social coverage of commencement: an evolving process.

Higher-ed web types everywhere have been discussing who’s doing what to cover commencement. Streaming it live? Making it social? Turning it into a real-time multimedia production?

At SUNY Oswego, we similarly discussed options, and chose to keep moving forward and evolving. Thanks to some outstanding work by our web developer, Rick Buck, and some folks in Campus Technology Services, we greatly upgraded our Commencement webcast. Not every user would have noticed a change in quality, but many viewers — especially those on Macs and most mobile devices — may have had their first chance to actually watch. We moved to a transcoder that exported H264 … a fancy way of saying we broadcast in a format used widely in those devices.

Was that important? Consider the following: 22% of our Commencement viewers did so on mobile devices. This is a huge figure, compared to 11% of hits last year (many of those visitors unable to fully view the broadcast). This continued to underscore our current priority of thinking more and more about mobile in all web projects.

The Facebook plugin collected some nice tales of congratulations, and the interns we had monitoring the feed reported no issues. While we did not assemble a post-graduation Storify or comprehensive multimedia wrapup as some other schools did, we saw a huge amount of activity when we posted a Commencement photo gallery to our Facebook page.

A whole HigherEdLive program last week explored what institutions are doing, and other colleges had their tales of success and woe. The latter includes one university that had an f-bomb show up in its Commencement Twitter feed that caused some stress. But almost anyone who made their ceremonies widely accessible and social had few regrets.

Graduation is a happy culmination of an arduous process and — for the grads and their families — one of the happiest days of their lives. Sharing the joy, in any way possible, ultimately is a good thing.

before the rise of silos: jimmy moreland and 1950 education.

I was reading the other day about the death of Jimmy Moreland. It came as no surprise, as he passed away nearly 60 years ago, but it showed me how much different higher education was in the bygone era. And perhaps, in some ways, better.

Moreland died young in 1950 after 15 years teaching, recruiting and advising at Oswego. Er, sorry, make that Jimmy. He asked everyone to call him Jimmy. He was a revered English professor, a chief recruiter, advisor for 300 to 400 freshmen, and even director of public relations. In his spare time, he advised the fledgling Hillel club and volunteered in the Oswego community.

Jimmy “taught his classes, not from a textbook, but rather from his great wealth of knowledge,” the student body president recalled. The president of the alumni association valued how Jimmy’s “informal talks in the co-op, in the halls, on the front steps or anywhere that a group of students would gather helped to mould the thinking and philosophy of students and teachers alike.” Jimmy “imparted a great love of learning, he imparted some of his own goodness, he imparted his own unbounded curiosity and optimism to his students as they learned with him in his classes,” said then-president Harvey Rice. “As freshman advisor through the years he, more than anyone else, helped youngsters to find their bearings away from home. His friendship won them, his understanding comforted them, his love sustained them.”

In short, Jimmy wore a lot of hats well, and he never looked at his watch and declared his day done, knowing any time he saw a student provided an opportunity to connect. He recruited students, advised them, taught them, excelling in all areas. There were no silos, cubicles or boundaries to what we would, and could, do to serve students.

In contrast, recent trends in higher education bend toward staffing many specialists, while spurning the benefits of being a generalist. When we develop a mentality we can only help students with x but not y, we see them less as humans than checkmarks on a report. Anyone who knows me would attest I’m one of the busier folks around, but I never mind helping one of my students with something that falls outside my so-called job description. Why? The Golden Rule. I appreciate all the people who helped me as a student, treated me as a person and not a category.

I can’t see Jimmy poring through the pages upon pages of policies, procedures and precedents we’ve foisted upon higher education governance. If he had a mission statement, it would likely simply read: Do the right thing. Maybe we’ve made this business a lot more difficult than it should be. You see how one man, one incredible man like Jimmy Moreland could follow his head and his heart and serve as educator, inspiration and friend to thousands of students, and you wonder.

one fan page to rule them all?

