I have enjoyed two of his CASE books, Competing for Students, Money and Reputation: Marketing the Academy in the 21st Century as well as Advancing Higher Education in Uncertain Times, and would recommend both.  Larry, who also serves as distinguished professor of strategic communication in the graduate program at TCU’s Schieffer School of Journalism, has a decorated career in higher ed, and I have always respected his outlook on the evolving profession of university advancement.

1. You are considered a pioneer in integrated marketing.  What does integrated marketing look like and who benefits within the institution?

All areas, beyond a doubt: Integrated marketing has two parts: 1. Using several media platforms simultaneously to break though communication clutter and assault target markets. Research is used to determine the media of preference of each target market. 2. Using group process throughout the institution to get everyone on the same page with respect to brand identify, and motivate them to help to tell the same institutional story.

2. In these “uncertain times” for higher education, what are the unique challenges for advancement teams?

There are many: State funding cutbacks are causing a rethinking of core business parameters…including more emphasis on fund raising. Internationalization of the industry is bringing new foreign competition to the US for our students, our donor’s money and global reputation.

All this is bringing advancement front and center in institutions with greater opportunities for us, but also more pressure to perform.

3. I’ll sometimes hear advancement colleagues describe their relationships with deans/faculty as if they are on opposing teams. What advice would you give to help Advancement and Academics work in concert around the institution’s mission?

You must help them meet their goals first, and then help them see how yours are compatible with theirs. It led me to write my last book: Learning to Love the Politics (CASE Books), which deals with all the problems of getting institutional support for our work. That can take half or more of our time, and it’s a course we somehow never offer.

4. Why are silos more the rule than the exception in higher education (and specifically within advancement)?

Deans and many directors are often hired like presidents, with expectations to find good students, raise money, and put the program on the map. Additionally there often is an atmosphere of competition for budget support from central administration. All this leads to silos, and tendency to resist central advancement program’s influence. The answer is to help deans and directors meet their goals, while demonstrating how overall marketing and advancement supports those goals.

5. Circling back to integrated marketing, has the social web changed the face of integrated marketing?

Planning, integration processes, and internal politics all remain the same. Social media bring a whole new set of tactic tools, however, and they are potentially very powerful indeed. However, their use and impact is constantly changing, and it will be critical to monitor these changes carefully as we move our profession into the future. The management challenge will be determining which ones to invest staff time in maintaining, as a lot of time and resources can be wasted imagining good results that are not really influencing behavior.

I’ve described an integrated advancement model as advancing the mission of the institution by enhancing the university’s reputation, relationships, and resources.  Ultimately, we are charged with increasing the flow of resources into the institution.  Those vital resources come from two areas: enrollment (recruitment and retention) and fundraising.

As Raisman states, “There is a direct correlation between good customer service and enrollment success.  Simply put, colleges that are student-centered and treat students as welcomed and respected customers, while making sure they get a great education, will have enrollment and retention success.”

The critical and complex area of student retention is too often overlooked in advancement shops.  It seems so straightforward: students who drop out never become alumni and donors.  Furthermore, the decision to become a donor (or not) starts before a student even comes to campus, so get involved in service from the beginning.  Be a customer service advocate and lifetime engagement advocate on behalf of your entire institution.

The phrase “customer service” can be a dirty word to our faculty colleagues, much like “marketing” once was (and still may be among a few holdout traditionalists).  Raisman explains, however, that academic customer service is not a surface level tactic; it’s a strategic approach to fulfilling the real expectations of students.

“Academic customer service means keeping the student at the center of the enterprise. It means treating students as clients, not simply as customers.  It means enriching and engaging students intellectually, professionally, and personally as valuable and crucial individuals that the college wants to keep as clients.  This is achieved through positive and edifying experiences for students, not necessarily by pandering to them, as some people fear customer service would mean.”

A key point here is that students are professional clients, not customers.  The author’s parallel is a patient/doctor relationship.  “Clients depend on the service provider to give an excellent service even if it includes some bad news or directions for change the client may not find pleasant, as when a doctor tells a patient to stop eating all sweets.”  Forget the old business adage that the customer is always right.

