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[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARCUS ROBINSON: How you doing this morning? It's the end of the semester. It's going to
be, I think, almost 80 degrees today outside. Which is great since last week it was snowing.
The last IT Matters I said is on the weather great it's not snowing-- this is back in February--
and last week it was snowing. So, don't know what that's all about.
Well thank you all for being here today. This is a record crowd. A lot of interest in this
topic. I believe we had 294 folks register for this event. And it looks like pretty much
everyone showed up. I know we almost ran out of coffee. We almost had a three alarm fire
over here. Run out of coffee in the morning-- that could have been dangerous.
Before we get to the panel I just wanna real quick-- click my little clicker here-- and
just remind you of a couple links. This was running during the scroll this morning during
breakfast. Couple websites to check out. The "recognizes" website.
We're actually gonna be handing out some hardware today. We have some great awards that we're
going to be presenting to some great people for some great things that they've done in
the last year. So were going to do that at the end of the program, but all that information
is out on the "recognizes" website. And there's also some thank you notes, I think. Yup, right
here. Let me grab one off the table.
So these thank you cards-- talked about this at the last IT Matters-- we have 'em out again.
So there's pens as well as some of these thank you notes. These are just a way to say thanks
to our colleagues across IT for all of the great things they do throughout the year.
So if you have a colleague, someone you work with who deserves to be thanked-- and I think
everyone probably deserves to be thanked for something-- I'd encourage you to put in your
name, their name, and a little thank you, leave it on the table, we will collect it.
And we will take that back. We will post it to the IT website at that "recognizes" address.
And we will also drop this in the mail and send it to them. So they'll get a great little
personalized thank you in the mail. And they'll get recognized out on the IT site.
We have the ones from the last IT Matters posted out there. And hopefully a few of you
received these in the mail. So those are in the center of the table, fill 'em out leave
'em, we'll pick 'em up.
Secondly, we have "shares" and "forums", the two other web addresses that are out on the
slide there. Those are also featured on the centerpieces on the table. We have two programs.
IT Shares, which is a leadership tools, tips, tricks program that we run throughout the
year.
It's a brown bag at lunch time. So you pack your lunch, show up. The next topic is listed
there on the-- excuse me as I switch hands-- listed there on the centerpiece. And then
the forums are informal, peer led programs, to share what's going on in IT.
So we also have the next program listed there. That one's not over lunch, but you're welcome
to bring food with you. So check those two programs out. And write out a thank you and
we'll collect that.
I'm talking fast because we have a very packed program this morning. We have a great panel.
And we have the awards. So we're going to run pretty much right into the panel.
I know before we started Anne was asking about all the video cameras and lighting and whether
or not we can do any touch-ups after the program to, you know, hair and all of that. And I
told her that we routinely touch up Kevin's hair. So, wait, I promised I wouldn't make
any hair jokes, even though I do have a lot more. Anyways, all right on that note, take
it away. Please welcome our guests.
[APPLAUSE]
KEVIN MOROONEY: Well, thanks Marcus. And, I don't know about you, well if somebody could
actually save one of those cards because I'd like to thank Marcus for not talking anymore.
If one of you could fill that out.
I'm very pleased to be with you this morning-- good morning-- with three folks that I've
been getting to know over the last year. And when Marcus and I we're talking about how
we'd finish up the academic year with one of these breakfasts, this emerged immediately
as a great conversation to have. About a year ago, I think, is when Marcus and I were invited
to a University Marketing Council meeting.
So that's an email that shows up in my inbox. And I said, oh, there is a University Marketing
Council, didn't even know it existed. Marcus and I exchanged some emails. And say, let's
go to this, let's learn a little bit about it. And I was absolutely blown away by the
conversation that I heard. Because-- I'm darn near 25 years now at Penn State-- and it's
not very usual that I walk into a room and hear a conversation, and see this completely
new prospective on university life.
So some of you've heard me talk a lot about, or a little bit about, trying to find a way
to connect to mission and connect to purpose. Most often I frame that around getting involved
with students and getting involved with faculty, teaching faculty, research faculty. And we've
had examples of all these in this breakfast.
But through the eyes the University Marketing Council, and the conversations that I've been
able to listen to, and barely begin to contribute to, I've got this whole new way that I'm connecting
to purpose because it's through the lens of people like this-- and I'm going to ask them
to introduce themselves in just a moment-- that I've been able to learn about a whole
new slice of university life.
So that's really our goal this morning. Is to see if we can in about 45 to 50 minutes
do for all of us what's been able to happen to both Marcus and myself over the last year.
So what I'd like to ask you guys to do if you could, is to introduce yourselves, tell
us a little bit about what you do for Penn State at large. But then also talk a little
bit about the University Marketing Council. And then we'll take it from there.
And just as a reminder I'll be following the PSU IT connects hashtag if you want to ask
questions at any point. Marcus got a microphone that's floating around, and you could write
questions down as well. So I encourage you to load up your questions early and often.
So why don't we start Cindy Hall. Cindy.
CINDY HALL: Hi. Yes, I'm Cindy Hall. I'm Associate Vice President for University Relations and
I also oversee the marketing and branding efforts for Penn State University. And also
the Chair of the University Marketing Council.
The marketing council has been around for several years now. And I guess we're stealth,
now that I hear from Kevin. We meet about every two months. And we have folks that oversee
really the major marketing units for the university.
Obviously, the folks here, and I'll let them introduce themselves, but also from intercollegiate
athletics, we have a representative from one of the academic colleges, the campuses, WPSU.
Really a wide, wide collection of folks that sit around and talk about some of the most
critical marketing issues for the university. As we all know, we have many right now.
In addition to chairing the University Marketing Council, I chair the Philadelphia branding
council. Which is about 30 folks. And we meet every two months in Philadelphia. We're working
on major branding campaigns down there. As well as the Pittsburgh marketing council.
Same situation, every two months in Pittsburgh. So let me turn it to Anne now.
ANNE ROHRBACH: Good moring, I'm Anne Rohrbach. I'm Executive Director for Undergraduate Admissions.
And the role at Penn State is a unique one because we really have 20 campuses for undergraduate.
