin from
the Lumina Foundation, and they are spearheading
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a big project which is called the
million dollar community college challenge. Yeah,
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try IT'S A it's a pretty bold
initiative that Lumina Foundation is done and I've
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always admired them their work. I've
I've worked with them over several years and
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goes way back. But one of
the things I really appreciate about Lumina is
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that they always try to look at
very practical and pragmatic approaches to their grant
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writing and and providing grant's to two
organizations, and this is no different.
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They're trying to be really bold in
the sense of being able to say we
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understand marketing and branding is very important
in making sure that people understand about community
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colleges and how they can attain a
post secondary degree of some kind, and
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so they'll get into some of the
details about that. But even if you're
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not in community colleges, don't hang
up quite yet, because I think a
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lot of what we're talking about on
this episode is very relevant to just about
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every school. We're going to talk
about marketing, we're going to talk about
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higher a branding and a lot of
the things that are coming out of this
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this challenge I think that you could
follow up on and learn from, and
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so it's a great conversation. So
Courage to listen to the entire episode.
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I concurb art, even though this
challenge is for Community College, what they're
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trying to teach, what they're trying
to inspire I think would benefit any institution.
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Here's our conversation with Shanna Davis and
Mary Lappin. It is my pleasure
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to welcome Shaan of Davis and Mary
Lappin from the Lumina Foundation to the Higher
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Ed Marketer podcast and before we get
into the big news about the million dollar
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community college challenge, would like to
invite them to both give us a high
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level description of the Lumina Foundation and
the roles that they play within the foundation.
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Sure, thank you so much for
having us. I'm Seanna Davis and
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I'm the strategy director for what we
call community college participation, and what that
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means is that we have a strategy
that focuses on the enrollment and the re
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enrollment of adults in our country,
in America's community colleges, and we certainly
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want more adults to earn credentials post
high school, and by credential we mean
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not just degrees, but we also
mean certificates and certifications, anything that can
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help them in the marketplace with a
life of upward mobility. So, Mary
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Out, throw it to you to
do introduction. Hey, Shanna, I'm
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yeah, my name is Mary Laughin. I am strategy officer for participation.
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So what that means is I get
to put into place really interesting programs on
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like the one that we're going to
talk about today, that encourage adult participation
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in our community colleges. And while
we certainly think we have the coolest jobs,
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you did ask us also about Lumena
Foundation, so we must certainly talk
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about our employer. And solumited foundation
is a private it's an independent it's a
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private foundation based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and we have the distinct pleasure of
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focusing strictly on post secondary attainment,
so focusing on learning post high school.
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That is what we do. It
is all we do and it is all
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we do. So we are so
excited about that. We do that in
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a number of ways through policy and
practice, and we have a number of
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colleagues who are very talented in different
areas of post secondary. A team it.
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Thank you both. Now getting into
the exciting project that you are I
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don't want to say wrapping up,
but while just say the Million Dollar Community
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College Challenge. That's the reason why
we approached you to be on the High
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Reed Marketer podcast and would love to
hear what that is. Yeah, so
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the Million Dollar Community College challenge is
a national grant competition that encourages community colleges
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to tell us what their vision is
for brand building or transforming their brand building
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effort, efforts and their marketing effort
to encourage adult learners to enroll out their
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community colleges. And with that vision
they have a chance of winning one million
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dollars to support that implementation of the
work. That's great and I just in
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full transparency. I have known the
limited foundation for years. I think my
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first project, plumit of foundation,
was in two thousand and twelve, working
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on an early website, and so
I have fallen in love with the foundation
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and I'm so excited to see some
of the work that's going on to especially
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specifically on the idea of helping community
colleges tell their story better and and the
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branding. But tell me why,
why did limited decide to kind of go
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this direction with with this particular project? So we've been looking at this idea
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of the need for more Americans to
earn a credential post high school. So
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you know we have a goal which
we want to see sixty percent of Americans
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earn a credential value by the Year
of two thousand and twenty five and certainly
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our goal is to see even more
Americans have a credential value doesn't cut off
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at two thousand and twenty five.