Raisman outlines 13 principles of customer service in higher education:

1. Students should be given courteous and concerned attention to their needs and valued as people.
2. Students should come before personal or college-focused goals.
3. The processes, rules, and regulations of higher education should be fully and actually student-centered.
4. Be honest in all communications and do not patronize students.
5. Students can never be an inconvenience.
6. There must be a proper match between the product and the customer.
7. Just because it was someone else who did something that would hurt a student does not relieve you of doing what is right.
8. Students deserve an environment that is neat, bright, welcoming, and safe.
9. Students are not really customers.
10. The customer is not always right.
11. Satisfaction is not the gauge of successful customer service in a college.
12. Do not cheapen the product in the name of customer service.  No pandering.
13. To every problem there is more than one solution and they often are external rather than within academia.

We all work in higher education because of students and our belief in the transformative impact it can have on their lives.  That’s the bottom line here.  As Raisman says, “a customer-centered college cares about students and their success more than its own comfort and status quo.”  Students are everybody’s job.  There is no one at the college more important than the individual student.  “The students must be the center of the mission and the purpose of the college or university.”

In 2010 Chas Grundy, a marketing and fundraising professional at the University of Notre Dame, told me about the book The Story Factor.  Chas is a great colleague; he shares excellent content via Non-Profit Chas and grundyhome.com, and we both serve on the CASE Indiana board of directors.  I took Chas’ recommendation and used this for our “directors’ book club” last spring semester.  

Our team thought the book’s message rang true for our work in advancement.  As author Annette Simmons notes, “People don’t want more information.  They are up to their eyeballs in information.  They want faith—faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell.”  Thanks to Chas for his guest post and review of The Story Factor, below.

Let me tell you a story. Years ago, my wife and I bought our first house. We had talked about it for several months and finally decided to start looking around. A few days later, we had done no more than drive past houses with signs outside when we saw one that we liked. We walked around the house, peering in the windows. There was no real estate agent and the owners weren’t living there. The lawn was brown and crackly from a hot summer’s worth of neglect. The house was empty. It needed some love.

But the house was nice enough. And it was in a neighborhood that evoked nostalgic memories. The other lawns were deep green and meticulously trimmed. The sidewalks and streetlights made everything feel safe and classic. We joked that the neighbors would be cooling pies on their window sills and baking us cookies to welcome us. We loved it and decided to buy the house.

We hadn’t even been inside. We didn’t even know what price they were asking. But we were already sold. (When it came to negotiating the purchase price, it made for a much more difficult process, but we did end up with the house.)

You may have heard the line, “people buy on emotion and justify with logic.” Today, it’s one of the most common themes in marketing, fundraising, public relations, sales, leadership, you name it: everything comes down to a story.

Annette Simmons is a storyteller. Of course, consults and writes and speaks, but in all of these things she tells stories. I recently shared her book The Story Factor – Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling with my colleagues as a way to help shape our approach to communicating.

The best part of The Story Factor isn’t the mechanics, the how-to, or the strategies of storytelling. It’s the stories she tells. Having collected hundreds of great stories over her career, Simmons uses them to teach readers how stories are an effective tool for changing hearts and minds.

Every chapter is laced with stories of all sorts, from fables to Jewish parables to personal stories from her own past or public speakers she’s heard. Some are emotional, others will get a chuckle. On their own, these stories would be enjoyable enough to read.

One of my favorite stories, one I’ve used when speaking with donors, is her tale of the Dead Sea and the “very much alive” Sea of Galilee. As she explains:

“The Dead Sea has no outlet. Both are fed by the same source but the Dead Sea can only receive an inward flow. The Sea of Galilee is alive only because what flows in can also flow out. For this man, the metaphor of the Sea of Galilee demonstrates his experience that for him, giving is a necessary function of thriving and feeling alive.” (p. 14)

But Simmons also does a wonderful job of connecting these stories to the mechanics of storytelling to help you learn how you can tell your stories. She launches the book with The Six Stories You Need to Know How to Tell and moves on through what makes up a story, how they can work where facts fail, and different styles of story. These parts can seem a bit slow, but it moves quickly as you find yourself leaping from story to story as you skim the denser text.

