Friday, September 01, 2006

Caleb Hale hits the nail on the head

In Caleb's column today in "The Southern" his point about SIUC always apologizing for tuition increases rings true.

It is clear that Caleb has put his finger on one of the fundamental problems at SIUC, the entire PR strategy is broken. What is SIUC selling? What is their message to perspective students and alumni? What message are they sending to the State? Uncle Walt thinks they are selling the buildings and physical beauty of the man made structures of the campus, but if you aren't an architect that is a stupid thing to bank on (it is stupid for an architect too, but they don't think like normal people as far as I can tell). It sure doesn't ring my chimes.

I figure there are about 20 full-time and highly paid people doing PR, speech writing or image management at SIUC. It is clear they just don't have a clue, because they have lots of time and energy to pour into it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A couple of years ago, I was talking with a friend who lives in Carbondale whose daughters were in high school and thinking about college. The file for SIUC in the guidence counselor's office had one sheet of paper with SIUC information. The counselor told her SIUC didn't do much to recruit in southern Illinois as the recruiters figured every potential student in the region already knew about the unversity and figured their efforts would be better spent outside the region.