Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
Stepping outside the box, again
Three years ago Furman set the higher education admissions community on its ear when it launched an edgy Admissions Web site that featured unedited journals by first-year students.
Although many outside the university (and some inside) were skeptical about giving students so much freedom, the journals became extremely popular with prospective students because they provided first-person accounts of freshmen coming to grips with their newfound independence and the pressures of college life.
In a business where image is everything and administrators work tirelessly to set their institutions apart from the crowd, giving 18-year-olds carte blanche in such a public forum was considered pretty daring. But the Web logs worked, and Furman has benefited from the publicity they've generated and the interest they've spawned on and off campus. “Blogging” is catching on nationwide, from liberal arts institutions to major research universities.
Now, Furman is preparing to step outside the box again. Going against conventional wisdom, the university will, in the next year, scrap what most schools consider a staple in the recruiting game: the viewbook, with its all-encompassing visual and verbal treatment of university life.
In place of the viewbook, Furman plans to distribute at least three full-color magazines to prospective students. The yet-to-be-named publication, to debut in 2005, will be mailed in the spring, summer and fall, with the mailings timed to coincide with the most intense parts of the recruiting season.
Greg Carroll, Vice President for Marketing and PR, says, “We have a reputation for pushing the envelope. And in a very competitive recruiting atmosphere, Furman must continue to find new and creative ways to distinguished itself among prospective students and promote a healthy understanding of just what we are all about.”
Carroll and fellow Marketing/PR staff members Roxanne Chase, Nancy Spitler and Jim Stewart are working with the Furman Admissions staff and with Stamats, an enrollment management firm based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to develop the magazines. Stamats produced the current 48-page viewbook, which received a Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Gold Award in 2001.
Unlike viewbooks, which are typically designed to last for at least four years, the magazines can be more immediate and topical.
“Last year we had a lot of interesting things happen, such as John Grisham and Tom Brokaw visiting campus,” says Stewart. “With the magazines, we'll be able to feature events like these in a more timely way.”
And while the viewbook makes a big one-time splash when it arrives in the mail, Stewart anticipates each magazine having a similar impact. “The magazines will include the same type of information that a viewbook ordinarily would, but we also plan for them to be topical and trendy, which we think will appeal to prospective students,” says Stewart. “And we plan for each issue to highlight different aspects of the Furman experience.”
Furman students will likely be asked to contribute articles, and stories from Furman magazine , Inside Furman and FUnet may also be repackaged for the new magazines. The university will supply most of the photography while Stamats will design the magazines.
“We're still very much in the conceptual stage,” says Stewart, “but as an example, we expect to have students write stories about their study abroad and research experiences or service work. We're excited about the possibilities, but a lot of planning remains to be done.”
During the past five years Furman has put more emphasis on and more resources into student recruiting. In 2001, the same year <engagefurman.com> and the award-winning viewbook debuted, Furman opened the Hartness Center, a state-of-the-art staging area for campus visits.
Admissions Director Woody O'Cain says the flashy magazine, edgy Web site and student journals won't necessarily compel students to compulsively send in their applications. “These resources are designed to peak their interest in Furman and to get them to visit,” he says. “Once they get here we recruit them the old-fashioned way — with our outstanding faculty, academic programs, beautiful campus and welcoming community.”