Then again, it seems she knows this danger. As she warns in the introduction, “Trying to break [stories] down into pieces is like cutting a kitten in half to in order to understand it. Half a kitten isn’t really half a kitten.”

This was the second time I’ve read The Story Factor with a group of colleagues, and I’ve given it as a gift to numerous others. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself adapting the stories for your own use. It’s not hard to see how these things work in fundraising, marketing, sales, or leadership contexts. We work to inspire, influence, and persuade every day.

As a person who loves both to hear and tell stories, I’d love to believe that I’m immune from their effects. But I know better. When we bought our second home, my wife and I were caught by the same trap – we fell in love with the house at first sight. We told ourselves a new story and sold ourselves.

1. It’s 2020.  What does higher education look like at the end of this decade?

That will be about three years after the giant crash of education loans and the inability of the typical student to justify a full-fare education. It will also be a few years after most courses are available digitally–maybe not from your school, but calculus is calculus. At that point, schools will either be labels, brand names that connote something to a hiring manager, or they will be tribal organizers, institutions that create teams, connections and guilds. Just as being part of the Harvard Crimson or Lampoon is a connection you will carry around for life, some schools will deliver this on a larger scale.

I guess it’s fair to say that the business of higher education is going to change as much in the next decade as newspapers did in the prior one. And one more thing before I really get ranting: Higher education is vitally important to our future. It’s one of the best reasons to be a citizen, to be a person in our society. It has the potential to change lives and open doors. But we need to push in the right direction.

2. What are the interesting problems that higher education needs to solve?

The biggest one is: What’s it for?

Is higher education the thing you do before you become a college professor? Because that pyramid scheme is coming to an end… we don’t need any more Ph.D.s, do we?

Or is higher education the place rich kids go to become erudite? Not so many rich kids as there used to be.

Or is it a finishing school/trade school? Professors bridle at that.

One thing I hope we can agree on is that college should not continue to be advanced high school but with more binge drinking.

3. You’ve said most colleges and universities are “mass marketers.”  What’s holding institutions back?  Do they lack meaningful, compelling uniqueness; can they not tell their stories; or both?

I wouldn’t say “holding them back” because colleges have CHOSEN to be mass marketers, have chosen to sell above average education to above average masses of students. That’s what thousands of colleges have chosen to do, all at the same time. I get the brochures at my house daily. Switch the logos and there’s not a lot of difference.

If you reward the University president for fundraising, don’t be surprised that she’s in favor of a big football team and a plan to move up the US News rankings. 

There are definitely unique schools out there, niche schools, schools that know who they want and what they want to deliver. But most institutions are institutions first, and lack the guts to say no, so they become mediocre.

4. What advice would you give to higher ed marketers, especially those looking to do things differently and create change within their institutions?

Marketing is first and foremost about what you sell, not how you sell it. So an institution that wants a different marketing footprint needs to have a different agenda, a different curriculum and needs to be less beholden to the accreditation folks. If there’s a crisis around the corner (and there is, draw any lines on any graph you choose), then doing what you’ve been doing is surely going to get you what you’ve been getting, no?

5. In terms of university advancement, how can we rethink traditional approaches and truly create “tribes” among our universities’ alumni and donors?

The question is: does the relationship start or end at graduation? Not just the relationship with the institution (give us money!) but with the other students? What does an alumni network that works actually look like?

My good friend went to Harvard Business School while I went to Stanford. I was struck by one huge difference: the first day of the first class, he and his classmates elected their alumni rep and organizer–two years before graduation. I don’t think we ever did.

Bonus Question: Do you see evidence of university Admissions teams and Advancement teams effectively “flipping the funnel?”

