AMA Blog Diary: Day One—Strong Oaks in Higher Education
The Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education early yesterday kicked off with a poignant presentation by New Orleans’ own Dillard University President Marvalene Hughes. She captivated the audience with her reflections of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on her campus and community. The joy, anticipation and energy of “Freshman Week 2005” were cut short by the storm and its devastation, necessitating unprecedented reconstruction. It is hard to wrap your arms around the following details: all of the campus buildings except for the chapel were submerged in five to ten feet of water; between September and January, crews of 200 people worked seven days a week to clear debris and destruction from the campus including the remains of three burned-down dorms; the school had to reopen in January from the Hilton—which served as housing and dining for faculty, students, and staff and provided classrooms for an entire academic year; the fall 2005 student population was 2300 – today it is 1126. Each of those would seem like an uphill battle, but combined the crisis level is overwhelming.
President Hughes’ ability to lead the campus through the crisis was immortalized by the 2006 Dillard alumni. She explained that the campus has a commencement tradition of “walking through Oaks.” Despite the devastation wrought upon the campus, only one of the campus oaks died as a result of the flooding. Their largest graduating class to date replanted that oak and named it in honor of Marvalene—what a tremendous testament to the difference she has made in the lives of those students, and the Dillard community as a whole.
The leadership of St. Edward’s University President George Martin was also hot topic at the AMA. President Martin provided a luncheon talk with Vice President Paige Booth on “Winning Over Your President” to become a marketing advocate, and he could not have articulated better the need for higher education marketing. There were plenty of smiles over his wit and because “he got it.” I heard many people mention their desire to have him meet their president, and one even boldly asked for one of his hairs so that they could extract his DNA and clone him. Gotta love the comments you overhear in a group setting :).
-- Teresa Valerio Parrot