I think you that as many of you work with our campus colleagues.
Much of what we do is really relationship building, if you will. Relationship with our
students who are out there, our prospective families, and working to help them know why
Penn State's important and how Penn State can help them meet their educational goals.
We go about that and in many ways internally, and externally, trying to deliver the best
message about Penn State. Earlier and earlier we have sophomores, ninth graders coming to
visit, families thinking about take the cost of higher education and how Penn State will
deliver what they want, and how it will help them reach their educational goals.
Typically are our students are the traditional students who are on the pathway from high
school, coming directly to the university. We expect about 7200 plus at University Park
next year, and they're mostly traditional students who will be joining us. Today is
May 1, so it's a very nervous day in admissions when we're hoping that we will hear from all
the students that we've been talking with, and telling them why Penn State. They make
their decision today-- is kind of a national day of this is where I'm going to college.
So we'll be watching very closely where those students decide to come.
But more and more we're saying it's not just the traditional students, university is expecting
about maybe 15,000 new students, and that includes a diverse population. Much more diverse
than ever, and that's not just ethnic, but cultural. Different students from different
economic, social economic backgrounds, geographic diversity-- we have been recruiting and reaching
students out of state and internationally for the last 10 years. We have community recruitment
centers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia reaching first generation students and urban populations.
So we really span the globe. We'll have been in 30 different countries recruiting international
students for our class this year. And as Tracey will tell you, our adult population becomes
more and more important in that diversity. How can we help students who may have not
gone to college right out of high school, but have decided now they need that education
in their work and in their lives to enrich their success and their futures?
The World Campus students all come through our application process. So there are many
ways of looking at transfer students. And that's another part of our mission, to reach
the students who might be in community colleges and be somewhere else, but Penn State will
give them that end goal.
And as we think about shaping the class, then there are many ways that we're to build this
class of ours-- not just the numbers, and not just the majors that they're looking at--
but guess that we need like 100 nursing students, and our architecture students-- about 60.
And don't forget about the musical theater students, we need 12 of those--
KEVIN MOROONEY: No. Don't forget about the musical theatre students.
ANNE ROHRBACH: We need 12 of those. We need six men and six women. So sometimes I feel
like we're really filling the ark. And trying to think about all of the many ways that students
will bring to our community their talents, and the things that they're excited about
it and make us a better university. That just gives you an overall view. We can talk more
about marketing.
As you could understand the messaging and the communication that we have through our
university marketing, and through all of our communication, has to be consistent. Has to
be that message about what Penn State is, and why come to Penn State. That's much of
what we focus on. Why would you pick Penn State? We need to keep that message consistent,
broadly, because of how it's delivered throughout the Commonwealth, primarily through our campuses,
and through all of the students, and all of the people work coming to us we want them
to get the right message and to know that we're going to deliver our promise of what
we tell them about Penn State.
KEVIN MOROONEY: So now you know why Anne's golf game isn't quite what it should be. It's
sound like you're a little busy. And whenever you see musical theatre they are supposed
to stand up break into song.
ANNE ROHRBACH: I won't be part of that. I'll just bring in the class that does that.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Tracy.
TRACEY HUSTON: So I'm Tracy Houston. I'm the Executive Director of Outreach Marketing,
Customer Relationship Management, and Web Experience at Penn State with also the Admission
Services unit. I think Martha's here today, and a couple of my other folks are here today.
And in the outreach area we're really focused on how we can extend the university, both
disseminate research for practical application through things like extension in our non-credit
programming, as well as really focusing on credit programming. And how we can deliver
that at a distance to students who would love to have a Penn State degree, but are location
bound. We have a large military population through the World Campus. And we serve adult
learners across the country, and worldwide, in our World Campus, and some of our continuing
education programming.
We're a huge growth opportunity for Penn State. We're growing at about 20% annually in terms
of our enrollments. Our course enrollments will reach about 47,000 this year. And our
overall head count of non-duplicated world campus students is about 11,000 now.
So we're really proud of the opportunity to take the Penn State quality degree that is
grounded in the academic homes, working closely with the academic partners, and being able
to deliver that at a distance, not only in Pennsylvania, but mainly across the United
States, and worldwide. And some of the stories are really compelling when we talk to our
military students, or some of our adult learners, who started a degree long ago, and had to
give it up for multiple reasons, family and work reasons. And they always wanted to come
back to Penn State, or they wanted a Penn State degree, or they wanted a college degree
overall.
And this gave them an opportunity to really come back to school, come back to a great
school with a great brand, study at a distance with professors who were tenured. And grounded
in our academic colleges and our campuses statewide, and to get that degree. And this
week we will celebrate on Saturday with a special reception because one of the nicest
things about this is that the students get to come to a reception on Saturday. And they'll
meet their advisors-- maybe for the first time face to face-- and they'll meet some
of their classmates. And so we celebrate with an open house. And then they go through the
graduation program, just as they would with other students.
It's a very competitive market so we built a very sophisticated in-house marketing unit
to compete. If you think about some of our competitors, University of Maryland, University
College, University Massachusetts, online, obviously University of Phoenix. University
of Phoenix annual marketing spend is more than $650 million. And when you add in the
marketing, their business development and sales and recruitment spend--
KEVIN MOROONEY: If anybody's feeling dizzy it's OK just grab something--
TRACEY HUSTON: It's nearly a billion when you add in those entities. The way we've organized
for world campus continuing education-- and about 85% of our staff time is committed to
those two portfolios of work-- though we do have also a very robust non-credit offering
as well with some of our work in Shaver's Creek, in conferencing, small business development
center, Pennsylvania technical assistance program, in collaboration with colleges, and
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
When you look at that it's a very significant part of our work. And we've organized in a
way so that we can create a seamless pipeline for everyone from pre-prospect through applicant.
So that's why the admissions unit and the marketing unit have been integrated together
because at a distance we want to make that as seamless as possible for those learners.
As Anne said, we don't accept our students. Forever and ever I've said this a lot, we
want to preserve the integrity of the admissions acceptance process. So Martha and her team
work very closely with Anne's team, not only on providing the services and working on the
conversion of adult learners, but, more importantly, Anne's team has the responsibility to accept
any of our students into those degree seeking programs.