I think we see this a lot with the fundraisers at the big football schools, certainly. For admissions, I’m not seeing it. The alumni network is a huge source for the right sort of student selection and conversion, but generally, alumni are put to work as fake interviewers, contributing notes that aren’t actually read by the admission office…

Bonus Question: What should be on the reading list of higher ed leaders for 2012?

John Taylor Gatto, for sure. Loren Pope. My book Linchpin if I can be bold. Richard Feynman and Tim Wu’s The Master Switch too.

Meetings do matter though.  They are a must for effective coordination and important interaction with your staff to support their work.  But most days include five or six – if not more – meetings, and it’s a constant challenge to find the time needed to do real work.  Therefore, I made a New Year’s resolution to have fewer meetings (and fewer bad meetings).

Looking for inspiration, I read Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli, a manifesto challenging our traditional meeting culture.  Mediocre meetings cripple our organization, the author laments, creating a culture of compromise (where game-changing ideas die) and killing our sense of urgency.  We’ve all seen it happen…in the face of a pressing, difficult decision, someone calls a meeting instead of taking action.

Pittampalli dreams of a world of fewer meetings, where we would have more time for real work – the work that propels our organization forward.  “Work that involves action, struggle, and effort.  It’s that output that puts us closer to winning.  If the mission could speak, it would constantly tell us, ‘get back to work.’”

His solution is the “modern meeting.”  We have to change our mindset about meetings.  They are not just another form of communication, but a “special instrument” or “sacred tool.”  The modern meeting exists for one reason: to support decisions.  That way “bold decisions happen often and quickly” and are converted into forward momentum.

The author outlines seven principals of modern meetings, and there is great content within each.  The modern meeting:

1. Supports a decision that has already been made.
2. Starts on time, moves fast, and ends on schedule.
3. Limits the number of attendees.
4. Rejects the unprepared.
5. Produces committed action plans.
6. Refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory.
7. Works only alongside a culture of brainstorming.

Here are some of my takeaways to implement for the new year:

• Keep meetings as brief as possible.  I have several regular meetings on the calendar for one hour; I’ve changed them to a half-hour.  Get in, get out, get to work.
• Be more willing to decline a meeting if necessary.  Request a meeting agenda in advance if it is not provided, and upon review, determine if I will really add value to the meeting.  Let’s face it…we invite too many people to our meetings, particularly in academia.
• For my own meetings, recommit to ensuring that everyone goes in with a clear purpose and comes out with a clear action plan.  What actions are we committing to, who is responsible for each action, and when will those actions be completed?

Regarding a clear purpose, Pittampalli says that modern meetings should center around two things: conflict and coordination.

Conflict: The relevant stakeholders can debate the decision, propose alternatives, suggest modifications, or have concerns addressed.  The decision is ultimately resolved.

Coordination: If a decision demands complex collaboration from different people, teams or departments, stakeholders can convene to coordinate an action plan.

Once again, the modern meeting convenes to support the decision, not to make the decision.  “After all, decisions are the job of the individual.”  This avoids the trap of “over-planning” and “never-ending due diligence.”  If you need input pre-decision, you should get it via one-on-one conversations.

Can you lead the emergence of a new meeting culture at your institution?  By the time Katherine turns nine, perhaps “He just goes to meetings all day” will be transformed into “He creates change, and when he goes to meetings, they’re awesome!”

During the summer, our entire External Affairs staff reads a book, and that becomes the focal point of our annual all-staff retreat.

Here’s what we’ve read so far:

Directors

• The Power of Less by Leo Babauta
• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
• The Story Factor by Annette Simmons
• Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

All Staff

• StrengthsFinders 2.0 by Tom Rath
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie

Additionally, we have established a tradition at our annual scholarship luncheon where the keynote speaker selects a book that has had an impact on him or her.  We then provide complimentary copies to student scholarship recipients, donors, and all guests in attendance.  These are the books our speakers have recommended over the past few years:

• Outliers: The Story of Success (selected by Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder)
• The Bill Cook Story: Ready, Fire, Aim! (selected by Gerry Dick, President of Grow Indiana Media Ventures, LLC)
• The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World – And How to Reach Them (selected by Laurie McRobbie, First Lady of Indiana University)

What’s on your 2012 reading list?

