Bob Dylan was not singing about higher education when he sang “the times they are a changin’,” but indeed many universities nationwide are experiencing an era of challenge and change. Our relatively small school at the flagship university in Colorado has experienced significant change over the past year-plus — from deanship transitions to sweeping budget and organizational change. These changes have led us to pivot and evaluate our communications strategies in real time while we attempt to remain true to our mission and center community-building among faculty, staff, students, and supporters. We don’t have all the answers, but we know we are not the only ones interested in exploring inclusive and transparent communications strategies during times of change and processing our emotions as staff leaders. In this interactive session, we will work through lessons learned around change management in our school as we explore case studies together about budget constraints, political scrutiny, leadership transitions, humanizing change management, and more.

In Fall 2023, Colorado State University unveiled a dynamic brand platform, launching across campus and in a multilingual recruitment campaign inviting audiences to “Find Your Energy” at CSU. This multi-year, award-winning initiative utilized an omni-channel approach for launch and expansion. MarComm collected broad feedback from stakeholder groups in the CSU community to foster adoption before launching this initiative, which captures a sense of awe and inspiration, telling stories about what makes CSU special. Learn how CSU, determined to propel its position as a leading higher ed competitor in Colorado, engineered alignment to capitalize on brand development and yield impressive results.

Rather than treating social media as a bulletin board that serves endless pieces of content by shouting into the void, learn how the University of Colorado Boulder captures data behind each social media post to help improve strategy and ensure less wasted effort (with the goal being no waste!). Dr. Noelle Seybert, Director of Social Media at CU Boulder, will walk the group through the approach, the execution, and the results behind the @CUBoulder social media data tracking and show how you, too, can get in on the fun!