A university website is often families’ first look into the university itself. If you haven’t updated your website in three, six, or twelve months, then you aren’t being authentic online.
In this episode, we interview Donnell Wiggins , Associate VP for Strategic Enrollment Management & Dean of Admission at University of Dayton , about the importance of the website in communicating both authenticity and the truth that recruitment is everyone’s job.
Join us as we discuss:
- The continued importance of a four-year college experience
- Why the website matters to families so much
- Updating academic program pages to aid in recruitment
- How every staff and faculty member is a recruiter
- Diversity, inclusion, and equity as indicators of excellence
Check out this resource we mentioned:
Donnell’s TEDxDaytonSalon Talk, “Yes You Can”
To hear more interviews like this one, subscribe to Higher Ed Marketer on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or your preferred podcast platform.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Higher Ed Marketer in your favorite podcast player.
The Higher Ed Marketer podcast is brought to you by Caylor Solutions, an Education Marketing, and Branding Agency.
Transcript
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You are listening to the Higher Ed
Marketer, a podcast geared towards marketing professionals
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in higher education. This show will
tackle all sorts of questions related to student
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recruitment, don'tor relations, marketing trends, new technologies and so much more.
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If you are looking for conversations centered
around where the industry is going, this
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podcast is for you. Let's get
into the show. Welcome to the Higher
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Ed Marketer podcast, where, each
week we bring interesting people within the Higher
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Ed Marketing Community to you to share
ideas and hopefully spur new things in your
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world for the better met of the
community. Today I have someone, I
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should say we have someone. Sorry, barred, for kicking you to the
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curve. We have someone that I
have been a fan of for a while.
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He's from the University of Dayton,
the city that I live in,
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donel wiggins, who's the associate vice
president of strategic enrollment management and Dean of
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admission that the University of Dayton,
and I first was introduced to this young
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man through a Ted x Dayton speech
that kind of went viral locally, where
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he was very authentic and very passionate
and shared his background with Dyslexia, and
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how that transformed into his passion for
Higher Ed and making sure that people like
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him, first generation students, had
people that believed in him and then,
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as I followed him, realize that
he's doing great things for the university and
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thought he would be an excellent person
to have a conversation with. So today
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we get to talk about authenticity and
some other things that University of daton is
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doing here locally. Yeah, I
think it's a great conversation and troy,
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you kind of really set it in
summarize it very well. Is that Danielle
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has a passion for and what he's
doing. You can get that, you
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can sense that as he talks.
But he also has a passion for authenticity
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and really living out what we believe
and making sure that comes out in our
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marketing, whether that's through our website, whether that's in the way that we,
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you know, lead enrollment and the
way that we lead the messaging and
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the conversations, just everything about authenticity, even down to how we live out
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our beliefs with you know, especially
like a school like University of Dayton,
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Catholic marianist institution, many of our
schools that a lot of you that are
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listening the ones that I work with, the Troy works with. A lot
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of them are faith based and we
have this belief in diversity and equity and
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inclusion. We believe in that.
DONELL talks a lot about how to authentically
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live that out and make that a
part of of the campus life, and
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so it's a great conversation. I'm
looking forward to hearing more about it.
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Let's bring donell into the conversation.
It is my pleasure to welcome into the
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podcast Donnell Wiggins, associated vice as
president for strategic enrollment management and the dean
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of admissions at the University of Dayton, and I must say I'm a fan
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of this young man. He's local
here, so I've seen him on social
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media and it's a treat to have
a conversation with him. Good afternoon,
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doneel. Good afternoon, Jory.
How are you doing today? You know
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I'm doing great. We're looking forward
to our conversation with you. Before we
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get into it, could you give
us a little bit about you and your
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role at the University of Dayton?