We really started looking into all of these
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things. There's lots of different reasons. We know this. There's lots of
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different reasons as to why people,
even before the pandemic and even now,
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why adults are not as highly represented
as we think they should be right now
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in America's community colleges, especially when
you look at the the role that they
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play their accessibility mission, when you
look at the the cost of tuition being
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far more accessible and affordable than many
other forms of higher education, and just
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the range of training and certifications and
certificates that are offered for people who may
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want a degree or who may want
to get that credential and go directly into
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the workplace and benefit from that.
So we started looking at all of these
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different things and one of the things
that we realize very quickly was that this
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idea of marketing and brand building was
far too often seen as a luxury for
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community colleges, primarily because historically they're
underfunded. So when you think about this
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idea of community colleges who enroll about
forty percent of undergraduates in this country.
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Many times, just by way of
word of mouth and very limited local recruitment
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and marketing efforts, they just have
not been able to kind of get in
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and focus on those vital campus to
community connections in ways in which larger institutions
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have been able to because they have
the resources to do so. That's great
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and I think that that's so important
because I think, you know, part
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of it, especially with community college, is helping everybody understand, you know,
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because a lot of a lot of
the you know, people going back
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through community college is might not understand
the educational process. So I think messaging
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and branding is so critical for for
this success of the post secondary market and
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so I'm really excited to see how
Lumina is kind of leaning into that and
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recognizing that. How has been the
response on that, because, I mean
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that's a little different than maybe some
traditional grants that Lumina has made. I
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mean, what's been the response from
from the you know, the people are
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looking at the grants? So I
the response has been fantastic, in a
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word. We've heard from community colleges
all across the country that are ready to
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tell their story and ready to tell
and share with their community what they have
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to offer and a shot. I
mentioned it. In many cases it has
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been a luxury and they just for
reasons of underfunding or are you know,
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myriad of reasons that they have had
the capacity. So we have folks out
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there who are hungry for this information, who are ready to get started,
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and I am I won't give away
any of our winners quite yet, but
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we do have some really amazing ideas
that have come to us and we're excited
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to learn more from those schools.
Can I ask a question? Can we
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turn the table? Can I can
we give a shout out to the number
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of people who actually engaged in this? Please do. Okay, okay,
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so I'm glad you said that,
because I would have been hot if you
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had. So I'm going to throw
some numbers out. So because because I
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thought this was amazing and we really
want to recognize it's easy on a as
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a, as a grant meeker,
it's easy to to kind of say we're
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going to give money and then people
respond with the response has just been amazing.
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We had almost a thousand people come
to the informational webinars alone on this
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particular challenge and hundreds of applications from
colleges all across this country and I just
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wanted to kind of, on the
flip side, do a shout out to
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all of the people that took that
time to dig in and not just apply
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for grant funds, but to tell
us about their vision and, more importantly,
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tell us about the communities and which
their college is live and what that
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challenges are and what the opportunities are. So we're getting excited about that.
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But I had to throw that out
there because the response has been phenomenal and
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and we're so appreciative of them leaning
in so that we can also lean in
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and provide support. I think that's
so exciting because that while we're talking here,
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I just did a quick Google search
because I'm like, I wonder how
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many community colleges are in America,
and it's it's a little under fifteen hundred.
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So you think about Onezero five hundred
community colleges, but you had nearly
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a thousand individuals. I understand that
some of those community colleges brought a lot
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of people to talk about this,
but still that's an amazing amount of percentage
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of the amount of schools that could
qualify this that we're paying attention. Bravo
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to you all for being able to
get the word out. Thank you so
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much. And so when we say
we now, we know that it's a
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big team. There's a lot of
people, internal and external, our communications
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team as well as many others.
So absolutely great. I know part of
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the exercise was to change the paradigm
of how some of the community college has
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branded themselves, and one of the
terms that you use in the earlier conversation
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was aspirational. So would like for
you to describe or maybe tell us,
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either from the entries that you received
or what your vision is of how you
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would like to change the landscape and
level up the way that community colleges brand
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and market themselves. So that's such
a good question. And so community colleges
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have really depended on this idea.
