Finding The Right Words
In late summer 2019, the University of Exeter was conducting tabletop exercises around the prospect of a global pandemic. As the Assistant Director of Communications at the U.K. university, Rob Mitchell knew all too well the value of such exercises in helping to ensure he and his team are prepared for potential life-and-death situations. But looking back now, he admits he thought to himself, “This has been a useful exercise, but luckily we’ll never have to deal with this.”
We all know how that story ended. Just seven months later, Mitchell, along with education communicators around the world, was leading a crisis communications plan on a scale that had no comparison. From the urgent shutdown of the university in March 2020 to the months that followed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Mitchell says there was a steady “drumbeat” of communication, all aimed at conveying transparency, safety, facts, and empathy.
Then, just one year later in March 2021, he was hit with a bomb that would, once again, call for crisis communication in an unprecedented situation. The potential of metaphorical “bombs” dropping at any moment on the routine happenings of a college campus is the very reason for crisis manuals and tabletop exercises.
The one at the University of Exeter, however, was literal. At 9:30 on a Friday morning, workers on the edge of campus discovered an undetonated World War II bomb. By 10 a.m. the area had been cordoned off and the university’s leadership team, including Mitchell, had assembled. Urgent, steady, and clear communications would be an essential component of safely evacuating students and staff.
That process was further complicated in some ways by the pandemic. Students needed to be relocated following distancing protocols. Hotels in the city were at a premium; many were still closed due to the pandemic and others were reserved for essential workers. But in other ways, the process was simpler because there were far fewer students and staff on campus.
“We were relocating hundreds as opposed to tens of thousands,” says Mitchell.
That Sunday, he and his team watched the controlled detonation of the bomb via live feed.
“Because it was planned and controlled, we thought we would see puffs of smoke,” recalls Mitchell. “[But] it was an absolutely enormous explosion! That graphically brought home what responsibility we were holding. If we had made a misstep—not just the communications team, but the entire university leadership group—the consequences could have been catastrophic.”
It’s been four years since the global pandemic tested and proved the talent, skill, and dedication of communications professionals at education institutions the world over. But that doesn’t mean any of them can rest on their laurels. In recent years, the figurative “bombs” have continued to drop as pressure—from constituencies both within and outside the campus confines—has mounted for institutions to take stands and make statements about political and societal issues. Chief communications officers and their teams are finding that the very act of making a statement, or not making a statement, can become the crisis. Many are going back to their crisis playbooks and adding guidelines that facilitate the decision-making process for responding to societal issues. And that process, they say, works best when it’s grounded in an educational institution’s mission.
"When the statement is limited to offering an emotional response or taking a position on an issue not related to our academic mission, we probably are not looking at a crisis, and we should question whether a statement is warranted."
Why So Much Pressure?
“The range of issues and situations we are expected to weigh in on has expanded and continues to grow exponentially. Those of us in chief communications or chief marketing officer roles are being asked to develop messages on behalf of diverse audiences with divergent opinions, and to respond to issues that are not necessarily aligned with our core educational mission,” says Binti Harvey, Vice President, External Relations and Institutional Advancement, at Scripps College in Claremont, California, U.S. “We have a responsibility to help our leadership evaluate whether the issue of the day enables or impedes the fulfillment of our mission. Practicing this discipline becomes increasingly difficult as the nature of public discourse becomes more adversarial and discourteous, countering the civil dialogue and exchange that we strive to cultivate on our campuses.”
Harvey serves on CASE’s Board of Trustees and is Chair of the CASE Commission on Communications and Marketing.
Social media channels feed the pressure on educational institutions to respond, says Jan Abernathy, Chief Communications Officer at The Browning School in New York City, U.S.
“Things were more predictable before we had a Greek chorus behind every issue telling us to be outraged about something we weren’t feeling mad about 20 minutes ago. We will have parents and alumni calling us to say, ‘This school put out a statement about this issue and we think you should do the same,’” she says.
Mitchell adds that the pressure also comes from within the academic community.
“When there are societal issues somewhere in the world—a war, a racial injustice—there is a human response to say, ‘What can we do? What levers can we pull to affect this?’ People look to their university,” he says. “We are academic communities that hold up values, academic freedom, and high ideals. So the inclination is to make a statement, to take a stand. I would suggest that in very few situations will it make any material difference. But it has the potential to make some members of the community feel unsupported. Universities are such diverse communities; rarely can we speak on behalf of all.”
"With increasing pressure to respond to societal issues, there does come urgency. In those cases, the way in which an institution responds or doesn’t respond is subject to scrutiny, and that can become the crisis."
What Defines a Crisis?
When the pressure mounts, communications teams and their institutional leadership can naturally feel the urgency to respond. Does that constitute a crisis?
