We are excited to announce the agenda for our upcoming CUPRAP 2020 Spring Conference. We hope you will join us March 4-6, 2020, at the Lancaster County Convention Center and Marriott Penn Square in Lancaster, PA, for interesting topics, speakers and networking.

Wednesday “ March 4

Noon “ 1:15 pm Lunch

1:30 “ 3:30 pm Interactive Workshop

Rethinking equity and justice through a design thinking lens

• Amma Marfo, Writer and speaker

Most conversations we have about diversity, social justice, and inclusion work surround adoption of best practices and replication of strategies that have worked elsewhere. But little is discussed at the outset about how these strategies fit our populations, and what adaptations will be needed for our game plans to feel “at home” at our institutions. Using the design thinking model and a creativity framework developed by Amma, participants will have a greater understanding of what institutional knowledge, creative thinking, and a commitment to exploration can do to promote justice and equity on campus- and will get to test these strategies out with real issues within their organization.

3:45 pm “ 4:45 pm Wednesday Thought Leader Session presented by Bowstring Studios

Unlocking your video content plan

• Enrique Mendoza, Chief Executive Officer, Bowstring
• Sean Quinn, President & Chief Operating Officer, Bowstring

Video content is at the heart of higher ed collateral. However, it ™s not easy to keep a steady stream of assets to serve undergraduate admission, marketing, development, graduate programs, etc. We will discuss the pain points you are facing and the obstacles in the way of an ideal campus production model. How can you use the resources and advantages that you DO have to fuel your strategies with the power of video content?

How should you leverage internal vs external resources, how do you unite budgets for maximum efficiency and how do you continue to evolve your asset library to keep feeding your content channels?

Let the thought leaders of Bowstring Studios show you how to build a video content plan, make the best use of your resources, how to find the stories that will be most impactful and extend the life of your assets.

5:00 pm “ 6:00 pm Cocktail Reception

6:00 pm Dinner on your own

Thursday “ March 5

7:45 am “ 8:45 am Breakfast

9:00 am “ 10:15 am Keynote 

Forge Ahead: The Pitt Brand Story

• Kate Ledger Assistant Vice Chancellor of Marketing The University of Pittsburgh
• Bill Faust Partner and Chief Strategy Officer Ologie

As one of the nation ™s great universities, The University of Pittsburgh is a state-related research institution, founded as the Pittsburgh Academy in 1787. Pitt is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), which comprises 62 preeminent doctorate-granting research institutions in North America. Current enrollment of both graduate and undergraduate students is over 30,000 and the University has almost 325,000 living alumni.

In the summer of 2019 Pitt publicly launched a comprehensive effort that redefined its institutional brand. While this point marked a beginning of new ways to see the Pitt brand, it ™s identity and most importantly its story, the work began about 18 months earlier and included rigorous research with internal and external stakeholders, collaborative strategy development and a new creative platform that included both a new visual identity as well as a new narrative for telling the Pitt story.

Kate and Bill will share the inside story of œForge Ahead  “ the new Pitt brand platform including the ups, downs, twists and turns that accompany any complex undertaking like this. And perhaps most important “ the lessons they learned along the way.

10:15 am “ 10:30 am Break

10:30 am “ 11:45 am Breakout Sessions I

Taking Pride in Our Story: Building Brand Engagement through Content Strategy

• Georgy Cohen, Director of Digital Strategy, OHO Interactive
• Bridget Hilferty, Director of Digital Communications, Widener University

Before the Widener University website redesign, the content experience was hindered by siloed platforms, redundant formats, inefficient processes, and a limiting design. This made it challenging to present their story to the right audiences at the right time.

This presentation will demonstrate how a website redesign presented a powerful opportunity to better engage audiences by streamlining the editorial process, reinventing the brand storytelling approach, and using the CMS to present stories in relevant context site-wide.

Eleven Big Ideas to Improve Your Photo and Video Workflow

• Kristin Twiford, Senior Manager, Content Marketing and Brand Storytelling, Libris/PhotoShelter
• Alexander Monelli, Video Producer/Video Production Manager, Franklin & Marshall College

Using real world examples, Kristin and Alexander will give you tangible tips, hacks and ideas to get better at your photo and video workflow and your school’s visual storytelling.

Go home with some outside-the-box ideas when it comes to visual content. Also get a step-by-step approach to visual storytelling, including tips to:

• ·                 Identify your key audience(s)
• ·                 Develop personas within the audience
• ·                 Set goals
• ·                 Determine the medium/media for each story
• ·                 Create an editorial calendar that takes into account the time/effort needed for each piece
• ·                 Measure your success

Digital Admissions: What Teens Like, and Don ™t Like, About College Marketing

• Sasha Peterson, CEO of TargetX
• Michael Stoner, Co-founder and President of mStoner, Inc.