I think I mentioned earlier of two core
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pieces. They've talked a lot about
themselves as being kind of practical, a
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practical form of higher education. There
a tuition is lower cost than most universities
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and they're really truly the open form
of higher education in America. They are
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the open access higher education in America. So that's really been those two pieces,
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but what you haven't heard a lot. So while you've heard a lot
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about the functional aspects of Community College, you've heard a lot about the practicality
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of attending a community college, you
don't often hear about what's really exceptional about
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community college programs, about the experience. They're so diverse and they sit in,
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you know, all corners and communities
in America and they serve a wide
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range of people and programs and we
don't talk enough about who graduates from community
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colleges. We don't talk enough about
their successes. We just don't talk about
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the aspirational parts of going to a
community college or why you might choose a
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community college as your first choice.
So this was really important to us because
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when you look at how people are
choosing education, it's largely based on what
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they think about that education. We
talked about kind of brand and aspiration and
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you know your brand is largely perception
in many ways. What do people think
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about you? And so we really
want it colleges to tap into understanding better,
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not who they just think they are
right, but who the community thinks
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they are and see if there's an
alignement there or if there's work to be
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done. So that the community understands
the great things about community colleges, not
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only what's practical about community colleges.
So you put this call out and receive
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responses. So I'm curious to know
you probably had somewhat of a thought of
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what you would receive and the types
of responses you would receive. As you're
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starting to receive them and go through
them, are you surprised at all or
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how of those responses compared to what
you thought they would be? So I
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want to say I'm surprised because I
had really high hopes for what we would
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see, but they have exceeded my
expectations exponentially, like a shot. I
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mentioned, we've had such an excellent
response to the the application and our college
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is really did pour their heart and
soul into their vision. They shared with
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us what makes our college outstanding,
what makes Standa in their community, and
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then they also have brought forth really
interesting and creative ideas as to how they
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can how they can continue to connect
with their community and share with you know,
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adults in their community, what would
make them a great choice. That's
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great. That's great and I and
I think that part of one of the
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next questions that I have is just
the idea about. So, as you're
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getting these in and as you start
to see the the choices that you're going
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to award the the funding to,
at the end of the day, what
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do you hope the outcomes will be, not only for these recipients but just
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as as as across the Board for
Community Colleges? Yeah, so I'll the
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started in trying to field three free
jump in, because I really see three
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major outcomes that were looking towards,
and the first one is just supporting a
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number of community colleges across the state, or, excuse me, across that
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country, in connecting with their communities
and allowing that engagement to go both ways
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and then ultimately enrolling more adult learners
into our community college. And then second,
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I would say, what we've talked
about earlier, is elevating the brand
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of our community colleges, making the
case and really sharing with adults across the
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country what their local community college has
to offer to them. And then third,
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I would say we want to learn
from the colleges we yet. We've
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put this out there, we are
sharing resources that we have, but really
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we want to know what great ideas
they have, what strategies they've already put
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in place, what strategies they're thinking
about and then take those lessons learned and,
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you know, recycle and share those
with more books across the country.
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And the only thing I would add
today, I think those that's a great
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top three. The only thing I
would add to that is really coming out
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of this again this idea of seeing
community colleges through new eyes, and that
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is the again, that the campuses
and their communities. So we really want
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community college leaders and and faculty and
staff and everyone who touches the system of
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education that includes community colleges to kind
of step across the street, if you
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will, and look at their community
colleges through new eyes and really think about
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how can we connect with people in
a modern age like how can we connect
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with people and more meaningful and compelling
ways and help to help them to see
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not only the promise within themselves right
as far as what they want to achieve
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or what goals they have, but
really kind of see community colleges through the
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the ways in which they can be
a vital part of that promise. So
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that's kind of that piece. And
then we also want the community to look
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at their community colleges as hey,
when I'm thinking about where I want to
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go and what I want to do, like this is in my top three
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and not in well, if I
don't get in here or if I can't
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do that, like this is in
my top three because they are doing excellent
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things. So we want both who
want the people there to see things a
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little bit differently and to use how
they see that and how they think the
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community might see that and compelling ways
and communicate and more compelling ways. And
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we want the community also to look
at their their local colleges through different eyes
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and engage with them more often,
because what they're looking for might just be