We don't do any of that work. Our work is more in the front end and focusing on the
conversion of those students and really helping them to navigate through systems. Imagine
if you were in Iraq, in the military, and you had to navigate the systems, get your
high school transcripts, do some of that kind of work.
It's really an arduous process for a lot of our adult learners. And our admissions staff
really focus as facilitators to help navigate all of that and working then closely with
central admissions.
KEVIN MOROONEY: You've cracked open one of the important nuts for me over the last year,
which is getting a completely new perspective-- personal perspective-- on how competitive
the recruiting landscape is. Cindy could you tell us a little bit more about the Philadelphia
marketing council and what the competitive threat looks like there, and what our competitors
are doing, and what we're doing to try to climb to the top of the stack?
CINDY HALL: Sure, and Anne joins me on that council. We have pulled together all of the
entities that are in Philadelphia, which also includes the MBA program, Smeal in the Navy
Yard, and the three campuses down in that region. We've got about 30 some folks on that
council And we have a very large marketing research study that we've just brought in
that talks with prospective high school students, business leaders whose hire our students,
parents of students planning to go on to college in the Philadelphia area, guidance counselors,
community college transfers. So it's multiple audiences using multiple methods.
And we have really been doing some fairly sophisticated marketing research down there.
As part of that we did a trade off analysis where we tested the decision point in terms
of what is it that will sway a prospective student in terms of the array a majors, residence
halls, etc., so we can better understand where to put our capital funds. We tested about
five academic majors to launch in the greater Philadelphia area.
We have brought in all that marketing research and its with the president and provost now
in the three chancellors down there. And then are holding an all day retreat in Philadelphia
in about two weeks to review all that research. We're also looking at a greater Philadelphia
branding treatment because we're finding it very difficult to compete with the institutions
in that arena. We can't compete very well on price. As most of you probably know, they're
deep discounting tuition, and calling it scholarships, and every high school student and their parent
wants a scholarship. So we're finding it very, very difficult.
They're also way outspending us in terms of their marketing dollars. And I believe we
get 30% of our students out of Philadelphia.
ANNE ROHRBACH: I think it's close to 30% of our new students will be coming from the Philadelphia--
greater Philadelphia area-- so it's a significant impact to our enrollments--
KEVIN MOROONEY: And that instutional. That 30%.
ANNE ROHRBACH: That would be all campuses across the system. It's a huge market for
us and it's a growing market where some parts of Pennsylvania are really in a deep decline
and that's part of some of the issues that we're dealing with in an area that primarily,
especially our campuses, have been here to really educate the sons and daughters of the
Commonwealth. Those individuals aren't there. They're not in Pennsylvania. But Philadelphia
is one area that we do see some strengths and growth.
CINDY HALL: When we run our market research we looked at in terms of a competitive set
of institutions which Anne's office helps us to identify. A competitive set of five
institutions-- where we stand in that mix. And then, for instance, if we were to add
a residence hall to Penn State Abington, would it sway the student or not. Where's the decision
point on that?
In addition we're writing a marketing plan for the whole Philadelphia area. We're hoping
to replicate that in Pittsburgh. We've had two meetings out there. And I think we're
well under way in that arena too. These are very new ventures for the university. Kind
of taking an integrated approach to marketing and having everybody pull forward as a team.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Well I was going to ask you one question but since you've gone there I
was going to maybe try to pull that in later. We have all been for the Penn State IT Assessment,
the core council, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] Information Technology Leadership Council, etc., have
been trying to re-factor the tension, and actually turn it into a positive thing for
how we do IT planning and IT service provisioning. And we've been at it for several years now,
actually, and, the fact we've got almost 300 people here is one measure of maybe it's getting
better.
But this group, and all of us, deal with the same kind of tension that you just started
to talk about Cindy. So if you could I'd like to get all three of your perspectives on how
it is, the centralized message, the consistent message them that's already come up here this
morning. And also having a more specific marketplace to deal with it. Tracey's a little more focused.
And other members of the University Marketing Council are as well. So you might bring that
to bare. Tracey, what are some of the things that you're doing and you see the University
Marketing Council doing to better manage that tension and turn it into a positive?
TRACEY HUSTON: So one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is a customer centric
channel strategy for the university, and really looking at it from who are our customers.
And if you think about that we have definitely different segments of the population. Sean
Young who oversees the work at the College of Medicine, he's really focused on families
and patients. When you look at athletics, they're really focused on fans, student recruits,
and student athletes, as their population. We have the business services units that are
really looking at transactional customer oriented-- you want to come to a Bryce Jordan center
event, you would like to participate in a conference, you want to rent this space for
a wedding reception. So those are business transaction type services.
You've got undergraduate students. You've got adult learners. You've got graduate students.
So each one of those is a different channel population. And the messaging, and what we're
actually hoping to achieve with each of those groups is very different.
And so, if we were to look at a channel strategy, I think, and focus, and that's what the marketing
council that Cindy's put together is able to do because she's brought all the champions
for each one of those channels together, to work A., How do we do the business that we're
responsible for doing and meet the goals that we have? But, B., how then do we look at cross
marketing opportunities and cross selling opportunities and leveraging all these relationships
that we built.
And when you think about the campuses in the colleges I like to use a term that maybe some
of you've heard in your business as well, the idea of glocalization. And so it talks
about taking a global brand, and localizing it. Localizing it for community when we're
talking about service regions of the campuses. Or localizing it and having a sub brand architecture
related to each of those channels, whether it's adult learners you're trying to recruit,
or you working with patients and families at the medical center, or you're looking at
fans or alumni, donors, etc.
So each one of those as a channel. Some of them across many. And the marketing council
enables us to start to really think strategically about each channel, and what the metrics of
success might be, as well as across channels, and how we might leverage those opportunities
in relationships to build a stronger Penn State.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Anne, how do you see this playing out?
ANNE ROHRBACH: I think that I'm looking at it probably from some of the things we do
internally, and externally. We're, I think, as a compliment some people have said you're
well-oiled machine. And we do that efficiently, internally, to make it the delivery of our
information in a central place. We've invested a lot of our resources, our technical resources,
and our staff resources-- and I see some of them here-- to develop a web application that
we've home grown, and that is on a platform that can deliver information from the website
to a MyPennState account, with social media.