Yes, sir, again, my name
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is done wiggins. A service as
social vice president for strateging and Roman management
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and dean of admission and really have
the pleasure of overseeing our recruitment and a
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mission operation at the University of Dayton
for undergraduate students, both domestically and internationally,
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as well as our transfer students,
and so it really is an honor
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and privilege to help students get to
college and really create a pathway for them,
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whatever journey they may be on as
a first time freshman, as a
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transfer student, as an international student. So it is really an honor and
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privilege to be with you all today. Thanks for now. It's wonderful to
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have you here. Really looking forward
to our conversation. I know that when
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we kind of did the pre interview
we talked about a number of different things
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and I think that one thing that
we discovered that the three of us are
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all firsten students and sometimes having that
in context with a lot of our conversation
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is important. But I think that
one of the things that really stuck out
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in our initial conversations was this idea
of specially now that the pandemic has happened
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and you know, a lot of
people are used to virtual online there's still
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this importance of being able to really
kind of sell this four year college experience
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the full four year college experience,
and I think that this idea of doing
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that is something that I think more
and more schools have to grapple with,
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because I think we've taken it for
granted, honestly, for so long that,
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especially campuses that are traditional in that
like like U D and and other
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ones that have beautiful campus as.
They have the resources, they have everything
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online. There's so much about the
importance of full for your experience that I
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think we don't want to miss.
So tell me a little bit about your
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feelings on that and how how you're
trying to communicate that to your perspective students.
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Yeah, absolutely. You know,
I think one of the things that
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we're at this inflection point and higher
education where we as institutions must ensure that
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we are highlighting our value proposition in
a way that connects with families and students.
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And so many families are making decisions
not just based on those typical things
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that we've seen before in the past, but they're also looking at a variety
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of things from a coca rickular standpoint. How will my mental health be manage
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how will, you know, my
sense of belonging come through as it pertains
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to a community. Many families have
a variety of options. Now they have
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the option to maybe get a certificate
and maybe get a skill or trait,
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and so we, as institute two
she's, must be really diligent in terms
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of making sure that our communication strategy
really aligns with the on campus experience.
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And that's from a digital perspective.
So how do we communicate digitally to our
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families on the web and do we
do that in the same way when they're
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on campus in person? And so
it's so essential that we are aligning the
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message that we have on the web
with on campus as well. And I
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and I think it's important that we
as institutions highlight who we are not stray
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away from it. And so at
the University of dating we're Catholic maryings institution
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committed to developing the whole person,
and so we are true to that in
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our communication. We're true to that
when students come on campus and it's just
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so important that those messages line up
really well for each other. And so
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the four year experience is crucial and
we're at a point where, you know,
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some people don't feel like higher education
is worth it. And as a
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first generation college student, I can
absolutely positively tell you that higher education is
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worth it and we as institutions have
to do a better job of making sure
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that our value and our mission lineup
with our actions, particularly online as well
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as in person. That's great,
and I guess I'm curious when you talk
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about the fact that you know the
digital world has to match up with the
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culture of the physical world, the
real world, how do you guys do
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that with University of dating? Like
the website? I mean so many people
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I talk about. Okay, the
website is the first and foremost impression that
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people are going to have on your
campus. I mean, you know they're
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going to discover you through the web. They're going to either then, I
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often like to tell people that you
know, either they're going to discover you
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or they're going to authenticate what they've
heard about you, and if a website
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is in discongruency with with that of
what they've heard or that of what they're
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expecting, there's a problem. So
how does the school like you did,
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I mean your larger institution, how
do you kind of maintain that authenticity on
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the website? Absolutely one of the
things is anytime you're doing any managing of
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the website. You have to be
diligent to make sure that it's up to
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date on a regular basis and oftentime
and many institutions nobody's checking the website.
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You have checked the website in a
year. We haven't checked it in six
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months, and so it's so important
that every three to six months institutions are
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updated websites. Many, many students
are using the website as a first line
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of defense and it is the first
point of contact. And so not only
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is it the first one of contact, but it's the follow up point of
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contact, because after I came to
campus, I don't want to verify what
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I saw on campus or what I
heard on campus is also on the website.
