By Anahiz Rivera, Staff Writer
Next week, St. Bonaventure University will be teaming up with the Creative Communications Associates, who will be interviewing students in order to help market the university to prospective students.
“For nearly 35 years, CCA has been building brands for hundreds of colleges and universities across the country – from the Ivy League to small specialty schools through strategic, creative, media, and digital services.” said Darlene A. Oliveri, Account Supervisor of the CCA. “On a personal note – as an SBU alum and the liaison between SBU and CCA, this is a very exciting opportunity both professionally and personally.”
Oliveri and Thomas Missel, Interim Vice President for University Relations, are very excited for this project.
“When the campus community built our strategic plan last year, we felt it was important for the university to invest in an initiative of this magnitude, said Missel. “The goal is to develop a unified and distinctive voice in the marketplace, and colleges often partner with agencies to help them do the work. Having outside professionals who are experts in their field take a deep, but objective look at what we stand for and what we aspire to be is important.”
This is not the first time someone at St. Bonaventure has paired up with the CCA.
“Our new president, Dr. DePerro, had great success at Le Moyne working with CCA, said Missel. “Ironically, though, we were looking at them before Dr. DePerro was even a presidential candidate here. We vetted several firms last year in anticipation of this initiative launching this academic year, and CCA was one of the firms we looked at hard because of their track record at places like Le Moyne, Siena and Iona. And that just scratches the surface of the schools they’ve done great work for.”
Dr. DePerro will be reunited with the CCA during next week to be interviewed.
“CCA has specific groups of people they wanted to talk to,” said Missel. “When they visit next week, they will meet with two groups of nine students, two groups of nine faculty and two groups of nine staff members, plus a handful of one-on-one interviews with some key administrators, most notably, Dr. DePerro.”
Missel said students were nominated by the faculty members who he sought for the faculty interviews.
“I cast a wide net looking for both faculty and staff to ensure I had enough candidates that could fill an interview schedule that was challenging to coordinate, said Missel. “Faculty and staff were chosen for a variety of reasons: We wanted a cross-section of academic disciplines for faculty, and of offices for staff members; I wanted variations in their longevity here; and I also targeted staff who work very closely with our students.”
If this works well, St. Bonaventure may expect more students from out of state and possibly even out of the country.