So that we can reach all of these constituents, and they have one place to go. They can get
good information, smart information, move on to the next step within the university,
and try to get that information that they need. Whether it's to apply, whether it's
to accept online. They can do things really centrally. They can get the materials that
they need. Instead of the print form, we now have the issue software. Were doing social
networking.
We are also going to invest in a CRM that will help, I think, make communication more
personal. I really feel that there's so much that our families, our students, and customers
as you call them, really are expecting from us to deliver. That we need to be internally
efficient, and delivering the best service so that they can get the right message when
they need it. When they need that information they'll know where to go as a central point
of information.
KEVIN MOROONEY: So if we were at a summer picnic and there was a three-legged race,
I would pick Cindy as my partner because we'd win. Many times when we talk about this dynamic,
I feel it we're half-walking in lockstep on this. And trying to make the tension better.
So what's your perspective on all this Cindy?
CINDY HALL: I'll just take a little different spin on this. We've actually been examining
our organization in terms of marketing and communications, and feeling that we need to
be doing a better job. And admittedly some of this has come about because of the reputational
damage that we've all suffered as the institution has with the recent crisis.
We are doing an internal assessment across the university that is about three days from
complete, where we did in depth interviews with the head of marketing communications
units, and over 50 units across the university. Looked at all their organizational charts
and audited at all their marketing communications materials. So--
KEVIN MOROONEY: Sound familiar? It's a pretty similar process.
CINDY HALL: Actually if I could steal your report. That would be easier. So we have that,
and then we also have an external consultants who has come in to help us also take a look
at the way we're structured. Because to some degree in marketing communications arena has
really been built up over time. And I'm not sure the infrastructure is where it should
be. We are a complex organization. 10 years ago, maybe less than 10? We didn't necessarily
think we had to market ourselves.
We're not quite where we need to be now in terms of addressing the competitive marketplace,
the changing demographics of the state, the situation with this state funding, and even
the declining economy. So we have all these forces on us, on top of top of the competitive
threat, and we find ourselves sort of to some degree in a perfect storm, and needing to
take a look again at our infrastructure and see what we can be doing to do things a little
better than we have in the past. That's a little different spin, but that some of the
work we're doing. And a lot of that work comes out of the University Marketing Council.
KEVIN MOROONEY: So you you've opened up the door to one of the things I wanted to get
you guys to reflect on, which is, as I mentioned, was about a year ago, Marcus and I were first
invited to our first University Marketing Council meeting. And this time last what year
was very different than this time this year. So late fall something happened, and, again,
mostly as a *** in the room, the room changed.
Right, I mean, all of our rooms changed . But I'd like for all of you to reflect a little
bit on how it's changed your approach to getting the Penn State message out there. Because
part of the message is, what happened to us. But we're still doing an awful lot of good
work. And I see an awful lot of work at the University Marketing Council and the conversation--
staying focused on the entire Penn State message. Cindy, how has that changed your job and how
you're behaving?
CINDY HALL: I think when the crisis first broke it was very difficult. The university
relations unit is a very small unit. And the public information unit, of course a very
small. Completely unprepared staffing-wise to be able to handle something of this magnitude.
So step one, there's an issue there. Also just the landscape changing basically almost
every 15, 20 minutes. Very, very difficult.
I think as we've grown over that time there is a recognition that we need to have a group
of folks who are completely dedicated to the crisis, and what is still yet unfold, maybe.
But there's also a larger area, certainly university relations, and across the institution,
that needs to focus on the long term branding and reputation of the university. It's easy
when you go into a crisis mode, to forget about the long term, but we just can't do
that anymore. And I think that's where the group of folks sitting up here and many others
in the university are trying to move forward.
We've got to keep these very large initiatives moving. Whether it's Polaris in the web presence,
or the big Philadelphia branding project, or whatever, we simply have got to look forward
instead of hovering in that crisis mode.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Anne.
ANNE ROHRBACH: I think it's really helped us get back to our core, about why Penn State.
It's helped us reflect on what is this all about why are we marketing, why are we talking
with students and families. It's really because Penn State is an exceptional academic institution.
And students who come here are going to be successful and contribute to their world.
It's kind of an internal look at as we need to figure out how to do that better. And I
think we are going to be better, much better, out of this because we're having to work together
a lot harder maybe than we did before where we felt, well things are fine, that we're
Penn State, they're going to keep coming.
We need to really tell the story now. We need to be very targeted on how we tell that story.
And deliver the real message about Penn State and the academic strengths, the research that's
here.
I know we're delivering some of that already on the web. The public website that the University
Marketing Council's been working on. And that's a front door to the university. And really
telling people about who we are. As tough as it has been from day to day, some of the
relationships are actually stronger because telling the story one to one, telling families,
or telling just even our colleagues, and working together more strategically to really get
to where we want to be.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Tracey.
TRACEY HUSTON: I'll give you a little bit of a different approach. For me because we
have such a customer facing, or prospect facing group, the first thing that I did was give
them an opportunity to express how they felt about all of this. And give them a safe space
to just get it all out it. And have conversations and engage in their own-- deal with their
own personal feelings-- about all of it.
Because I had to send them back out to be resilient, and to work with people from across
the country in the world who were upset and angry, confused. And so they needed to be
strong, and they needed to be the voice of Penn State. And so I wanted to make sure,
first, that they had the opportunity to express their feelings. And then build strength and
resiliency together so they could go back out to the front lines and field calls and
emails, and be the best for Penn State.
And I use the analogy that regardless of what happened on November 4th. On November 10th,
when we all spoke as a group, there were doctors at Hershey who still had to do surgery. And
that needed to be their focus. And we too had a focus, which was to go out and engage
in difficult conversations. But engage in conversations with folks who wanted to talk
with us about what had transpired.
In so, that was where we really focus the majority of our energy in that first week.