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So it's essential that institutions are paying
close attention to their website, but
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not only from a mission perspective,
but then also from a faculty perspective as
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well as in other areas throughout campus, Co curricular. So one of the
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things that we did is spending significant
amount of time with our faculty members and
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are in our academic units saying how
can we strategically align our academic websites with
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our recruiting in emission website from the
standpoint of how do we make sure that
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our academic websites are sufficient for external
audience, and that external audience is our
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first year students, are transfer students, are international students, and so making
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sure that we have the same message
is just so critical and not having the
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same message shows that there's a disconnect. And so really spending that time with
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your faculty, really spending time with, you know, other academic units,
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other units on campus, from your
co curricular entities that you may work with
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on campus, student development and other
entities, to ensure that everybody understands that
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recruitment and enrollment is everybody's shop.
And so how do we align our website
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in a way that positions the institution
to help everyone across campus knows that recruitment
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and enrollment is everyone's job, because
you never know when you as a faculty
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member, you as a staff member, you as an administrator, will walk
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in that grocery store or walk in
that department store and someone sees that ud
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shirt. How you engage with them, how you connect with them, is
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really so important. Did that student, Michael, back to the website right,
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and so it's just the website is
so important in the age of JEN
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Z in the age of digital media, we have to do I'll standing job
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as institution making sure that that message
is carry through. I love that.
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I love that because I've I've often
talked to schools. I mean I did
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helped with my first website with my
Alma materern in one thousand nine hundred and
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ninety seven. So that kind of
shows how old I am. But I
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think that the one of the things
that you know, back then, a
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lot of times the website grew out
of the advancement in the development office because
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it was like an extension of the
alumni magazine. And so you know audience
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is. Back then we're kind of
this mix match of well, we're talking
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to the alumni and we're talking to
the donors and maybe the students. And
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but I think in the last few
years it's become so critical that everybody needs
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to be aligned on enrollment, especially
with self applicants and and just the challenge
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of being able to get the students
these days, because, I mean the
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students can find a lot of information
out and they're never on the on the
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radar of a school many times until
they apply. And so it's still critical
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that everything they need to get that
experience and self identify as on the web
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and it has to be from an
enrollment standpoint. So I think those are
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some great, great perspectives. Thank
you, Donald. Yeah, thank you
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for agree one hundred percent. Donel
the piggyback on reasons why you should have
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a great presence online is I believe
you said that for this incoming class of
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freshman, upwards of thirty percent of
them have never set foot on Ud's campus.
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Could you kind of explain that?
Yeah, absolutely, Try and it's
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quite interesting because we're living in unique
times and so students are strategically evaluating institutions,
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you know, on campus, from
a standpoint of virtually virtually on campus.
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And so they've evaluated US based on
our virtual experience. They've evaluated as
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based on our website and then our
virtual events and programming is that we did
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over the past yere and so,
as we see, many institutions have to
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quickly adapt to the virtual experience.
Many students have decided that, you know,
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because of the pandemic, I'm unsure
if I want to set foot on
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campus. Some of them have decided
because of their family situations they may not
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be able to get to campus financially. Some of them just don't have the
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bandwidth because of their schedule, because
of all the things are involved in,
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or maybe because they live across country
and are unable to get to campus.
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And so what we found is that
many students use our website, are virtual
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tool, and many of our other
platforms, from our events, to decide
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whether or not the university date is
a good fit for them. And so
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this mantra of not visiting campus isn't
going anywhere. Many families are going to
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evaluate institutions based on their website,
based on their virtual experience, based on
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virtual opportunities, and so we as
institutions, must and shoot or that we
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have a platform set up that families
can truly evaluate who we are in order
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to make sound decisions. And we're
blessed of the University of Dayton that students
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were able to do just that.
