Here is What I Mean By Marketing

My cousin is adjunct professor at a top-tier college in Western Massachusetts. She doesn't have a degree from there herself, but her daughter does. She has been working there for almost twenty years. So, to be clear, she is both faculty and parent of an alumna. In the past few months, she applied for a full-time position, never was called for an interview, and understood she wasn't a candidate. That wasn't really the problem. The problem was the letter of rejection which she received, which was actually signed by one of her own classmates. It said she wasn't a good match for the college.

She felt the sting because of how absurd it was to receieve a rejection letter telling her she wasn't a good fit from a school with which—at the time of the rejection—she was currently holding two contracts.

Here's my problem. Do colleges and universities have any idea how much bad will and lost development dollars they suffer because they do not pay attention to their rejection letters?

Having received rejection letters or no response at all from my own almas mater, that careful attention to what you are telling your alumni, your staff, or other key audiences, is the easiest—and cheapest— kind of marketing the school can do. Why lose your own constituencies? You don't have to hire all your alumni, of course, but it makes all the sense in the world to acknowledge them in some special way when you reject them. Protect and nuture the relationship because, after all, your colleagues down the hall have just called them up and asked them if they could increase their donation this year. And fundraisers won't know why alumni just won't answer the phone. Maybe its because it is dinnertime. Maybe its because they were just told they are not a good fit.

Every year institutions of higher education spend more and more money on "marketing" and some are even desperate in attempts to find occasions to receive positive press or to move up in the ratings. They fail to recognize that while rejected candidates as an overall class may not be significant stakeholders, alumni, or part-time staff, or volunteers, or adjunct faculty, or parents of students or any other people already affiliated with the institution are de facto ambassadors. People will talk. This is a given. Whether they speak in positive or negative terms this is the only question. It is up to the institution what will be said. Forget brochures and CD-roms and press coverage once a year by the New York Times. Institutions should treat the constituencies already on their side have with some care. Have a separate form letter than goes to alumni if necessary, but recognize that you can't tell them they don't fit in one letter and enjoin them to be part of the community in another.