“I believe the term ‘crisis’ has been too broadly applied of late,” says Harvey. “Unfortunately, intense criticism and conflict often complicate efforts to differentiate between a crisis and something that makes us uncomfortable.”
The situations that meet the crisis standard are almost always those with an immediate and direct impact on a campus community, she says. These are the situations that require statements and continuous communication.
“Communication should be substantive and action-oriented. It should provide the known facts, along with updates on how we’re resolving the issue and stabilizing our community. When the statement is limited to offering an emotional response or taking a position on an issue not related to our academic mission, we probably are not looking at a crisis, and we should question whether a statement is warranted,” she says.
“A decade ago, when we talked about crisis communications, we were referring to situations directly affecting our campus communities, like natural disasters or extreme violence,” says Tracy M. Sweet, Chief Communications Officer at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, U.S. “Now I would say strategic communications are much more nuanced. With increasing pressure to respond to societal issues, there does come urgency. In those cases, the way in which an institution responds or doesn’t respond is subject to scrutiny, and that can become the crisis. As a result, communicators are reassessing guidelines for making statements and distinguishing between societal issues and disasters that strike our campuses directly.”
Was There a Watershed Moment?
Many who serve in top communications posts anecdotally point to three events—the 2020 murder of George Floyd, the war in Ukraine beginning in 2022, and the 2023 attack on Israel and subsequent violence in Gaza—that drew worldwide outrage and increased pressure to issue statements or take stands.
The Browning School issued a statement soon after the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens. It focused on resources available to families to help answer their children’s questions. But “we missed the mark,” says Abernathy, who is a member of CASE’s Commission on Communications and Marketing. The school heard from Jewish families who said the statement didn’t go far enough.
“They were telling us this was their 9/11. For some Jewish families—especially those with relatives in Israel—it is a fair comparison,” says Abernathy.
The school sent out a second statement, this time condemning Hamas and all forms of terrorism.
“Still, we heard from families. One family questioned why Israel came before Gaza in a sentence where we mentioned inhumanity. When emotions run this high, people will parse words. We live in a time of heightened scrutiny, where meaning can be read even into the most neutrally intentioned of communications,” says Abernathy, who is currently conducting focus groups with Browning faculty members to learn how people of different identities view certain words and overall communications.
Mitchell agrees that these world events have become watershed moments for educational institutions.
“Global events in recent years have brought to the surface some really important questions we haven’t sufficiently grappled with previously,” says Mitchell. “We have tried not to make statements that could be seen as alienating members of our community. We are walking that line more carefully than we have before. The point is to get us into a position where we can be clear that our focus is on the safety and security of our community and on our role in supporting academic freedom and freedom of speech, and accepting that whenever we make statements on world issues, we might potentially affect that balance.”
The heightened pressure to make statements on world events is top of mind for education CCOs, says Michael Lavery, a former education marketing and communications executive who’s now the Founder and CEO of the higher education consultancy Brand & Reputation.
“That’s where I tell my clients to pause and be intentional,” says Lavery. “If we comment on Ukraine and Russia, then what happens when the next world conflict erupts? Do we have to react with the same level of weight and importance? Why are we commenting on Ukraine and Russia, but not commenting on war in Yemen or in Sudan? If we make a statement about George Floyd’s murder, what does that say about the others who died similarly in police custody for whom we did not comment? It gets difficult. My own view is that the pressure to react is one of the biggest challenges facing education right now in the 21st century.”
The solution, he says, lies in having a “playbook” for such situations.
Framing Your Statement
Michael Lavery, Founder and CEO of Brand & Reputation and a CASE Laureate, offers the following tips to help frame a statement when responding to societal issues:
- Acknowledge the facts of the situation you are commenting on. Be clear and articulate the relevance to and impact on your university, college, or school community.
- Establish your interest (or reason for speaking up) by connecting the issue to your institution’s mission and values.
- Align your institution’s views to established bodies/authorities. For instance, if you are making a statement about a global conflict, you may want to reference the United Nations Human Rights Council. Or if it’s a racial justice matter, look to your own DEIB policy. For an issue of donor influence or ethics, cite the CASE Global Reporting Standards.
- Empathise with an authentic, human response that is not judgmental or divisive. Offering “thoughts and prayers” has been stigmatized as a hollow response, but it can be a meaningful starting point if followed with information and next steps.
- Offer support and opportunities for community interaction, signposting to services (such as forums for dialogue or mental health support), and volunteer and fundraising efforts.
- State your commitment to follow up, monitor, take action, and provide ongoing support, linking it back to your institution’s mission.
How Do Guidelines Help?