1. Every time we say “brand,” people think we are talking about our logo.  (Rather, it’s the sum total of all associations with the brand – good, bad, and ugly.)
2. Everyone wants their own logo and tagline.  (This chips away at the strength of the brand.)
3. Brands are built by what you do, not what you say.
4. We are afraid or unwilling to differentiate.  (Many faculty and staff think that “excellence” is their brand.  Everyone claims excellence, but how are you excellent in your own way?  What is “your way?”  Developing a strong brand is as much about what you’re not as what you are.)
5. We don’t have the right data.  (When conducting research, do not ask superficial marketing questions.)
6. We have to integrate within a decentralized environment.  (Follow these two principles: differentiate and integrate.)
7. Most people on our campus think the marketing department is an internal Kinko’s.  (Not that print is dead, but a silver bullet simply doesn’t exist.  We need lots of different ways to communicate with our target audiences.  Determine this not by asking them, but by monitoring their behavior.)
8. Our campus thinks a brochure is the problem to every marketing problem.  (This limits our ability to strategically market.  We need to position ourselves as a “strategic marketing innovation center.”  If you’re in the following predicament – “we don’t have any time to plan because we haven’t done any planning” – commit to breaking this vicious cycle and give yourself time to plan.)
9. We are only investing five dollars in marketing.  (We must make a case – by creating urgency – for investing in brand management.)
10. Deep down, faculty wished that we didn’t have to market our institutions at all.

Despite her presentation title, Scarborough concluded that colleges can indeed brand.  She praised American University and Gustavus Adolphus College as examples of distinctively articulated brands.

The waning public perception of higher education makes branding even more important, Scarborough said.  We must all communicate the value of our institutions.

Mark your calendar for the CASE Indiana spring conference – Friday, April 13, 2012, at Ivy Tech Community College-Central Indiana.  Neal Raisman, author of The Power of Retention and Embrace the Oxymoron: Customer Service in Higher Education, will keynote.

Lyons said that authentic branding is about telling the truth and becoming the truth.  He encouraged the 900-plus attendees to be explicit about what your institution’s culture stands for, be profoundly intentional about everything related to that culture, and put words to your culture and differentiate it (don’t use the same words everyone else is using).  He described the four principles that define the Haas School’s distinctive culture — question the status quo; confidence without attitude; students always; and beyond yourself.

Singer gave a thorough analysis of what a brand is (a relationship that is formed and nurtured through delivering mutual value) and is not (trademark/name/logo, tagline/messages, and something you unilaterally control).  He explained that the “value” is both conscious (15%) and unconscious (85%).  A strong brand is authentic, inspirational, and aspirational.  We must say why we’re different and why it matters; Signer said that we’re better at the former than the latter.

He encouraged the audience to look at our brands “outside in” by understanding our constituents and rank-ordering them by importance.   The challenge, according to Singer, is that higher ed brands are extraordinarily fragmented – by constituent (prospective/current/former students, faculty, donors, etc.) and by school/discipline/center, for example.

Another highlight of #amahighered was the opportunity to give a paper presentation.  Colleague John Dalton and I presented “From Admissions to Advancement: Transforming a Campus through Lifecycle Marketing.”  There is an article in the November/December issue of CASE Currents magazine titled “United by Goals: There is no integrated advancement without communications and marketing.”  Yes!  In the article, I said that the bottom line is advancement teams are charged with advancing the mission of their institution by enhancing the university’s reputation, its relationships, and ultimately its resources…and that these efforts cannot be maximized without communications and marketing playing a leadership role.

However, our school’s integrated advancement model goes beyond that.  John and I demonstrated how the unconventional inclusion of campus life/student activities enables advancement to directly impact the entire lifecycle – prospective students, current students, alumni, and donors – in a seamless fashion.  Through lifecycle marketing, our institution accelerated a mission and image transformation, resulting in 65 percent enrollment growth over the past four years.

