Action Project: Communicating Quality
Institution: Missouri Western State College
Contact: Jeanie Crain -- crain@missouriwestern.edu -- 816-271-5997

Annual Update: 2004-09-13

Significant progress has been made on the objectives outlined for Year One. The remaining baseline surveys were completed by May 2004. Admissions (fall 2003) and alumni giving data (FYE 2004) will be used as internal benchmarks. Baseline data was collected for the two areas, and stretch goals are being set. The Public Relations and Marketing Office (PRMO) with the 20-member Public Relations and Marketing Committee (PRMC), a strategic planning sub-committee, focused on communicating Western’s quality initiatives to faculty, staff and students through events, departmental presentations and posters and flyers this spring. This was very successful and reached the majority of employees. Western hosted a spring semester contest with more than 80 responses from faculty, staff, and students. This increased participation in the project and ensured the office was receiving a diverse mix of stories and achievements by some of its strongest advocates. In May 2004, the PRMO launched the external communication strategy with a variety of advertisements. An advertising budget and plan for communicating quality at Western was created over the summer. The Strategic Plan Implementation Fund provided $100,000 to fund the plan, and the plan has been reviewed by the PRMC. The advertising focus will be mid-September through April 2005.

The action project entitled “Communicating Quality” has shown steady progress toward its goals and is directly linked to the strategic plan developed by the college. Baseline data has been collected and stretch goals are in the process of being established. Several events have already taken place to move the action project along including: presentations, special events, advertising artifacts and a creative contest. There appears to be strong leadership within the Public Relations and Marketing Committee to facilitate this project. Funding in the amount of $100,000 has been established to support this project.

In planning the implementation of this Action Project, the Director of Public Relations and Marketing made a concerted effort to share information on this project and to involve the campus community in the project. During the launch of the communication campaign, the director and her staff spoke to more than 200 individuals at promotional events and members of 28 out of 51 individual departments. In addition the Discover Gold contest resulted in 80 stories regarding how Western makes a difference in the lives of students, faculty and staff. Memos, posters, flyers, magnets were also used to communicate during the launch. The PRMO has created a website (www.missouriwestern.edu/discovergold) that continues to communicate Western’s activities regarding this project. The PRMC, which represents a broad range of faculty and institutional departments interested in promoting Western, has served as the primary implementation team for this action project. They have been involved in a variety of activities supporting the project.

The Director of Public Relations and Marketing has led the implementation of the project, however others were engaged through the Public Relations and Marketing Committee, events, presentations and individual discussions. A significant engagement strategy was the Discover Gold story contest. It created a personal connection to the action project for those responding with their stories and promoted the AQIP principle of valuing people. Continuing communication is in place through the website. While most of the campus is knowledgeable about the action project, ways to engage the remainder of the community in the three differentiators for the college will need further exploration. It may be helpful to create different advertising slogans and images and provide an opportunity for the campus community to vote on what is most representative of the culture.

The college needs to complete several steps as it moves into Year 2 of this project. The first step in September will be to finalize the stretch measures for the Admission and Alumni benchmarks. Also, the PRMO will monitor the advertising plan to ensure maximum effectiveness. The PRMC will discuss and create a plan to communicate the progress and continue involving the campus (especially the students) in the Action Project. The PR & Marketing Director will meet with Admissions, Alumni Services and other key stakeholders in the project to determine ways to partner with the departments in communicating Western’s quality through targeted publications or other activities.

The planned next steps for this action project are specific objectives that will move the project forward. The steps involve collaboration of other key departments and further campus involvement, including students, that will be crucial to the success of future goals.

In this Action Project, many of our processes are just being developed. The communication process used in Year One to introduce the project to faculty and staff was very effective. It may turn out to be a best practice. This was a very broad-based strategy that touched every department on campus in some way. The PRMO contacted every administrative group, including the Cabinet, Deans’ Council, Directors, and Chairs of all departments, to share a 15-minute presentation on the Communicating Quality Action Project and Discover Gold strategy. Then the PRMO office contacted and scheduled a 10-minute presentation for departments, reaching 28 of 51 departments. Those departments not meeting received written materials and give-aways for each member of the department. In addition, two HTML emails and one written document were distributed to all employees the week prior to these activities. This approach truly penetrated campus and allowed the office to send its message to the majority of employees. Since that time, the same communication model, to a lesser extent, has been used to communicate other issues.

The success experienced by the college in its first year of the project represents an effective practice in communication. The strategies used for communication have been energetic and creative. Since benchmarks have been established and stretch goals are ready to be implemented, a model for best practice can be created and shared with other institutions.

Determining the internal benchmark data to use in measuring the outcomes of this Action Project proved challenging. To determine the Admissions and Alumni benchmarks, the PRMO looked at how other institutions were benchmarking communication strategies and consulted the college’s branding consultant as to the best way to measure the impact of the communication. We have now determined the benchmarks and received the data. Due to the initial challenge of identifying the specific benchmarks, the project director has not yet set stretch goals; however, those goals will be completed by the end of September. A second challenge will be to create channels of communication to continue communication to the campus community about this Action Project. Determining effective ways to communicate to the entire student body continues to be a challenge. The PRMC will focus on this challenge in the next two months and plans to talk with other institutions about strategies for sustaining and enhancing communication about the Action Project, ultimately resulting in increased involvement. From this research, the PRMO will create a communication plan for the next two years of the project.

The challenges described by the college are focused on maintaining effective communication with administrators, faculty and staff and finding an effective way to communicate with students. The college may want to get students involved by having student representatives on the Public Relations and Marketing Committee. Additionally, communication to students could be through regular articles in the student newspaper/newsletter, presentations at Student Government meetings or other student gatherings, and bookmarks that highlight the three distinguishing characteristics of the college with an AQIP message.