I see and field a lot of questions about Facebook fan pages on Twitter and in real life. One of the most common is whether colleges should focus on an extra-special overall fans page or seek a more decentralized approach for specialized audiences.

Our philosophy remains to prioritize a primary Facebook fan page serving all audiences. Sure, plenty of pages with smaller memberships have arose (some by us, most by others) serving specific audiences, academic programs and student organizations, but having this kind of interaction underscores the value of having a central page:

This just happened this week, as a brief post of mine about the upcoming application deadline led to positive comments from three parents of students, one proud alum and one incoming student. Say what you will about parental involvement, but I consider pleased parents who say good things to all their friends with children considering colleges among our most valuable ambassadors. In this post, each mother had her high opinion of our school reinforced by two other parents, an alum and a future student.

That interaction would not have taken place if we just ran separate fan pages dedicated to admissions, alumni and parents. I love the alchemy that arises when potential students, current students, faculty/staff, parents and alumni have one community where they can chat. I’ve seen current students and alumni give great advice to incoming students. I’ve seen current students and alumni swap stories about what makes Oswego so special to them. If you think of your institution as a brand belonging to many generations and stakeholders, the primary fan page is the main marketplace of memories, shared knowledge and institutional pride. Having so many different groups involved just confirms this continuum.

Other solutions let any page play multiple roles. By using the FBML app, you can create new tabs on your page that appeal to specific audiences or functions, such as admissions. I begrudgingly admit that Plattsburgh, our athletic archrival, and its Web wiz Devin Mason do a great job with audience-specific navigation tabs on their page. And with our college, related and approved fan pages also appear in the sidebar Favorite Pages tab.

You can still break down separate specific efforts under the big umbrella. We created an Official Class of 2014 group, with most membership built so far through references from our official page. I intend to turn the 2014 group increasingly over to students, first interns and potentially incoming students who show interest, aptitude and dependability. The more collaborative it becomes, the better for its members and the overall institution. But we can say that about any Web 2.0 community. Ultimately the rubber meets the road for all travelers, and so many interesting paths intersect, on our official and central fan page.

drake walks the walk, gets A+

Come college commencement season, you see a lot of status games: Who’s speaking? Who’s streaming it on the Web? Who’s live-tweeting it? But frankly, Drake University has us all beat, and it has nothing to do with VIP speakers or use of fancy technology.

Drake’s graduation day started with a nightmare scenario as Glenn Koenen, whose daughter Cassaundra was set to receive her sheepskin, suffered a heart attack while waiting for the ceremony. According to the Des Moines Register, an ER nurse attending to see her niece graduate, a doctor and two Drake staffers sprang into action and restarted Glenn’s heart with a defibrillator. And while that kind of life-saving heroism is commendable, what happened next is perhaps even more remarkable.

As Cassaundra sat beside his hospital bed, Glenn rued that he’d ruined her graduation day. A nurse contacted the college to see what they could do. What they did exceeded anyone’s expectations: Drake’s college president and other administrators came straight to the hospital room to present Cassaundra with her diploma in front of her dad.

Think about that: A college that cares enough that its president goes to the hospital on graduation day to present a diploma! If you are a student considering Drake, have a child attending the college or are an alum, you’ve got to feel really good about what this says about the institution.

As we all look at and discuss what social-media tools and other gadgets we use to promote our institutions, we can never forget the most important lesson: People matter. What any college does for one of its students in his or her hour of need is its greatest test. By that measure, Drake University scores an A+ and provides a lesson for us all.

sweeping away preconceptions.

Whenever I hear people talk of students or prospective students as some kind of homogeneous group, or in generational terms, I recall the first time I ever saw a streetsweeper.

