It begins with vision. Today s colleges and universities suffer from too much vision rather than too little. The difficulty lies in the will and initiative to bring the many competing visions together into a unified whole. What is needed is a clear sense of purpose and process not better ideas. The president s responsibility is to assess the internal coalitions and the external opportunities and obstacles that are before the institution and then declare that direction to the campus community and beyond.
Marketing is more than promotion.
Institutions that only focus on promotion will fail. Savvy institutions use a proper definition of marketing that embraces product, price, place, and promotion. The product is defined as the sum of the student s academic, social, physical, and even spiritual value experiences. Sevier s research with student perceptions and desires routinely show that institutions have trouble differentiating their academic product and focus on the wrong items. Image is everything.