“Guidelines have served us well, not because they give a clear answer; they almost never do,” says Harvey. “What guidelines do is establish a process for making a decision and allow us to, as much as possible, remove emotion and reaction from that decision-making process. They provide a framework for the senior team to assess the situation on campus and have a conversation to move beyond incoming stimuli that has us feeling the need to respond and, very importantly, puts that in perspective.”
Communications leaders might facilitate such a discussion with their leadership, Harvey advises, by asking the following questions:
- To what extent is this issue enabling or preventing fulfillment of our educational mission?
- How might we leverage our institutional strengths and/or community to respond to or address the situation?
- What educational value can we add or what educational experiences can we create in response to the issue at hand?
“I urge communicators to take a deliberative approach, considering multiple perspectives and scenarios to determine whether a statement will produce the outcome their leadership seeks,” says Harvey. “If an institution does choose to proceed with a statement, I recommend speaking about the ways in which you are informing an issue, illuminating perspectives, creating space for dialogue, and building community. This allows for a more holistic approach than a statement that opines on external events without providing substantive information or solutions for our constituents.”
In 2022, Phillips Academy finalized a set of guidelines for responding to societal issues. After two years of issuing statements on a range of topics including responding to school shootings, racial violence, Supreme Court rulings, and international conflict, Sweet says, “it became apparent that we would benefit from having a better rationale and structure for ‘when’ and ‘why.’”
When violence broke out in the Middle East in October 2023, Sweet and her Head of School followed those new guidelines. They did not make a statement, but did provide internal communication, support, resources, and an educational forum for discussion. When some questioned why the school did not make a statement, Sweet realized they needed to share the guidelines more widely with their campus community. The latest guidance for when Phillips Academy will speak out is now posted on the school’s website.
“We state clearly that the event must directly impact our mission and that our voice must add value to public discourse. Our main focus is action, which means taking care of our campus community first,” says Sweet. (For more on the process for developing these guidelines, see here for an interview with Sweet.)
At Exeter “we don’t have formal guidelines in place the way we do for true crisis communications,” says Mitchell. “We have a shared understanding within our senior management team about when and how we respond, but we haven’t yet codified and shared it with members of our community. We are just starting that process. The hope is with a codified set of guidelines, our constituents will understand where we are coming from, even if they don’t agree.”
As a starting point, Mitchell says his group has looked closely at the landmark 1967 Kalven Report produced by the University of Chicago about a university’s role in political and social action. The report, which was written amid the protests surrounding the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, has new relevance today. It affirms the Illinois, U.S., university’s “commitment to academic freedom of faculty and students in the face of suppression from internal and/or external entities while also insisting on institutional neutrality on political and social issues.”
Academic freedom and freedom of speech can be sticking points during trying times, especially for higher education institutions.
“We have a world-leading center on Palestinian studies, including some of the top academics on Palestinian history,” says Mitchell. “We support their academic freedom, and we support them as experts on the subject, and yet the university will be challenged by other parties. ‘How can the university defend what they’ve said?’ Well, we defend it because academic freedom to speak, within the law, is absolutely sacrosanct.”
Do Guidelines Lead to Clear Answers?
Guidelines or guiding principles provide a process for reasoned thinking in high-pressure, high-stakes situations. Lavery says they provide “a backstop” when an angry donor or parent or a member of the media questions an institution’s statement, or decision not to comment, or the academic freedom of a faculty member.
Guidelines not only help an institution stand by a decision, they also prevent decisions based on knee-jerk reactions.
In October 2023, Australians voted on a referendum about whether to change their constitution to recognize the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
“Generally, we don’t make statements on political issues of the day when not directly related to the university or to education in general,” says Phillip Stork, Vice President, Marketing and Communications, at Griffith University in South East Queensland, Australia.
But Griffith University took the rare step of making a statement in support of the referendum, which ultimately did not pass.
“This time we did, after lots of consultation with the academic community and students. Our statement acknowledged and offered respect for the rights of people within our community to have different views. A diversity of views is fundamental to what a university stands for. We did not take lightly that we were speaking on behalf of the university,” says Stork, who is a member of CASE’s Commission on Communications and Marketing.
“We explained our rationale. Being a values-led institution, inclusion of Indigenous people is fundamental to our goals as a university. We had overwhelming support from most of our community. We realized this was an exception to our basic philosophy, but we took the time to justify our decision. It’s about balance, and, as a higher education institution, making room for values-led critical thinking.”
Similarly, the University of Idaho roots its decisions in its values.
When the university began feeling the pressure to respond to political and societal events, “we put together a matrix,” says Jodi Walker, Executive Director of Communications at the U.S. institution. “It doesn’t answer every question, but it frames the way we look at things and brings us back to our values. It gives us consistency in our responses to each incident because we approach them with the equal level of scrutiny rather than react with emotion.”
