Campus Communication

Very few--if any--components of campus life are as important to the institution as emergency planning. A college's reputation and, more importantly, the public safety and security of its campus community are at stake.

Our annual surveys provide information on the landscape of ITIT and campus policies. In 2010 we added questions on going mobile. For the category "Mobile apps are an important part of campus plans," we got a very strong response. We see this as very much driven by student expectations - an expectation, if not an entitlement.

The LV-7590 Multimedia Projector from Canon U.S.A. delivers 7,000 lumens of brightness and a 1,800:1 contrast ratio, making it suitable for large venues.

Bill Tyson has been advising colleges and universities on getting media attention for more than 30 years through his firm Morrison & Tyson Communications. Now he's taken some of that knowledge and put it into Pitch Perfect: Communicating with Traditional and Social Media for Scholars, Researchers, and Academic Leaders (Stylus Publishing, 2010), a how-to guide for thoughtful communications planning that can increase the likelihood of national media coverage.

Nearly a decade ago, Oklahoma City Community College installed state-of-the-art administrative system technology from Datatel that linked its student, finance, and human resources information systems together. It worked wonderfully - until staff turnover and training lapses diminished its utility.

For years, Butte College in California put up with an internal IT system that left huge gaps in the ability of administrators, faculty, staff, and students to electronically communicate with each other. Administrators were unable to send memos targeted to, say, faculty members or the public works staff. Professors were unable to communicate with specific classes. And students had to go through separate log-in procedures to access the system's Web Advisor - and Blackboard - functions, as well as their e-mail accounts.

Clemson University, located in the Upstate of South Carolina, has always been quick to use technology tools to advance the accessibility of higher education.

With 55 sites around the world, 17,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff, distance learning, training, support and the accessibility to other suites of e-education tools is critical.

Adobe Connect is a key tool in that effort, said Deb Charles, manager of instructional services for the university's computing and information technology department.

It is easy to communicate with constituents when you are talking about enrollment growth, a large financial gift, faculty accomplishments and new building projects. But what about when the going gets rough? What then? How do you share bad news with individuals, both internal and external, who are vested in your institution?

College students are big users of social media and use sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to post opinions - good and bad - about their schools. Our Web seminar panelists, Karli Grant, of Campus Management, and Fritz McDonald, of Stamats Communications, provide insights into what is happening online and how you can monitor and influence your cyberspace reputation.

Karli Grant
Senior Market Strategy Manager, Campus Management

It's 2010. Do you know where your mobile web visitors are? If your college or university hasn't managed yet to provide an online presence for this growing section of its target audience, it should probably have been named a New Year's resolution. The days where desktop computers—or even their little brothers the laptops and netbooks—were the only important devices in web town are over. The year of the mobile web has finally dawned upon us, and there is no turning back.