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already in their community. I think
that's great and I the one of the
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things that I really like about that
approach, Sean and Mary, is the
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idea that I think so many times
when we when we think about adult learners
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with we think about our perspective students, whether it's community college or or,
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quite honestly, any form of post
secondary higher education, we sometimes take for
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granted what they know or what the
what we think that they know, and
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I think that's one of the important
exercises that that that brand building can do
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is not only for the external community
help clarify the messaging, but also for
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the internal community to understand that we
might be talking too much academicians, you
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know, the speak of Academicia,
rather than being able to say, okay,
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well, what do our prospective students
need to know? I mean,
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you know, there's always the discussion
about, you know, do you organize
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on your website by programs or apartments, or do you do you organized by
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major? And so I think that
in our initial conversations we even had a
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cover. You know, I think
Sean our Mary, one of you talked
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about the idea of this parking lot
example of sometimes how difficult it is and
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we forget sometimes, as these perspective, students, and especially adult learners,
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who are competing more against life than
they are other colleges. You know what,
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what can we do from a branding
standpoint that that can help them and
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kind of make sure that they they
can, they can succeed? The married
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IMA? I'll take this one first. You're right. We talk about the
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idea of branding, brand building being
like a sensory experience, right, so
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we want to tell people that we
can offer these things, or colleges can
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offer these things, that they have
to be able to experience it. And
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so one of the things we talked
about a lot is, you know,
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from the parking lot to the website
to the classrooms. So if we're going
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to tell the community, if you
if your college and you're going to tell
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the community that you are first choice
for adult learners and you focus on things
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for people who oftentimes education is not
the number one priority in their life right
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just out of real life situations.
You have family and and you have,
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you know, careers and people,
you have responsibilities and education might be number
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three or number four. So if
I come to your campus and I can't
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easily navigate your campus, let alone
your your website, if I even make
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the initiative to come to that campus
and I can't figure out where to go,
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I can't find a parking space,
I can't you know, I go
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into an office and I'm not sure
you know it. Will someone help me?
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Will they not help me? That
it's hard to get students, it's
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hard to get anyone right to engage
in to go through that process of oftentimes
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what can be a very emotional process
when choosing whether or not to go back
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to school. That is it's not
just labor market information and data right.
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It's oftentimes you're making a decision based
on your own personal aspirations. If you're
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an adult, you have a limited
amount of time and bandwidth and you're got
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to fit this in along with everything
else, even if you have this big
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goal in mind. And so we
have to understand that and it has to
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be easier to navigate. Like,
if I want what you have to offer
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the website, I shouldn't have to
go five clicks in and four pages over
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and over to find it. In
order to find it. If you know
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that you of a population of students
who need that information, let's start designing
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those websites from the point of view
of those students and help them get what
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they need up front. Let's make
these campuses easier to navigate and let's tell
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them about all the wonderful programs that
we have and match that up and just
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maybe, at that point it'll be
easier for them to engage in roll.
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And, most importantly, we don't
just want them to engage in enroll,
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we want them to complete and to
benefit from that in the market place.
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That's great, that's really good stuff. So what will be the result of
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this and in full transparency. We
are recording this at the latter part of
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March, but this episode probably will
not be released until middle of May.
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So there are some benchmarks that will
have been met within this challenge already.
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So if you can tell our listeners
what the next steps are in the challenge?
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Yeah, so right now, like
you said, try we are a
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little earlier. So right now we
are digging through all our applications. But
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when our listeners are hearing this right
now, we will have announced our top
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ten finalists and those folks will be
highlighted or on our website at limit of
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foundation dot Org forwards last challenge,
and those top ten finalists will be going
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through round two to narrow down to
who our winner will be. And then
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who are nine are winner will receive
one million dollars and then our nine finalists
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will receive a hundred thousand dollars to
support their brand building efforts, and we
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will be making that announcement in August. So stay tuned for that wonderful and
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for those community colleges or individuals that
didn't know about the challenge but thinkless is
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wonderful, might be looking for more
resources. Are there other things that they
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could find out about going to your
website. Absolutely, I would tell them.
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I don't want to give away all
my secrets quite yet, but take
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a look at our website because we
have resources coming and they will all be
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posted at, like we said,
limit, a foundation that org forwards last
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challenge. It will be a great
place for to see the finalists of what
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they're up to, but also other
resources that we are developing through this work.