They were able to evaluate us and say,
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you know what, I'm not able
to step foot on campus, but
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I've seen enough and I know enough
and I've been engaged enough with faculty,
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staff and administration, and particularly the
recruitment in the mission team, to make
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a decision to attend the University of
Dayton. And so we have to continue
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to make sure that our digital presidence
is that is really one of the best
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things that we can offer the students
and families across the country. Well,
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I think you must be successful at
it, because I've read that the incoming
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class is the largest in, you
know, the few the University of Dayton's
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history. Is that correct? It
is, and so we're really excited about,
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you know, the income and freshman
class and really are overall class that
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we brought in from first year students
to transfer to international students. And so,
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you know, there was some uncertainty, as for many institutions last year,
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just given the environment, giving all
the things that we have to go
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to. But again, you know, we really were very diligent about making
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sure that our digital presence was key
and it lined up with our own campus
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experience and so we wanted to make
sure that we did everything we can to
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meet students where they are, to
understand that this was a difficult year for
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them, that they maybe didn't get
to go to that high school prom at
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high school homecoming, they were doing
learning virtually, and so really understanding all
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of the different impacts and challenges that
they face throughout this year, but to
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really be intentional, to create a
strong sense of belonging, I believe really
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allowed us to have a record class
this year. That's great, that's so
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encouraging. Yes, also, it
wasn't only the largest, but I also
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believe it was the most diverse.
And I think you just mentioned meeting students
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where they are, and I believe
that diversity is something that you are diving
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into a little deeper than maybe others
have had in the past, or maybe
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there's an emphasis. I don't want
to go speak too much for you,
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but could you let us know some
of the work that either you or the
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campus is doing in order to attract
and have a focus on diversity and inclusion?
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Absolutely, yeah, the University of
dating, as a Catholic maryness institution,
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is committed to diversity, equity and
inclusion and it is it's truly represents
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who we are as a Catholic marianess
institution. And so why is that important?
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Because what we know is that diversity
represents excellence. So the more diversity
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that we have on campus, the
more excellent we will be as an institution.
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And so, under the leadership of
our president, Dr Er expin and
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we've been very diligent to make sure
that we have one, a plan that
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really outlines our strategic plan around diversity, equally inclusion. Right now, as
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an institution, we're going through having
unit based diversity, equity and inclusion strategic
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plan by unit, all seventeen different
units on campus really leading the charge to
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make sure that we're meeting the needs
of the time and really meeting the needs
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of students, knowing that, you
know, diversity is really essential to who
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we are, but it's also essential
because our world is changing, that we
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live in and continues to change,
and we want to be able to connect
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with all students. So those two
things are happening. We also are very
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diligent about becoming an anti racist institution, eliminating racist practices that may have existed
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through our history, through our time
as an institution, and because of that,
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many of us we have eleven steps
as an institution. That number one
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we have committed to, and one
of those steps is becoming a more diverse
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institution through our recruitment and enrollment strategies. And so over the last five years
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we've been very diligent about becoming more
strategic about how we recruit students, how
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we engage with students and making sure
that we eliminate barriers that would impede students
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from choosing the University of dating and
really finding that strong sense of belonging.
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In addition to that, the recruitment
and a mission team has been significant amount
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of time having monthly dialogs around becoming
an anti racist institution and what does that
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mean for our work as an institution? What does that mean for us as
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a recruitment and the mission enrollment staff
and how do we engage with students across
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the country across the world? And
so what we've seen is the fruits of
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that Labor has really paid off in
terms of how students and families evaluate the
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University of Dayton. So, over
the over this time we've been really diligent
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to do everything we can to ensure
that we are connecting with families where intentional
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that were becoming more of an inclusive
campus, and a part of that is
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making sure that, you know,
everybody value diversity, equity inclusion. So
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it's not just historically underrepresented families,
but it's all of our families and really
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enlighting families to see the value of
diversity and how it makes us better as
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an institution, but I'll be the
first to tell you we made significant strides
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and we're we've done a lot of
great things, but they're still more work
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to be done and so as we
move towards the future, we're going to
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continue to push forward. We're going
to continue to have high level conversations at
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the president's cabinet level, but then
also in the classroom with students, also
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in the office, with administration and
staff, and so we're doing everything we
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can to continue to grow as an
institution and continue to learn, but also
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continue to meet the needs of the
time to make sure that we are a
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campus that embraces diversity, equity and
inclusion at a high level. I love
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that, Dunnell, and I think
that it's so important because I meet with
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a lot of schools, and especially
I think this ends up a smaller schools
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and sometimes smaller faith based schools who
recognize that it's this is an important thing.