We did at Cindy's direction, pull back-- we do some We Are Penn State. We get about 110,000
calls annually to our front lines. And the first question that they have is this the
real Penn State? Penn State online. The ability to study in my kitchen, in my office, and
my battlefield, and my vacation spot, and get a Penn State degree is just a really great
attribute and asset for folks. And so they want to make sure is this the real Penn State.
And so a lot of our messaging, and everything we do, really does bleed blue and white. But
we pulled back some from the we are Penn State, the sense of some level of arrogance with
that, etc., during that early time. And so we were very sensitive about the messaging.
We wanted to reach out. Heather Chakiris, who oversees our Advising and Learner Success
area, has been really tremendous in terms of her work with students. So we did a lot
of communicating out to students. Again, they were at a distance, and they were hearing
about it in a big way because it was national news.
So we focus first on are our closest stakeholders, employees and staff, and then on our students,
and prospects, and how we should handle that, and then our overall messaging that was broadcast
nationally because where we had just launched a national campaign. We're focusing on a few
strategic states. And we had just done that. And we had to pull back from that.
And we also then went into mode where we measured metrics on a weekly basis. Request for information,
application starts, all of that data on a weekly basis, so we could provide to our vice
president for president's counsel to monitor if there would be any impact at the state,
national, and international level in terms of our applications and in our request for
information. So that's how we approached it.
KEVIN MOROONEY: So Cindy, we've talked a lot about the competition for the traditional
student, and a nontraditional student. I know you've also been having lots of contact time
with the research enterprise, and leaders of the research enterprise. Can you expose
a little bit about what the conversations going? Because we also compete ferociously
for research dollars, and for good faculty?
CINDY HALL: If you were paying close attention which probably no one in hear is that interested.
That's OK, I don't know your area. You can see us start to change. Watch some of our
TV spots were moving on the brand.
We're doing a lot more focused on the research enterprise. We're doing a lot more on undergraduate
research. We've had a number of meetings with the vice president for research and the grad
school also.
And I know there's a plan being developed to address those needs more. But if you take
a look at the leukemia spot that you might have seen on the home page, and again the
current undergraduate research spot, you can start to see the difference. It's very subtle.
We have to be careful as we start to make some of the shifts. That we don't make them
to dramatically, and then become folks say, you know, I know what they're doing.
But we are starting to move that direction in support of the research enterprise. We've
done some major marketing research studies for academic colleges. Now I guess it's been
two years ago. We did one for the College of Engineering where we went out and ran research
across the US which were in-depth interviews with vice presidents for global strategy,
global research, and major, major corporations, and major government funding sources.
These folks were not Penn State alums, or donors, they had to affinity to the institution.
So we were able to get a pretty good snapshot in terms of the College of Engineering. Where
we stood against competitive institutions, and we came back in then with a series of
recommendations in that regard. So that was a very much focused on the research enterprise,
and also in addition the recruitment of doctoral students in the College of Engineering. I
think we're going to be doing more and more in that regard.
KEVIN MOROONEY: There's at least one, one and 1/2 questions out there. I would encourage
you to keep sending them to the Twitter feed. And also, I haven't seen Marcus. Did he leave
early again? Oh, there he is. But he's got a microphone there if you ask your questions
as well.
I thought I'd start with Anne. It's sort of a two part question. So Josh wherever you
are, I am going to sort of bend your question a little bit. So is information technology,
or just technology itself, ever a part of the message? And then also, on the other side
of that, what is your view on and how technology supports information technology supports all
the things that you have to do?
ANNE ROHRBACH: I don't know that it's a direct part of the message, but I hope that it would
be noticed by those who come to Penn State. That we've invested in technology. That they
have a high level of service through the web interfaces that we built. And at the application--
that is our own home grown, it's not a product of someone else, it's a Penn State product--
that we've developed internally, it's smart, it's easy to use. It delivers a really good
informational source.
And gives us a lot of internal information that we need to build a student record. So
it is both good for students, and good for us efficiently. The message that we deliver
through MyPennState might be that the best source of information. It's a student account
where the student can come in at any time. And we encourage them to open an account.
And have lots of goals of things that we still can't deliver, but there's information about
the college, about the campus, and that changes real time when the student changes that information
within their account. So they can learn about what they need to know or how they can visit
a campus if they're in the early stages of prospecting. And we're in the process of upgrading
our event management system that is behind the scenes.
As is true at Penn State, we're such a complex, broad reaching university. We have 20 campuses
so think about all of the complexity of building an event system, for example, that will help
with all of the nuances, between parking at Erie, to what Schuylkill might be able to
offer in the evening for visitation programs, to anything that we're doing here at University
Park, we spend a summer day open houses.
So our enterprises is really invested on the best we can deliver with that technology,
and trying to engage. I guess I get back to that keeping students coming back to us for
information with student blogs and social media and Facebook, is pretty much a standard.
But we really feel we do it better. We hope we do a better. We're trying to get there
with more information through current technologies.
We've got a whole list of things that we're always trying to strive to invest in. And
we're going to be going mobile with our website within the next month, this may. So just within
a few weeks we're doing usability, and accessibility, at the same time. That's really hugely important
to students, and to us, to have that available so that we can reach all kinds of students.
And have it on their tablets, and our smart phones now because that's how they really
finding out about their status message. And how they can actually pay online for their
acceptance-- which we hope they're doing right now-- as I speak.
We're just heavily invested in technology. It's been exciting because I don't come from
a technology background. But, I'm learning every day. We have a priorities group that
meets. And we strategically think, OK, what's on the next docket, where are were investing,
and how we getting that information to help the recruitment, of course, but also to help
us efficiently, internally. We've done a lot of things and we still are hoping to deliver
more. Hope that answers.
TRACEY HUSTON: The way we look at technology is the technology is not the driver, but it's
the enabler. And it enables us to do a lot of things. It enables us to extend the reach
of the university, whether it's through compelling content in public broadcasting. It enables
us to extend the university through the delivery of degree programs. And we're focusing now
some attention on non-credit online offerings. And we have just starting to build that portfolio
of work. So it enables us to deliver credit and non-credit programming at a distance.
Technology enables us to engage with students and prospects. We have a fairly sophisticated--
working on the development Talisma system-- and we're meeting with Anne's group this afternoon
to talk further about that. It's automated campaign communication. So it makes us more
efficient, and also enables us to engage more with our prospects and learners.
