Andrew Careaga

What resources do you use, what methods do you follow, and what techniques do you employ to keep pace with all the changes in technology, communications and the business of marketing, PR and higher ed? In the latest issue of CASE Currents magazine, Patricia Quigley, Rowan University‘s assistant director of university media and public relations, pulls together some good thoughts about keeping pace with all the changes (CASE login required to access the full article). Quigley, like the rest of us, struggles to find the time to learn the latest about technology’s impact on media relations, the latest consumer marketing studies and how they relate to education, or what legislation coming down the pike is liable to affect her work. She talks to some other PR pros in higher ed to find out how they carve time out of their schedules to catch up on the latest tips and trends.

Quigley also offers some daily learning opportunities, segmented into a monthly calendar. Suggestions include reading the major dailies on Sundays; surfing some must-read higher ed blogs (like Karine Joly’s collegewebeditor.com, insidehighered.com, SimpsonScarborough, etc.); checking up on how major corporations are using technology; visiting Poynter and other journalism think-tank sites (such as AJR); reading Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion on a regular basis; and, at least once a month, taking a break from it all and walking around your campus — “the place any successful media relations effort really begins.”

All brilliant ideas! And most are at your fingertips. In the spirit of sharing information, I offer a few resources that Quigley overlooked. Some of these pertain more to marketing than to media relations, which could be why Quigley excluded them.

Join the American Marketing Association and read AMA’s Marketing News. Or save yourself a few dollars and read the Marketing News blog for free. (I think it’s worth the price of admission to get the publication, however.)
Subscribe to PR Week and scan it weekly. The op-ed section is the best part.
In addition to Poynter, AJR and Romenesko, news junkies should bookmark Journalism.org, the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s website, for more news about the state of the media.
For buzz marketers (and aren’t we all?), two words: Seth Godin.
Another blog I check on every other week or so, for ideas on innovations in business: Fast Company Now.

Those are a few of my favorite resources. What are some of yours?

While U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings tries to deal with the unfolding student loan scandal and defend her federal agency’s oversight of student loan programs, college officials like Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College in Michigan are taking aim at Spellings’ efforts to bring standardized testing to U.S. higher education.

Writing in the May 12 Wall Street Journal, Arnn calls for a laissez-faire approach to governing higher education. He first points out how private colleges like his struggle to compete with institutions that benefit from federal funding, then worries about how Spellings’ plans “to extend the testing and standards requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act to colleges” could further hinder schools like Hillsdale.

“The specific details of what these testing and standards would entail are unclear,” Arnn writes in his commentary piece, Hands Off Higher Ed, “but are likely to be determined by education department regulators over the next several months.”

President Bush and Ms. Spellings have brought a new approach to education reform at the federal level. They have good motives and a fair appraisal of the situation, at least in K-12 education. But national standards and testing in higher education will only strengthen a bureaucracy that already plagues an otherwise highly competitive system.

Instead of more bureaucracy, let the marketplace and competition determine the standards, Arnn says.

National standards are unnecessary in higher education. There are already plenty of accountability tools available to students and their parents — starting with the ability to pick up and go elsewhere. … [U]niversities compete for students, donations and top-notch professors every year. We also know that those institutions that allow their standards to slip will soon find their best students and faculty members migrating elsewhere.

“Reform is certainly needed in higher education,” Arnn writes. “But we should be discussing tax credits, not uniform standards. We should be thinking about tax-free saving accounts for college rather than rules and subsidies.”

A capitalistic approach, to be sure. (Hey, it’s from the Wall Street Journal.) But I have to admit it sounds reasonable.