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I mean, this is certainly a
part of our faith and a part
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of who we are and what we
want to be. I mean you kind
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of made that pretty clear with the
Catholic Marianist, you know background. I
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mean, it's who we are and
we want to live that out. But
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I think sometimes, and what I
really appreciate about what you've been talking about,
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and maybe you can go in a
little bit deeper with your monthly meetings
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with your staff and the intentionality internally, because it's one thing to say,
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well, we want to be a
more diverse and equitable and inclusive campus and
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so let's try to recruit more of
those types of students. Well, that's
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a little bit backwards, because just
because you have those students on campus does
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not make you a diverse, inclusive
and an equitable campus. It's because you
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are already that and that that starts
with recruiting staff and faculty that reflect who
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you want to be well before you
start recruiting the students. And so tell
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me a little bit about that and
how that plays out at Youd and and
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how those monthly intentional meetings, even
internally, help change that as opposed to
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just trying to create a new enrollment
strategy, if you will. Absolutely they're
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critical because, one, they're critical
to creating a culture where we can have
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intentional conversations about things that are happening
in higher education in our work that affect
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how we recruit students. That affect
how students view us as an institution,
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and so we must create spaces in
our offices are cross campus, or we
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can have training and we can have
true dialog to really live out the work.
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And it's not just even about living
out the work and having dialog,
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but it's in about producing results.
You know, diversifying our staff, it's
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about diversifying our faculty member it's about
diversifying our administration, and the institution has
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done a good job of really aligning
these metrics across campus two ensure that we
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do have more diverse staff, we
do have more diverse faculty, we do
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have more diverse administration, because one
can't go without the other, as you
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stated, barred, and so at
the university dating we're committed to that and
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we're committed to that because that's of
who we are, and so our Catholic
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married is values. Challenge us to
live that out and while we've made some
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mistakes along the way and because we're
not perfect, but we've done an outstanding
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job of challenging ourselves to continue to
have the conversation, to continue to do
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the work, and we find ourselves
in the monthly meetings, particularly with the
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recruitment and admission team identify key metrics
and key incidents that maybe have happened.
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How do we address that? How
do we navigate that? One student bring
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those questions to us, and that's
critical because, you know, we're all
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at different places on this journey,
but what we can do together is much
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greater than what we can do separately
and we find ourselves having really great,
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intentional conversations that ultimately impact how we
recruit all students, how we recruit students
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who are, you know, White
and Caucasian, how we were crew students
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who are African, American, Malt
tirads. We want everybody to see the
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value of diversity, equity and inclusion
through the lands of the University of dating
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commitment to the common good. So
it's great. It's really appreciate you sharing
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that and, as Bard said,
there are many campuses that are facing that
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obstacle or looking on how to improve
themselves within diversity and inclusion. As we
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close our conversation, we usually ask
if there's a nugget or a tidbit something
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that you could offer that another admission
professional could implement right away that has either
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been helpful or maybe, in theories, something that you're going to be applying
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shortly. Anything that you can share
with us? Yeah, I think you
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know, one of the things that
I've been telling you know, many teams
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and many entities that I work with, particularly our team, is that,
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you know, we're in a strategic
inflection point. So it's going to require
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us to be flexible and so we
as educators, particularly in higher education,
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have to have the ability to act, to change, excuse me, and
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really adapt to the current times.