During my senior year of college, I’d crashed at a friend’s house after a late night. Woke around 5 a.m., hopped in the ’78 Chevy Malibu and that’s when I saw it. This strange little vehicle with large rotating scrub-brushes cleaning the street. Coming from a town under 2,000, I’d never before experienced such a fantastical machine. But when I told my friends from cities of any size about it after, they eyeballed me as every bit the rube I often felt.

Similarly, our students come from so many different places and experiences, and have such a variety of needs and interests. So it’s curious that, after we’re taught while growing up not to stereotype, so many involved in higher education are quick to, well, stereotype students. They talk of a reductionist Gen Y or Millennial stereotype (founded on fairly shaky ‘research’ and assumptions) and use broad reductionism in spewing generalizations. Don’t our students deserve better?

Anyone who’s had the pleasure of interacting with even a handful of students know what a diverse bunch they are. The young man from the farming community is quite different from the young lady from the Bronx, even if demographers try to pigeonhole them with the same one-size-fits-all label. Isn’t it arrogant to assume they have all these similarities just because they were born within years of each other? To just classify all as Millennials or Gen Yers or whatever oversimplified stereotype someone will invent for the next generation is to do them a disservice. And, in the process, doing all of us a disservice.

So next time you’re thinking of what students may want, here’s a simple suggestion: Don’t box them into a stereotype. Instead, talk to them. You may be amazed. Moreover, you could sweep away preconceptions and assure a clearer road to understanding.

follow the future?

So I’m checking out Addict-o-Matic the other day, where I track online buzz and mentions for our college, and I see a Twitter entry from a prospective student who received a scholarship letter from the school and is considering it. We have a Twitter account, @sunyoswego, so the question arises: Should we have that account follow the potential student?

Pros: It’s unlikely any other colleges have paid this type of attention to the student. By following back, the student would receive news, our student blog entries and daily updates of what’s happening on campus … and perhaps find it interesting. I know that when I was looking at colleges, the personal attention Brockport showed me was a big factor in its favor. This could also provide an opportunity for the student to ask questions in a relaxed environment.

Cons: It could seem kind of creepy, no? The student could find it intrusive, perhaps some breach of institution-person etiquette. And … did I mention it could seem kind of creepy?

Do you think, in such a case, a college should follow? What would you think if you were the student being followed by a college Twitter account?

social media: it’s not a trip to the dentist.

Back in college, I visited our dentist over winter break and he lamented that he wouldn’t be able to fix one of my cavities until I was home for spring break.

I said no prob — it mainly hurt when I’d open my mouth in cold weather to say hello to people around campus.

Then don’t say hi to people, he replied.

In a way, this is analogous to businesses — colleges included — debating the use of social media. The potential pain seems an impediment to trying to communicate. People worry about the time involved, of having one more task to do. Others don’t see the payoff; there are no 20-page annotated graph-filled Best Practices Reports yet, no clear return-on-investment model. Managers worry about the lack of control, of the perceived perils of empowering people to create conversations on your behalf.

But here’s the thing: If you’re a college, business or person of any renown — a brand, essentially — people are talking about you. A lot. All over the Internet. You can go to Addictomatic and type in any institution name and find the current Internet buzz in terms of news, blogs, videos, pictures, Twitter and other media. Don’t you want to be part of your brand’s conversation? Moreover, don’t you want to lead your brand’s conversation?

When I poured time, brain cells and hustle into launching the SUNY Oswego Student Blogs, I was often asked why. Social media is not just an emerging form of communication, it’s THE form of communication for many of our prospective students. Sure, we have to pay attention to print, TV and other traditional media, but more and more students receive their info from the Web. Colleges design elaborate student-led admissions programs for incoming students because they know current students are great ambassadors. So why not allow students to become cyber-ambassadors, whether as bloggers or on Facebook or other social media platforms?

Which brings us back to the barrier of perceived pain, and the beginning of my story. Did I stop saying hello to friends and others while walking around campus? Of course not. A little bit of discomfort is a part of life, but it shouldn’t be enough to keep us from enjoying quality conversations.