It also enables us to do things like-- Heather Chakiris is able to do a lot of experimentation.
And she did a very cool town hall meeting at a distance using Google+ where World Campus
students could hang out, and do live call in. And they could text, and tweet, and reach
Heather and Wayne Smutz, and other members of the World Campus leadership team, in a
virtual town hall meeting.
We're interested in maybe doing some virtual admissions open houses the same way. And so
it enables us to engage, it enables us to educate, it makes us more efficient. And it
enables us to educate groups that otherwise we couldn't with really good compelling content.
And so we see it as an enabler, not as the driver, even in World Campus. And that's basically
been the mantra since the beginning. And all of that is possible through the work of the
academic colleges because all of the programming, whether it's public broadcasting or World
Campus, is done in collaboration with the academic colleges. So lights out to them.
KEVIN MOROONEY: As an IT professional when the lights go out, I start to sweat even more.
Somebody we may just hit the switch. Sorry, but that makes me very nervous.
TRACEY HUSTON: I said lights out of the academic partners that we have because they make it
all possible.
KEVIN MOROONEY: I got a question from and Allan Gyorke. That's a great Twitter icon,
by the way. The question may be very hard to answer, so I'll ask it slowly so you can
think about. One of the reasons it's been really fun to be a part of this conversation
of the last year is that, much to my surprise, then it shows you how much of a fool I am,
how quantitative the conversation is.
I didn't realize that it was as quantitative and as hard as what I perceive a lot of what
we do in IT. And so Allan's question is, is their data that you might be collecting through
the variety of your processes that we could actually convey into forecasting for the kinds
of technology we might need to deploy in student spaces. And this is more in a residential
context.
But can you think a little bit about that? And now this isn't Allan's question, but I'll
continue to talk a little bit. Can we create a capture moment to better understand where
the puck's going to be so we could start to move infrastructures and services to where
the class of 20, well now, 2017, 2018, needs it to be. Notice how I blamed the question
on Allan before I asked.
ANNE ROHRBACH: I'm not sure that we know we're going to be in five years. And you think,
did we know we're going to be today, five years ago. I think it's a world where it's
changing rapidly. I guess there are things that we look at that we're trying to think
how can we do that better? How can we deliver that better? Maybe that's that delivery of
service message that helps drive us.
What is it that's coming in our future. We're talking about Talisma. This is a customer
relationship, management tool. And it has a lot of capability, a really robust tool.
So, just even getting that platform it's not just about emailing students, but who knows
how they're going to get messages in the future.
We think email was state of the art, but they're moving to many other places where they get
their information, through social media. And the indicators are that this can help us with
a counselor database, an email system, or a communication system. And we just talk about
a broader scope of what we need to do.
We're always going to need continue to communicate, so how do we do that? How do we do their best?
And what are the tools that we need? And what are some of the things that our students--
our customers-- are telling us that they want to use. The tablets have just exploded. If
that's what they're using then how do we get the information to them in a way that they
can really find that information-- get that information.
It's, I don't know, I don't know how we map it out, except by listing to our customers,
and listening internally. So we're always trying to balance is this something that we
should invest in because it will help deliver the message and get information out there.
How will it help us efficiently.
We were just talking yesterday about-- great is our application is-- the transcript still
come in. And some of them come electronically because we have developed a web counselor
system with 700 schools, and their partners, and they send this transcript electronically.
And that's great. But that's probably only about 20% of the transcripts that we get.
So how do we get the rest of our technology piece to deliver things electronically so
that we can get out of the paper business.
And now we're finding students send us transcripts, even though they're doing the web application,
they send the transcripts to us. 12,000 came before the application. So some of that is
just thinking about the flow of information, and how can we take away from the time that
it takes to just open paper, and sort of paper, and really truly be electronic internally
for the things that we can do so that our service is better quality.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Cindy, do you any thoughts about that?
CINDY HALL: Well, not maybe directly at that question, but I'm thinking back probably seven
years ago, eight years ago-- I'm dating myself for sure. We looked at the way teens process
information. And we made some--
KEVIN MOROONEY: Oh do tell.
CINDY HALL: Probably startling decisions about our 30 second TV spot which a lot of folks
on campus said, I can't follow it, it's too fast. It's got like 30 scenes, 40 scenes,
in a matter of seconds, or whatever. But back then of course the term was multitasking.
And of course we found that students were having absolutely no trouble processing those
TV spots.
So actually the use of technology and the way ways folks process information we always
be helpful to us. I'm not sure that we could look out five years from now. But we can also
go in to 10th graders, and 11th graders, and those are certainly some of the questions
we ask when we're running focus groups. Whether they're in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or where,
is how they're using information.
So I think some of those finding from focus groups are helpful. I'm not sure that they're
going to be the big large quantitative studies that you might be interested in. For some
of that work we go into the existing secondary research. The Pew internet studies, those
type of things, but they're certainly an element of it in our primary research.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Took another question from the crowd. It's, arguably going to play a
little bit into, how you guys have reflected on the University Marketing Council and that
sort of core message, focused message, tension.
But with the sizes complexity the university how does market stay agile enough to meet
changing needs? I guess that's sort of a skating towards where the puck is going to be question,
but in a message standpoint. Tracey.
TRACEY HUSTON: One of the things that I encourage my staff to do is have a voracious appetite
for new knowledge, and new information because if you look at search engine marketing, and
you look at search engine optimization, and you look at customer relationship management,
and you look at social media, those things are changing so dramatically, so quickly,
and so in order to stay ahead of the curve, really looking at-- as Cindy indicated-- that
secondary research, and what's happening out there. When you mentioned Allan there are
a number of centers at the university who do tremendous work in this area. And that
we can leverage all of that knowledge in our research that's conducted in order for us
to be as smart as possible moving forward.
But it's really looking at all of those trends and following a lot of the corporate trends
that if we see we can replicate a lot of those things in higher ed and stay ahead of higher
ed, in some of those areas. So I'd say it's really being smart about professional development.
And about having a voracious appetite for learning about what's happening in these new
areas. And then leveraging all the intellectual assets we have at the university to bring
to bare on those things.