And so for too long we have allowed
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status coal behavior to lead us as
institutions but then also impact our work,
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and so we're now in environment where
time is on our side. You know,
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the pandemic taught us that, and
so it's time for us to make
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sure that status qual work isn't acceptable
and that we we make sure that the
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value of the institution matches up with
the value of the work that we're delivering
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to students and families. So I
just would encourage many of my colleagues across
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the country, across the world that
we do everything we can to present the
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best experience possible for our families who
are making a significant investment in our institutions,
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and we do that by being flexible. We do that being by being
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able to change. We do that
by adapting to current situations and we do
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that by putting a smile on our
face every time we get a chance to
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engage with them, and if we
do, that will be much better for
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our families, would be much better
for our institutions and we'll see a lot
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of great things happen for many of
us across the country. That is a
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great note to end on. Done
Ell, thank you very much for your
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time and the wisdom that you shared. Someone would like to get in touch
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with you, what would the best
way for them to do that be?
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00:24:02.390 --> 00:24:04.910
Yeah, I would encourage you to
connect with me on Linkedin. You know
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00:24:04.990 --> 00:24:10.019
at Donielle wiggins on Linkedin and you'll
you can definitely find me. That's a
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00:24:10.059 --> 00:24:12.339
great way to connect. You should. You can also go to the University
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of dating website. If you go
to meet the recruitment and emission team,
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you will find my picture and information
there to connect with and I would love
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00:24:19.619 --> 00:24:22.579
to connect with you and really get
to know you and help in anyway I
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can, and I wish you all
the best on your journey. I want
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to thank you, Chry and bar
for having me this afternoon and I really
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00:24:30.930 --> 00:24:34.009
appreciate the time it really appreciate connecting
and talking with you both and look forward
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to doing it in the future.
Again great, thank you. Thank you
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00:24:37.410 --> 00:24:42.039
very much, bar do you have
any parting words? Yeah, just a
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00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:45.599
couple things that I wanted to kind
of point out to everybody, and I
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guess if I'm going to put a
title on this episode, it would be
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something around authenticity and enrollment, and
I think that so much of what we
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talked about, whether it's the website
and the importance of making sure that what
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00:24:59.950 --> 00:25:03.150
we're communicating on the website, with
the importance of the four year degree or
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the or the idea of making sure
that the website is authentically representing the on
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campus experience, even down to the
point of being authentic and what we say.
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We believe in authentic and what we're
doing by really tackling this hard issue
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of diversity, equity and inclusion and
making that part of our our daily life.
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I really love the point that done
health pointed out with the idea that,
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you know, we put that smile
on, we change, we make
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that a moment by moment type of
thing, and so really that authenticity of
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making that a big part of everything
that we're doing, in the way we
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present ourselves digitally, in the way
way that people experiences when they arrive on
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campus, in the way that we
live out our beliefs. I think is
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so important. So I really appreciate
everything that Donne has said today and it's
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been an honor to have this conversation. Thank you, Bart. I'll also
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add that if our listeners would,
if you would like to spend a wonderful
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00:25:57.750 --> 00:26:02.829
ten minutes getting to know the character
in person that donnel is, is to
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00:26:03.750 --> 00:26:10.099
Google Donell wiggins, ted x Dayton
and it'll show you the reason why he
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00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:15.660
has a passion for higher education.
The High Ed Marketer podcast is sponsored by
359
00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:21.450
Kaylor solutions and education marketing and branding
agency and by Think, patented, a
360
00:26:21.569 --> 00:26:27.130
marketing, execution, printing and provider
of mailing solutions to hire at institutions.
361
00:26:27.730 --> 00:26:32.609
On behalf of my cohost Bard Taylor, I'm troy singer. Thank you very
362
00:26:32.690 --> 00:26:37.400
much for joining us today. You've
been listening to the Higher Ed Marketer.
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00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:41.640
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