We had great questions from the audience.  Someone asked for tips on how to begin breaking down silos, when offices aren’t organizationally aligned or even in close physical proximity.  Proactively force the issue.

Do whatever it takes it takes to get people around the same table talking about bigger-picture organizational goals that your offices both impact – and could impact more through alignment.  Invite them to your staff meetings; offer to attend theirs.  It could be enlightening to learn about all the other office does and about its challenges and opportunities.  And consider what you could do to make your colleagues in that office look good.  If you’re trying to build bridges with Admissions, it could be as simple as you and your staff offering to volunteer at an Admissions event.

The payoff for integration can be immense; proactively force the issue.

1. Tell us about your CASE Indiana keynote presentation: “Why Colleges Can’t Brand.”  Why can’t they brand?

Colleges can’t brand because branding requires integration. Integrating any organization’s marketing requires breaking down silos. In higher education, our silos have been in place for decades or even centuries. So, to brand, we have to work across the entire organization to share marketing messages and strategies. This requires vision, leadership, and a great deal of institutional will.

2. You recently noted the rising number of vice president-level marketing positions at colleges and universities.  Is the once-held impression that marketing “cheapens the academy” finally a thing of the past?

That sentiment is dying to be sure…..but it’s not dead yet. Faculty members still say to me that higher education should be “above” marketing. Frankly, I agree. It should be. But, the “if you build it, they will come” approach only works in the movies. The reality is that colleges and universities have to convince students and parents their institutions are worthy of one of the biggest purchases in their lives. And, they seek to steward their alumni to bequeath their millions to their alma maters. This requires marketing. Not marketing that cheapens, but marketing that shines a light on the authentic distinctions of the institution.

3. How can advancement professionals be more strategic when answering the common question from the president or chancellor about ROI for their institution’s marketing efforts?

Advancement professionals need to help leadership understand the right ways to measure ROI. I’ve had a president ask me, “How many students did we get because of that billboard we put on I-95?” This question, of course, is unanswerable. But, many other mROI questions are answerable. We need to explain ways to effectively measure mROI and deliver mROI data and information to leadership at regular intervals, whether they ask for it or not.

4. Any advice for marketing officers who are trying to effectively pull together the myriad of marketing activities occurring throughout their school and strategically align them within the institution’s overall brand?

Keep on truckin! You are doing the right thing. Listen carefully and educate as you work to integrate. Tangible results may take years.  Consider it a marathon as opposed to a sprint.

5. As the pressures continue to mount for colleges and universities, what are the biggest challenges that higher ed chief marketing officers are going to face in the coming years?

Long term, I believe that managing the public’s perception regarding the rising costs of education is going to be a real challenge.

Bonus Question: You have your first book, to be published by CASE, in the works.  What is the book about?  What other books would you recommend to higher ed marketing colleagues?

The book is about marketing success stories in higher education. My co-author, Dr. Tom Hayes, is also my business partner and Vice President of SimpsonScarborough. Our book will profile over 25 institutions of all types, highlighting how they achieved a myriad of marketing objectives. Together, their stories paint a picture of the key ingredients to success in the marketing of higher education.

In most standard business books you can find something that applies to higher education. Anything and everything by Schultz, Aaker, Ries, and Trout are good choices.  Also:

• Atkins, Douglas – The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers
• Crawford, Fred & Mathews, Ryan – The Myth of Excellence: Why Great Companies Never Try to be the Best at Everything
• Davis, John – Measuring Marketing: 103 Key Metrics Every Marketer Needs

Long an advocate for change in higher education, he has called on colleges and universities to reinvent themselves and better collaborate, acknowledging their role and responsibility as economic engines.  Part of that change at Ohio State includes the transition to an integrated advancement model.

President Gee was generous with his time to offer thoughtful insight on university advancement, leadership, and more as part of my “Five Questions” series.