So, that's what I encourage our staff to do. And personally do. If we're in the continuing
and professional distance education business certainly we should model the best behaviors
when it comes to that kind of advancement and then learning of new knowledge. So that's
why would I recommend-- everybody to participate and work through.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Another question here. And this is what I was going to ask myself. How
are we changing the marketing message in engagement with international students? And I've heard
Michael [UNINTELLIGIBLE] speak several times recently over the last couple of weeks. And
we're having a lot of success with an increasingly diverse, but also just an increase in numbers
of international students. How are we changing the message there? Anne.
ANNE ROHRBACH: Internationals are just growing. And we're really pleased that they are seeing
the value of Penn State, and recognizing how important this university is. They do follow,
quite honestly, the ratings and the rankings in the US News and World Report. And I think
sometimes we're concerned about how some of those metrics are determined. Do they give
the full measure of what the university is and what can be experienced at the university?
But they are recognized around the world. And we hear from students that say, well I
know you're a certain number and this is really a good thing because you're in the top 50,
and you're in the top flagship universities.
I guess it is to our advantage right now. We have been recruiting actively for the last
10 years. Probably closer to 15 when we had small numbers. But now we have over 10,000
applications from undergraduate international students.
We've learned from them what they need. Again, on the communication delivery we've worked
internally to get the messaging on the web. We developed their offer information to be
completely electronic so we're not mailing anything internationally. So there are pieces
that we felt we needed to give them so that they could print the offer letter to get their
visas and make their arrangements in order to arrive here.
So we work very closely with global programs. Recruitment is really admission's focused.
But we're partnering with global programs as the students need the services to get their
I-20, and to arrive at the University. So it's been really exciting to see that, and
to talk with the students who are really excited about coming to the United States, and all
the opportunities that they'll have at Penn State.
KEVIN MOROONEY: So just one final question. And if you could, all three of you, take a
quick swing at. So there's-- what Marcus-- 290 people here. Looks like 280, 290.
So that's a big part of the workforce. What can we do to help? Is there anything in particular?
CINDY HALL: I don't know. I feel, you know--
KEVIN MOROONEY: And it doesn't have to be in an IT context. We're all Penn State employees.
How can we help?
CINDY HALL: I think certainly one the most important things everybody can do is get out
there with a good message. I was telling Kevin this morning-- I don't know about 6 am-- I
saw an email roll in, if anyone's here, the Alumni Association that the town hall meetings
with the football coaches are actually through the roof positive. And of course this is quite
a change from the alumni town hall meeting several months ago.
So this is a positive thing for us. I mean, we can be starting to turn a corner to some
degree in some of those areas. But it's going to be up to everybody in this room. Last week
we had all the communications and marketing professionals in. And Rod Erickson talked
to them a little bit. And, you know, it's the idea that we're all in this together.
We all have to move forward. And get these positive messages out because there's so much
wonderful happening at Penn State.
And yet it's been overshadowed with the situation. So I think that's something everyone can do.
I don't want to get too deep into the technology thing. I laugh about Polaris. But on the other
hand it's probably the very most important marketing tool we have for the university.
So everybody, I think we've got over 60 volunteers on that project. And it looks like we're in
it for the long haul.
So the support of everybody in this room, and I think there is going to many more volunteer
opportunities over the coming years. Your help is appreciated, your input. I know that
every piece of input that comes in is read and addressed.
So again, you may not have thought of the home page as the most important tool, in my
opinion, it certainly is in terms of branding for the university. So that's a big piece.
ANNE ROHRBACH: Send your sons and daughters to Penn State, your nieces, your nephews,
your neighbors. We all have our presence about Penn State. I think the more that we can work
together collaboratively, whatever it might be, a project, or it might just seem like
something that you're just doing as part of everything you do every day. It really all
adds up. It just is amazing synergy how we can move ahead.
TRACEY HUSTON: You can all be brand ambassadors for Penn State and the work you do related
to technology is greatly appreciated. I often tell the story to my staff that imagine if
there was a snowstorm, and there was six feet of snow, and we didn't plow the campus. Students
couldn't get to their classrooms for courses. Same way-- technology-- it is the campus for
World Campus. And so every week it has to be up and running. There can't be failures.
There can't be security breaches. There can't be issues related to that because it would
be like having five feet of snow on the sidewalks, and students couldn't get access to their
courses, to their classes, to their faculty.
So, the technology work that you do, thank you. Keep on doing the great work. And remember,
we're all were all brand ambassadors.
KEVIN MOROONEY: Well, I've learned a lot over the last years, as I've mentioned. And one
of the thing-- I don't know about you, OK-- so we all go to the various news outlets on
the web and social media sites. And I don't know about you, but when I'm done reading
the article, every time I say I'm not going to read the comments.
Every single time I say I'm not going to read the comments. And, yet I still do. And, I
don't know why I do that, but when I do it, sometimes I'll read that message about, Oh,
Penn State's trying to re-brand itself. You know what, the last year of being able to
listen to the conversation and get the insight on the intensity of what folks like Cindy
and Tracey do, because this is only what, a quarter, if not even that, of the University
Marketing Council, it has made me fiercely, and differently, proud of Penn State. And
so I'm really thankful you guys so what you do and we will take your good advice and I
want to thank you for helping us learn a little bit of something a little different about
Penn State this morning. Thanks guys.
[APPLAUSE]
MARCUS ROBINSON: And before we adjourn, we are going to-- and we'll have one more opportunity
to thank our panel. Before we adjourn we're going to go ahead and give out a few of the
annual Vice Provost for Information Technology IT Impact awards. I guess I said IT twice
there. So we have awards is in Collaboration, Out-of-the-Box Innovation, and Resource Responsibility.
And so what we'll ask-- the first and last awards are actually group boards, and the
middle award are two individuals this time around. So we'll do the collaboration award
first. But before we do that actually, I just want to get all the nominees to stand up.
So if you're a nominee for one of these awards want you to stand up real quick right where
you are. And let's give a round of applause all the nominees. Nominees stand up.