In most cases, the university does not make formal statements regarding issues outside its campus confines. But sometimes events miles away or a world away come back to campus in a profound way, and the leadership comes to a reasoned decision to respond. Such was the case following the death of George Floyd in May 2020. “Our community was grappling with outrage and sadness,” says Walker.
Finding the right words in difficult times can pose a challenge. Written words can be misinterpreted when emotions run high. One line in University of Idaho President Scott Green’s statement fell prey to misinterpretation. In his second communication, he owned that, stating, “Asking that we treat each other with kindness and compassion was perceived by some as a request not to engage when we witness racism or injustice. That could not be further from what was intended. We must act against racism and injustice by addressing the change that needs to occur to create social equity.”
“Transparency is a priority for our president. Our campus community has come to expect that and relies on it,” says Walker. “He shows his humanity even in formal communications, and people respond well to that.”
Ultimately, “authenticity, transparency, and empathy are key to crisis communications,” says Lavery, especially as the pressure to respond to societal issues escalates.
Academic institutions will always be confronted with figurative (and on rare occasions, literal) minefields to navigate. The guiding principles of crisis communications proved their value during the unprecedented global pandemic and continue to serve education communications teams in an increasingly volatile, politically charged world. Mission-driven, values-centric communications, says Lavery, will always win the day.
The Hardest News to Communicate
Advice on leading through a tragedy
The University of Idaho lost four students to a mass murder, and it changed the community.
On Nov. 13, 2023, four students there were brutally murdered in their off-campus home. At a press conference three days later, University President Scott Green began his remarks by offering condolences to the families of the students. He broke down.
He recounts that moment in his book University President’s Crisis Handbook, released in January 2024. “I was just overcome. I had to stop, compose myself, and try to get through the rest of the speech. As a father of two recent college graduates, all I could think about was the pain these families were enduring,” he wrote in the book.
Green’s book, cowritten with Temple Kinyon, details his leadership through a financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the capital crime. He says he wrote the book because as a new, nontraditional university president coming from corporate executive positions, he wished he’d had such a handbook.
The nature of the crime and the initial unsolved mystery brought media attention from around the world to the town of Moscow, Idaho, U.S. Green says he relied on members of his leadership team for guidance and support, including Executive Director of Communications Jodi Walker.
“I trust her wholeheartedly and respect her as a subject matter expert,” says Green about Walker. “I rely on her for the best approaches to crafting messages.”
Those messages, says Walker, in the immediate aftermath remained focused on the safety, security, and collective grief of the university community. But with media outlets overwhelming the campus, that became a challenge.
“It can be very easy to get caught up in a media swirl,” says Walker. “Reporters are immediately calling you on every phone [number] they can find, texting, emailing. Don’t take the bait. I told my staff, it’s not our job to fill their news hole. We’re going to tell the story we need to tell that supports our community.”
“If you go back and look at those communications, you’ll see a lot of empathy,” says Green. “It was important to let everyone in our community know that we understood how they felt because we were feeling the same grief and anger.”
Included in all communications were reminders about where and how to get counseling support.
“One thing I learned is that you can never say that enough,” says Green.
Safety was another consistent message.
“In the early days, before the suspect was apprehended, that was a top priority in all messaging to our students and to their parents,” says Walker. “We made clear repeatedly what precautions were in place, and also for those students who did not feel safe, we communicated the option to return home and study remotely.”
The importance of self-care is another lesson Green shares in his book.
“I didn’t do a good job of that during the pandemic, and I think at some point my leadership suffered. In the aftermath of the capital crimes, I made sure to eat, to exercise, and to get sleep. That allowed me to be present for students and staff.”
“Our team is really good at checking in with each other,” adds Walker about the communications staff. “If someone says, ‘I need to take a walk,’ a colleague doesn’t hesitate to pick up what they were doing. People struggled at different times, some early on, some months later. We’re cross-trained, and that allows us to do a better job of looking out for one another.”
Green says there won’t be closure until justice is served, but “even then, we will never fully move on. For better or worse, it’s part of our legacy now.”
The university is currently installing a healing garden designed by architecture students. It will honor all students who died while attending the university, with a special memorial to the four students who were killed in 2023.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of them,” says Green.
About the author(s)
Ellen N. Woods is Writer/Editor at CASE.
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Article appears in:
May-June 2024 Issue of Currents
FINDING THE RIGHT WORDS: Best practices for responding in high-stakes situations. Also, how to diversify your donor pipeline, why mentoring matters, and harnessing the narrative with the seven basic plots of storytelling.