1. It’s 2020.  What does higher education look like at the end of this decade?

One word:  expansive.  Not in terms of bricks and mortar, but in the realm of imagination.  We will be creative without boundaries.   Higher education will play an increasingly vital role in forging economic success, in a world where ideas are the catalysts of virtually all future economic progress.  Our classrooms will expand in multiple ways, bringing in the world.  Partnerships will expand, linking colleges and universities in many countries through study abroad programs, research collaboration, and problem-solving.  College students will have the benefits of a global curriculum, global experiences, and global thinking.  The next generation will be fully prepared for the global tasks they confront.

2.  In the often risk-averse environment of higher education, what role can Advancement play in driving the change that so many institutions need?

In my view, advancement plays a crucial role.  At Ohio State, we are in the midst of developing and implementing our own advancement model.  Recently, we had an opportunity to experience the benefits of our advancement progress, as we hosted the 75^th anniversary celebration of alumnus Jesse Owens’ historic Olympic achievements.  It was clear that our newly-coordinated efforts in areas that had previously operated separately — development, alumni, University communications, to name a few — were extraordinarily effective as one entity, moving the University forward.

3.  You are known for your fundraising prowess.  Approximately what percentage of your time do you spend on development, and what makes a president not just an effective fundraiser-in-chief but an exceptional one?

Nearly everything I do as University president can be categorized as either friend-raising or fund-raising.  Our students, faculty, and staff are our best ambassadors, and so I think it is important to nurture those relationships.  With our students, for example, we begin making connections before they arrive on campus, and continue beyond graduation day.  Of course, our goal to move from excellence to eminence as one of the nation’s great land-grant universities depends on our ability to convey investment opportunities to alumni and friends.  The Jesse Owens celebration and subsequent funding of the Jesse Owens Scholars Program, for instance, was made possible only through the generous gifts of families and individuals who share our vision.  To answer the last part of your question, I think an effective fundraiser-in-chief embraces this element as essential to the mission.  It helps if you like being with people, and I certainly do.

4.  Over the course of your career, who are some of the leaders — both inside and outside of academia — you have admired and why?

I have had the wonderfully good fortune of personally knowing some great leaders.  The one who first comes to mind is Andy Sorensen, who passed away just recently, and who leaves an impressive legacy as both a human being and university leader.  He and I were good friends with similar world views, and I was so grateful when he accepted the task of leading our fundraising efforts as senior vice president for development at Ohio State, having previously served with great success as president of the University of Alabama and the University of South Carolina.  In the too-short time that Andy was with us, he accomplished remarkable goals.

Other academic leaders whom I have been privileged to know and admire include Gene Budig, a guiding light who served as president and chancellor of several institutions including West Virginia and Kansas, and Peter Magrath, a true statesman of higher education.  Both men have been my mentors, and I am grateful for their insight and wisdom.

Of course, new generations of leaders are on the horizon, and I am excited to see what lies ahead for them and for our world.  Standing tall among these young leaders in my view is Wendy Kopp, chief executive officer and founder of Teach for America, the national corps of outstanding college graduates who commit to teach for two years in some of the nation’s highest-need schools.  The fact that she envisioned the organization while still an undergraduate at Princeton University, then made it happen, is inspiring.

Outside of academia, I admire those leaders who think big.  Two of them are surely Bill and Melinda Gates, whose Foundation has recently committed a large sum to improve education at all levels.

5.  You have over 21,000 followers on Twitter.  How has this platform fit into your overall communications toolkit, and — more broadly — how can colleges and universities better leverage the power of the social web?

Twitter allows me to speak directly, and instantly, to a broad audience that is interested in Ohio State.  I love the immediacy of the medium, not to mention the challenge of distilling my thoughts into 140 characters or less!  I have always been a strong proponent of thoughtful internal and external communication, and  tweeting is one of today’s most powerful — and fun — tools.  Colleges and universities simply must leverage the power of the social web, as it is the primary way to reach future students, alumni, and friends.

A recent survey placed Ohio State in the top three universities for number of “friends” online, and I recognize the significance of being so popular!  I think we have accomplished this and other social web-related achievements by understanding our constituents’ needs and then putting attention and talent to the development and delivery of our message.