Insights

Try This at Your Next Cocktail Party  The next time you want to have fun at a cocktail party with some of your friends—or maybe at a meeting of your institution’s board of trustees—I invite you to play a game with them.  It’s in two parts. Start by asking this:  In the past five years,…Read more

Sometimes the most important discoveries happen when we stop rushing and start paying attention. Our summer reading picks this year invite the sort of close looking that the season hopefully allows. From corporate culture to childhood screen time, from leadership paradoxes to unlikely basketball success stories, these books ask us to look more closely at…Read more

In our last piece on rethinking and redesigning your campus visit experience, we explored ways to enhance the persuasive power of an in-person visit. Prospective students and their supporters deserve a welcoming, informative and compelling experience—one that acknowledges the effort and investment they make to step onto campus. But how to get them there in…Read more

And why do colleges and universities need them now more than ever? It’s a tale as old as time: a college or university needs to market itself in a way that is compelling to prospective students, authentic to the lived experience on campus, aspirational enough to echo the pillars of the strategic plan and timeless…Read more

What would your employees say to a friend or family member who was interested in applying for a job at your institution?  How can you ensure that employees have positive, truthful stories to share about their experiences with you? The experiences your employees have shape your employer brand. Your employer brand creates expectations about what…Read more

Earlier this month, Dr. Kevin McClure, author of The Caring University: Reimagining the Higher Education Workplace After the Great Resignation (to be published in 2025), and Drs. Aimee Hosemann and Rob Zinkan, authors of What Makes a Strategic Plan ‘Strategic’?, discussed the current landscape of higher education employer brands. The panelists examined higher ed’s inattentiveness…Read more