Category: admissions and student recruitment

Webinar vs. sales pitch

salespitch.jpgA few weeks ago, someone in our enrollment management department told me about this webinar on “the value of social networking for admissions,” or something like that. The webinar host (who shall go unnamed) was a company our enrollment management department uses, with good results. He and I thought the webinar would be a good opportunity to get not only our staffs, but also some upper-level administrators, some perspective on social networking. Maybe hearing from a third party like this company would lend more credence to the idea. Aside from the work our communications staff has done with blogging, user-generated video, etc., our campus hasn’t taken much of a shine to social networking.

So we sent out email invitations to members of our marketing committee (which I chair) and the recruitment committee (which the other guy chairs). Most of these committee members are mid-level to upper-level admins, with a few faculty and student representatives thrown in for good measure.

Fortunately for us, attendance was sparse.

The “webinar” was a total pitch for some Facebook app the company is planning to launch. And the first 10 webinar attendees to sign up for the app would get it for half price.

As soon as the pitch came — about 20 minutes into the event — the lone marketing committee member (besides me) who bothered to show up stood up and left. After another 10 minutes of Q&A about the app, I told everyone else in the room that we may as well log off, nothing to see here. So we all left.

I’m wary enough of webinars as it is. I know that companies that offer these freebies have something to sell, and that’s fine. That’s part of the deal. But this pitch was more blatant than any I’d seen.

Maybe I’m just not as accustomed to these kinds of pitches as our friends in admissions. But none of them were anxious to stick around, either.

The more I think about it, the more it irks me.

I’m still sick, by the way. And that makes me crankier than normal.

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Now playing: Various Artists – Four Four Four – Fragile State
via FoxyTunes

Drexel plans a westward expansion

One of the arguments we at the University of Missouri-Rolla used to bolster our case for a name change to Missouri S&T had to do with the projected drop in high school graduates in the Midwest. Because of the projected decline, we explained, our university must more aggressively recruit students nationally and internationally — and a name that better described our university’s essence would aid that effort.

Drexel University in Philadelphia is also anticipating that decline — a 10 percent drop in Pennsylvania beginning in 2009 — and is looking to the west. But rather than expanding its reach in the traditional fashion, Drexel is planning to open a stand-alone campus near Sacramento, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. (Link via University Business.)

Drexel President Constantine Papadakis says a friend has pledged to donate 1,100 acres of California farmland to help Drexel establish the university.

Under the proposal, the university would sell 500 acres of the donated land to generate at least $100 million that would be used to finance construction of the infrastructure. Papadakis said he was confident of raising another $100 million in donations once a deal is in place.

“Not many universities have an opportunity to start on donated land with $100-million-plus funding opportunity,” says Papadakis.

Oh, for just half the funding opportunity.