When COVID-19 required the 6,700 students of the University of Chicago College, the #6 ranked undergraduate college in the United States, to pack their belongings and travel home to learn remotely for the spring 2020 quarter, communication became the foremost means of informing, guiding, and maintaining the connectivity of the undergraduate community.
Only two years prior, the college had hired its first communications team to build its first communications function. Now, the team would need to quickly evolve how it executed internal, external, and digital communications, creating new strategies, platforms, and channels to 1) preserve reputation and enrollment while helping 2) faculty and students to seamlessly teach and learn remotely, 3) on-campus programming to virtually maintain culture and student engagement, and 4) students to access academic and wellness resources, regardless of whether they were located near campus or across the United States, Europe, Asia or the Middle East. Not only were 154 communication and crisis management activities successfully executed and all goals achieved with 40% engagement gains across multiple communication channels, but the college also experienced no decline in enrollment the following academic year.