It ™s no secret that this generation of prospective students is the most marketed-to group in history. With more outreach options than ever before, how do you know which channels or methods will resonate best with teens? You ask them. TargetX and mStoner surveyed thousands of college-bound high school students to learn how digital tools like social media, websites, emails, and digital ads impacted their college search and selection process. Our Digital Admissions research offers rich insights into the nuances of their behavior and highlights where you should focus your digital enrollment marketing time and energy for maximum ROI.

What You Will Learn:

• What content is important to prospective teens, when and where
• Where to focus your digital enrollment marketing time and energy for maximum ROI
• Which digital tool has the highest impact throughout the entire prospective student journey
• What prospective teens think when they see your institution’s digital ads
• Which colleges and universities do it best

11:45 “ 1:00 pm Lunch sponsored by Perfect Communications

Presentation of the Don Hale and Donovan Rising Star Awards + All Scholarships

1:15 pm “ 2:30 pm Breakout Sessions II

The Enrollment Marketer ™s Guide to Reddit

• Steve App, Campus Sonar

Reddit, the open, anonymous, egalitarian forum, is now the fifth most trafficked website in the United States. And with multiple communities dedicated to the topic of college admissions, each boasting more than 35,000 subscribers, the number of conversations on the platform has exploded in recent years. In this session, we’ll explore real-world examples of college-related conversation on Reddit. You’ll learn how to pull insights and receive guidance on when, how, or even if you should respond to students’ posts and comments.

Web redesign truth-talk: creating a workflow between content and web

• Heather Johns, Senior Director of Content Strategy, Bucknell University

Gearing up for a website redesign? Heather Johns, senior director of content strategy, will share lessons learned from Bucknell University’s recent redesign, including how to plan the project, creating a workflow within and between content and web teams, deciding what content stays and what doesn’t, messaging your decisions to the campus community (and how to handle the fallout from those decisions), and what happens after launch. If you ™re especially interested in the perils and pleasures of switching your CMS, learning about productivity and project management tools to help your team ” and some serious truth-talk about this challenging, rewarding and sometimes terrifying process ” then this session is for you!

Ambition Can ™t Wait: Taking a Branding Campaign In-house (Drexel)

• Joseph Master, Assistant VP, Marketing and Digital Strategy, Drexel University Communications
• Craig Kampes, Assistant VP, Communications and Marketing, Drexel University
• Larry Bender, Executive Creative Director, Drexel University Communications

Drexel ™s brand elevation initiative ” designed completely in-house ” represents the most ambitious awareness campaign the University has ever put to market. During a time when peer institutions are committing significant media spends targeting prospective students, Drexel is sharing its mission and academic model with a broad, influential audience.

2:30 pm “ 2:45 pm Break

2:45 pm “ 4:00 pm Breakout Sessions III

Pack and Perception: A Research-Driven Strategy to Addressing Your Market

• David Viggiano, Carnegie Dartlet
• Meg Keniston, Director of Marketing and Content Strategy, St. Lawrence University

The higher education industry environment is tough ”and getting tougher. Weakening demand, less-than-ideal geopolitical and international dynamics, and new and emerging competitive forces are shifting the strategic marketing approach for the short, medium, and likely long term. Enter the era of the research-driven approach to marketing. Two critical areas of marketing research that will deliver the best return on investment for any higher ed marketing leader are market perception and competitive analysis. Few forms of data will influence marketing strategy more readily than understanding what the market truly believes about your institution and how it stacks up against the competition. In this presentation, we ™ll review approaches for and examples of using research to optimize your competitive opportunities and market perception to drive enrollment and marketing performance.

How will the recent NACAC changes to their code of ethics impact University marketing and communications offices?

Panel Discussion

• Moderator: Bob Massa, Vice President Emeritus Enrollment & College Relations, Dickinson College and Adjunct Professor of Higher Education, University of Southern California
• Bill Conley, Vice President Enrollment Management at Bucknell University
• Barbara Stambaugh, Vice President for Communications at Franklin & Marshall College
• Angela Burrows, VP for Marketing and Communications at Edinboro University

A competitive enrollment landscape and declining demographics are nothing new to marketing and admissions professionals. However, under pressure by the Department of Justice, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) voted in September, 2019 to strip provisions from the Code of Ethics and Professional Practice (CEPP) without which could create an endless cycle of recruitment that goes well beyond May 1st and into a student’s first year in college. Our expert panel of marketing and admissions professionals will discuss what it means and how college and university marketing and communications offices can collaborate with admissions to help meet these future challenges as we enter this new landscape?