[APPLAUSE]
There is a lot of good work going on in IT. And it's great to be able to recognize some
of our colleagues. So for the IT collaboration award. I'm going to get my little chart here.
I'm going to ask the folks to come up so they can make their way up to the front. And then
I'll go ahead and actually read through some of the award nomination material. So could
I please ask-- sure I got this right-- yep, OK. Could I ask Beth Hayes, Mark Linton, Dave
McCobin Kathy Plavko, who I'm not sure she's here today-- she just actually just recently
retired-- and Suzanne Wayne. Yes, so she's not here, she's retired.
If I could ask you all to come also from a quick. So these folks are part of the IT Project
Management Leadership Group-- right over here. And they are been chosen as recipients of
the IT Collaboration Award for their dedicated efforts in creating the IT Project Management
Working Group.
The following text is taken from letters of support written by David Monk, Dean of the
College of Education, and Ron Dotson, Director of Special Projects and ITS. And they said,
I am extremely please the diverse group of university staff members involved with and
having a passion for project management have been able to develop a truly collaborative
environment that will contribute to the overall effectiveness of IT project management across
the university. Their willingness to share and learn from each other exemplifies the
collaborative spirit that this award aspires to recognize.
The working group has provided solid leadership for, and thus a very positive impact on the
institution's community of project managers. The group provides a forum for discussing
ideas, issues, and challenges faced by project managers of technical projects, identifies
project management best practices and tools, and promotes a project management culture
in the institution's IT organizations. Penn State needs to become more than a simple some
of its parts, and this group understands that a goal like this is best pursuits are open
communication and active involvement of all people.
So let's give a round of applause to our IT Collaboration Award recipients.
[APPLAUSE]
MARCUS ROBINSON: I should have clicked the little clicker first. So there they are up
on the screen. Thank you very much. All right, moving on to the Out-of-the-Box Innovation
awards. We have two awards. And these are individual awards. The first recipient and
so you'll see a click my clicker here we go maybe area Ryan Davisson.
And so Ryan Davisson is a recipient of these right here from us rind is as a recipient
of the out of the way to be in the front of the room, speeds things up-- is a recipient
of the Out-of-the-Box Innovation award for his outstanding work developing an how to
guide for iPad carts. The following text is taken from Gregory Crawford's letter of support.
Doctor Crawford is Director of the Penn State Harrisburg Library.
Ryan's effort has created a template for the entire university system. A how to guide on
developing, implementing, and managing an iPad cart. Not only was the cart an excellent
local solution, but it can be used throughout the entire Penn State system. The documentation
is superb. It solved a big problem. How can we loan out usable iPads, keep them secure,
and have it all managed by the circulation deck personnel at the library?
Ryan found us, and the university a way to do just that. Ryan also developed training
sessions. Here's a note of appreciation from the librarians. Ryan thanks so much for the
excellent training session. My employees thought you were great. You made everyone feel comfortable
with how the iPad part process works.
Your written documentation is easy to follow. The patrons are happy because they can borrow
iPads again. Everything is working just fine. I'm grateful for Ryan's knowledge, his innovative
nature, and his willingness to think outside the box in support of this educational mission.
Thanks for all of your hard work. Ryan Davisson everyone.
[APPLAUSE]
MARCUS ROBINSON: Second award is going to Bryan Ollendyke. Is Bryan here? Bryan? Bryan,
Bryan. No. I didn't see him this morning, OK. Well let me read real quick what Bryan
is receiving the award for. He's the second recipient of the Out-of-the-Box Innovation
award. And he's receiving this award for his masterful work on the e-learning management
system, otherwise known as ELMS.
Following is text from the support letter written by Doctor Keith Bailey, Assistant
Dean e-Learning Institute College of Arts and Architecture. It is with great pleasure
that I recommend Bryan for the IT Recognizes Innovation award. This recommendation comes
as a result of Bryan's ongoing efforts over the past six years to transform an open content
management framework, Drupal, into a highly scalable and customizable e-learning portfolio
management system, better known as ELMS.
Six other academic colleges and one campus have adopted the ELMS framework to deliver
their online course content. The various releases of the application of resulted in countless
conversations with other IT professionals from various universities and companies across
the country. I am thrilled that Brian has been nominated for this award. So just in
case he watches it online after the fact, let's give Bryan a round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]
MARCUS ROBINSON: And the last award, Resource Responsibility, is another group award so
I'll ask everyone to come up as their names appear on the screen. I need to get a clicker.
There we go. So can I please ask a Chris Lose, Heather Mann, Niki Page, Christy Shaw-Godinez,
and Mike Whyte to come up to the front.
And there they all, right back there. For their outstanding work on the SIMS budget
development team. So following is text from the nomination letter written by David Ginard,
Director Office of Research Information Systems and Office of Sponsor Programs. I am pleased
to nominate the Sims budget development team for the IT Recognizes Out-of-the-Box Innovation
award. Actually, Resources Responsibility award what that should say, I think.
The team integrated an in-house software system, SIMS budget, with a commercial product, to
produce a best of breed solution that greatly improved the grant proposal development and
submission process for the university. The team's efforts resulted in an impressive savings--
there's the resources possibility-- impressive savings by eliminating duplicate data entry
and reducing proposal errors to almost zero. The new system is also able to capture institutional
data that was previously tied up in discrete, downloadable forms.
It is estimated that a novice research administrator, using the new system, will save two hours
of proposal development time. And more experienced users will save one hour. The result is a
system that has met a critical Penn State business need using an innovative approach.
I congratulate the team for their outstanding work.
[APPLAUSE]
MARCUS ROBINSON: Let's give another round of applause to all of our award recipients.
[APPLAUSE]
MARCUS ROBINSON: I'd like to ask all the reward award recipients, if you would, after the
program, please meet over on this side of the lobby. Over towards the right side of
the lobby, out there out in the lobby for a photograph. Other than that, there was one
correction to the centerpieces. The IT forum that's coming up is coming up on May 8. It
can't really be coming up on March 8, unless we've figured out a time travel. So May 8,
from 3:00 to 4:00, not March 8. Other than that, thank you all for attending the season
finale of IT Matters. We will be back in the fall. And one more round of applause for our
panel. [APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]