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And we do have some resources currently
on the site because we did have
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some questions about some colleges really had
a foundational question about what's the difference between
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brand branding and marketing. We on
our website. We've already curated some resources
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there to really help them understand that. And so go now and there's some
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things that can help you, easy
short pieces, even some interesting podcast to
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kind of consume and and to learn
a little bit more, and we will
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be producing some more resources for the
fields and marries it. That's great.
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We talked a lot about it on
this show. Schools are really struggling today
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to make the same adspend work.
CPMS are up eighty nine percent you over
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year on facebook and instagram. Our
College clients are no longer looking for rented
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audiences. They're looking for an owned
community where they can engage students even before
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they apply. This is why Zeemi
has become so crucial for our clients.
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With over one million students, close
to tenzero five star ratings, consistently ranked
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as one of the top social laps
and recently one of apples hot APPs of
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the week, there is simply isn't
anything out there like it, and we
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have seen it all. Zeem me
not only provides the best space for student
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engagement, but the most unique in
action will data for their one hundred and
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sixty college and university partners. We
know firsthand from our clients that Zee me
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is a must have strategy for Gen
Z. Check them out now at colleges
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dot Zee mecom. That's colleges dot
Zee m eecom. And yes, tell
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them Barton Troy sent you. We
closed each of our episodes by asking our
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guests if there's something dealing with the
topic that we just discussed that you could
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offer as either a tip or a
thought that could be implemented right away or
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soon after our listener has taken in
the podcast. What could you offer them
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as some of your best practices or
tips. Yeah, so, as we
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talked about today, trying to fill
a free to jump in. But I
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think brand building is so important and
the biggest piece of brand building is perception.
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So I think for our listeners today
is take fresh eyes to look at
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your college and if that's taking a
look at your website for the eyes of
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a student it, maybe I'm walking
across the street to see what your community
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college looks like to your community rather
than someone who is on campus every day,
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just taking another look to see how
is your community perceiving your community college
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and how can you better better connect? The one one thing that I would
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put like a very practical thing,
kind of thinking internally. So as a
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former practitioner, my heart always goes
out because I know that there are so
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many talented faculty and staff and administrators
and just people who serve all kinds of
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roles at community colleges that are really
doing great work. And one of the
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things that I would say, whether
you're in a formal leadership role or you're
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leading from the seat that you're in, is that a very important thing that
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you can do is understand who your
students are today, because when you think
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about colleges that may maybe they were
born sixty years ago, that's when they
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were created, and you think about
how your community may have changed, the
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demographics of your students, the economy
around your community, as local colleges may
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have change, to really stop and
take an assessment as who is this college
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today? Who Do we serve today? What are the employment opportunities today?
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And then how are we communicating with
the reality of all of those things that
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we just talked about, with those
people with those opportunities? How do we
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line up with where we are today? I think that's one of the most
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important things we know nationally that you
know, was it, one third of
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today's learners or more than a third
of today's learners, or between twenty two
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and forty, and so that that
is going to look a little bit different
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in each community. So you largely
serve at a community college and older student
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population, when we say old ER, older than eighteen, and also primarily
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serve people who work, even younger
people. So if we think as an
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adults, as twenty five plus,
it's as we talk about them often in
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Higher Ed. But if you think
about this idea of students who work,
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students who have adult lives in real
life responsibilities. That becomes the bulk of
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the population of students at community colleges, whether you're one thousand, nine hundred
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and twenty or your forty five.
So I do think that's important. How
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does our college actually serve working people
and how are we designed to serve working
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people? That to me as a
foundational question that every college has to ask.
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Before you focus on putting a whole
bunch of money in and putting messages
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out there, make sure you understand
who you're trying to connect with and what's
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most meaningful to them. That is
wonderful, Shanna. Mary, thank you
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so much for being a guest on
the hired marketer podcast for bringing us some
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such wonderful and inspiring information in a
very entertaining, warm and excited way.
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I know I'm very aspired to go
and learn more about the Lumina Foundation and
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their efforts to uplift community colleges.
For other inspired listeners, could you give
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them the best way that they could
reach out to you if they would like
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to do so? And I'll ask
Mary to go first and then followed by
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Shanna. Sure we actually have an
email address just for just for this project?
