Jim Scannell

If you want to effectively communicate with students, employ students to help you! In the last two years the Rochester Institute of Technology has been in the midst of significant change with the implementation of a new student information system and the conversion from a quarter calendar to a semester calendar. We needed to effectively keep students informed about the changes that would directly impact them. We knew we needed to use social media, but we did not have the expertise. We decided to hire two co-op students to essentially work full-time on the project team to implement and manage a social media campaign. The results were impressive and we want to share some lessons learned with others. Click here to read a blog post written by…Read more

(You can read an introduction to this guest post by RIT's Assistant Vice President and Registrar Joe Loffredo here.) The education world is constantly evolving to meet changing strategies and technologies in the digital space. The education world is constantly evolving to meet changing strategies and technologies in the digital space. Social media adds a new marketing medium for educators, recruiters, and students to use. The digital space is too often thought to be an easy marketing tool and strategies are not thought out within the college space. Problems with social media have plagued colleges during the digital era. Educators and college departments have made attempts at grabbing the student’s attention with whatever platform they currently…Read more

All too often newly minted managers, namely directors of admissions and financial aid, think that in order to establish their leadership status that they have to “leave their mark” by changing a process or procedure, revising a policy, terminating a program. This is frequently a big mistake. For the most part, processes and procedures, policies and programs are put in place and established for a reason, even if they are not accomplishing everything they were intended to, or in fact need to. To dismantle without assessing the impact can yield unintended consequences. In like fashion, leading is not about imposing your authority. If you have to claim you are the leader, you are not the leader. Leadership is not about telling people what to…Read more