Creating a Communications Cluster:  A New Idea on Generating and Disseminating Content

•  Adam Calaway, Director of Communications, The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation

Like many colleges and universities, the Noble Foundation ™s content is generated and disseminated through a standard process that relies almost exclusively on the communications office. This process provides quality products that adhere to branding standards, deliver message points and focus on target audiences.  However, this process can be limited in its scope, lack the ability to be responsive and often causes a choke point in release of content due to limited personnel. In the last year, a new model has been developed at the Noble Foundation, called a communications cluster. This model allows for trained employees to serve as developers and disseminators of content on behalf of the organization. In this session, Calaway will discuss the genesis of this idea, look at the potential pitfalls of assembling the cluster and report on the outcome now that it has been in place for a year.

4:15 pm – 5:15 pm Thursday Thought Leader Session presented by e-City Interactive

Don’t Put The Cart Before the Horse

• Tom Kegelman, Editor in Chief at Volt
• Eric Greenberg, Senior Director of Marketing Strategy and Operations at the Wharton School, and Higher Ed Marketing Consultant

Personalization. Amplification. Digitization. 2020 is about the unbreakable, symbiotic relationship of creating winning content that powers tech strategy. Learn the essentials to develop a winning game plan that incorporates your content and martech initiatives from two industry veterans.  

5:30 “ 6:30 Cocktail reception sponsored by Cognitive Marketing

6:30 “ 9:00   CUPPIE Awards Dinner

Friday – March 6

7:45 am “ 8:45 am Breakfast

At the central market

9:00 am “ 10:15 am Keynote

The story behind Gritty

• Sarah Schwab, Senior Director of Marketing for the Philadelphia Flyers
• Christine Mina, Senior Manager, Digital Media at Philadelphia Flyers
• Lauren Capone, Marketing Communications Manager at Philadelphia Flyers

After being challenged with creating and introducing a brand new mascot to a richly historic Philadelphia sports franchise, the Philadelphia Flyers Marketing Team ideated and brought Gritty to life.  Since his first day on the job, the mascot has taken both Philadelphia and the internet worlds by storm. Team members Sarah Schwab, Christine Mina, and Lauren Capone discuss their lean-in attitude and collaborative strategy for taking an overnight orange celebrity and creating a long-lasting brand icon.

10:15 am “ 10:30 am Break

10:30 am “ 11:45 Breakout Sessions IV

How Your Institutional Culture Is Informing Your Process and Your Results, and What to Do About It If Your Culture Is Getting in the Way.

Panel Discussion

• Moderator: Gabriel Welsch, Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Duquesne University
• Genna Welsh Kasun, Director of Marketing at the University of Virginia ™s College at Wise
• Gail Towns, Executive Director, Office of Marketing & Communications, Georgian Court University, Lakewood, NJ.
• Peter Holloran, Co-founder and Director of Strategy Development, Cognitive Marketing

Marketing and Communications leaders have to deal with the culture of their institutions. Everyone in the school should be able and predisposed to extoll its virtues in alignment. And œMarcom œ should be an institutional competency, the cost of which is understood to be an œinvestment,  not an expense. Is œcultural work  needed to create the conditions for marketing ™s success? Panel discussion and audience conversation will provide perspective, argument, and useful ideas for elevating marketing ™s role.

Why Licensing? 

• Beth Monnin, Regional Vice President for CLC/Learfield
• Bryan Richter, Manager-Partnerships, CLC

Licensing programs on college campuses are established to promote, protect, and preserve the university and college brand while generating revenue through the use of the institution logos, verbiage, and trademarks.

Learn as the Collegiate Licensing Company staff shares with you the foundational principles and best practices associated with establishing a strong licensing program for your school. Hear from northeastern US regional college and university personnel who will offer helpful examples of their licensing experiences, and the impact the program has had on campus and with the evolution of the brand.

Topics covered will include:

• Being proactive in protecting your school brand
• Exercising control over the quality of the goods that protect the image of the institution
• Establishing short and long-term program goals
• Profiting from the usage of your intellectual property

Am I Ready?: Creating a Culture of Crisis Preparedness

• Renee Cree, Associate Director, News & Media Relations, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
• Chris Lukach, APR, President, AKCG “ Public Relations Counselors

While a crisis may be unexpected, it should never come as a surprise.  Crises can be anticipated, and through effective planning and training, colleges and universities can limit, if not avoid, reputational risk.  Those institutions most successful in weathering crises are those whose leadership recognizes the immediacy of today ™s communications landscape.  This session will provide attendees with discrete steps for building strong, actionable crisis-response programs with broad support. Through a self-assessment, attendees can authoritatively answer the question, œAm I ready? 

Noon – Lunch 

Conference ends