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So at challenge and at limited foundation
DOT ORG. Shan and I are
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both in there and I would love
to answer any questions that come our way.
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And of course, the other thing
I would say is that we certainly
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have I have to we have a
newsletter and if you come to the foundation,
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a newsletter, if you go to
our website, Lumina Foundation Dot Org.
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Think I got that right right.
So if you go to the we
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have a number of ways, through
social media as well as through our newsletter,
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if they would like to subscribe,
in which they can stay abreast of
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all of the the wonderful things that
we're engaging in. I should say we
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are engaging in a number of wonderful
things because the education community is engaging in
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a number of wonderful things. So
it's a really great way to learn not
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only about what we're doing but about
the work that is being done in education
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all across this country, because we
really take an effort to raise up the
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work that's being done in states and
it individual institutions all across America. Thank
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you and I must say that if
ever you want to come back and want
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to give an update or if there
is another challenge or initiative that you are
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going to delve into, please let
us know. We would love to highlight
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whatever you're doing in full support of
you. So thank you, Bart.
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Do you have any final thoughts before
we wind up the episode? Yeah,
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I do try and thank you,
Sean and Mary. It's been a great
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conversation. I just wanted to highlight
a few things toward listeners, and I
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know that many of you listeners,
you know, kind of saw this maybe
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as our community college specific episode in
it in a way it has, but
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I think some of the things that
Lumina is doing and some of the things
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that Sean and Mary I have mentioned, it's worth pulling them back out and
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kind of saying it really applies to
just about any area of higher education.
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And so, you know, one
of the things that I really liked about
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a lot of what we've talked about
today is the idea of really seeing the
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prospective student, whether their adult students
or whether they're Grad students or traditional students,
396
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really seeing them as the hero.
We've got to look at everything through
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their eyes and look at it through
their perspective. I think too many times
398
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we have a we have a temptation
in higher ed to kind of, you
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know, Tut our own horn and
talk about the accolades that our faculty have,
400
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the accolades that our college has,
the accolades the university, which those
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things are important, but we've really
got to be able to get in the
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shoes of the prospective student and understand
how do they see themselves in the story
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of their education, attainment and success, and I think by starting there,
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that's really where a lot of great
branding starts. I really like Donald Miller's
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book, you know, story brand
and his process of really kind of making
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sure that we make the prospective student
the hero of everything, and so part
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of that is really kind of,
once we understand who they are, learning
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how to market to them better,
whether that's through branding or different aspects of
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marketing, and I hope that you're
learning that through, you know, episodes
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00:29:47.039 --> 00:29:49.440
here on the High Ed Marketer.
Also really making sure that we understand how
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we can elevate the brand to a
better way that's accessible and make sense,
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and then just making sure that,
I thought Mary's common about learning from others.
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It's going to be a lot of
really good data that comes out of
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this and honestly, a lot of
the what the what the winners are going
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to be doing and the what you
will see on their presentations of how they
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are going to implement that. It's
there's there's nothing wrong with being able to
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borrow ideas from everyone. There's no
new ideas under the sun. So you
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know if it's going to work.
Look at that and look at how that
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might be working, and I would
encourage you to do that across the board.
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I mean look at what's going on, what success looks like. I
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know there's a lot of small schools
that listen to this podcast and sometimes it's
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difficult to think, well, if
I, if I had that million dollars,
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I could do this. Well,
there's a lot of things that you
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could do just by learning from the
other people and trying things out, and
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so I would really encourage everyone just
to kind of pay attention to what's going
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on with this challenge and then look
to see what you can glean and apply
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to your own school. Thank you, Bart, thank you, Loomin the
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team. That wraps up a wonderful
episode of the High Ed Marketer Podcast,
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which is sponsored by Kaylor solutions and
education marketing and branding agency and by Think,
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00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:07.319
patented a marketing execution company, combining
print and mail for your outbound outreach.
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00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:11.519
On behalf of my cohost Bart Taylor, I'm troy singer. Thank you
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for joining us. You've been listening
to the Higher Ed Marketer. To ensure
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that you never miss an episode,
subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast
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Simply tap the number of stars you think
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the pod cast deserves. Until next
time,