The Roman Catholic college has a splashy new campaign to update its image and reach more students — and it’s working
Students want it all. And universities like to say they have it.
The University of Dayton, however, decided to tell prospective students what it doesn’t have. “Do you have all the answers?” its viewbook asks in bold, red letters. “Neither do we.”
It’s got questions though. “Where do you find faith?” crosses a sketch of a brain and a heart. “Do you know more about Lindsay Lohan than Darfur?” is emblazoned on two bare-shouldered, glossy-lipped blondes.
They stand in marked contrast to the smiling, clean-cut students pictured in the university’s student union, marching through the decades from bobby socks to bubble skirts.
When the playful, 84-page viewbook showed up last fall, not everybody was impressed. Some faculty members were taken aback. And the student newspaper, the Flyer News, pronounced it a “fully color, glossy orgy,” unbefitting a Roman Catholic college. The admissions office, it said, had hit an “astonishing all-time low.”
Daniel J. Curran, the university’s president, thought it hit just the right note. It got people talking. And the conversation wasn’t just about the viewbook but about how Dayton could create a distinctive identity in a sea of sameness. Its leaders were looking to fashion a modern brand that would speak not only to potential students, but also to parents, alumni, donors, businesspeople, and other universities.
Demographic and economic forces were conspiring against the university. Ohio’s manufacturing industry, once the muscle of the state, has been declining for years. People have left along with jobs. As a result, the pool of potential students in Dayton’s backyard is shrinking.
Not only that, but the higher-education market has changed, too. “I wouldn’t say it’s becoming a commodity,” says Ruth K. Sims, a senior vice president at Noel-Levitz, a higher-education consulting firm. “But it’s a mature market, and it’s moving that way.”
Colleges, she says, need to make tough decisions about who they are. For universities like Dayton, that can be particularly hard. The university has prided itself on “quiet competence.” And it was doing well even before the branding campaign began last year. Sponsored research was up, applications were holding steady, and the endowment was more than $400-million. Dayton had a lot to lose.
New Times, New Methods
Some people on the campus weren’t interested in bold marketing. “The people that were attracted to the University of Dayton liked that we were kind of an ‘aw shucks’ institution,” says Paul H. Benson, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.
That feeling is part Catholic values, part Midwestern humility. Location says a lot about an institution. And this one is in the heart of Dayton. Nearby sit abandoned factories, a reminder of the city’s proud manufacturing past. The cash register, automobile self-starter, and airplane were invented here. But few Americans know that, and the people here hesitate to tell you.
That same instinct presented a problem for the university, says Sundar Kumarasamy, vice president for enrollment management. “How,” he asks, “do you brag about being humble?”
When Mr. Curran arrived as president, in 2002, he decided that the university had to figure out a way. The problem, as he saw it, was perception.
Because of its name, many potential students thought the institution was a state university, like the Universities of Toledo or Akron. Many didn’t know that Dayton, with an enrollment of more than 10,000, is the largest private college in Ohio, or that it is a Catholic institution, rooted in the values of the Society of Mary.
Other colleges knew little about the quality of Dayton’s students, he says, or the fact that its $75-million in annual sponsored research puts it third among Catholic universities, behind only the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University. “Our biggest challenge was that other institutions, prospective students, and even the community in Dayton didn’t really understand us,” Mr. Curran says.
That’s where branding came in. People on the campus, says Mr. Benson, quickly came around to Mr. Curran’s way of thinking. Branding wasn’t about changing Dayton. It was about talking intentionally about what were already its strengths: research, service, and student leadership. And it was about putting a core Marianist value — dialogue and transformative education — in terms a teenager in California could get.
As a Marianist maxim says, “New times call for new methods.” And these times called for a bold brand.
No Longer Counting Collars
The university focused on admissions first. When Mr. Kumarasamy arrived, in January 2007, he had some ideas about how to expand Dayton’s reach.
The admissions office bought the names of 400,000 prospective students in 2007, up from the usual 250,000. Staff members mailed postcards to every high school in the United States and many abroad, reaching some 30,000 schools. They streamlined Dayton’s admissions Web site to make it more user-friendly. And the college moved to the Common Application.
The new efforts cost money. The admissions budget jumped by $1-million, from $2.68-million in 2006-7 to $3.69-million in 2007-8. Much of that was spent on postage, redesigning admissions materials, and paying consultants, Mr. Kumarasamy says.
The university brought in a Philadelphia-based marketing firm, 160over90, to help with the branding effort. One of the agency’s strengths in working with colleges is that it doesn’t work just with colleges. It has handled accounts like AND 1 Inc., the basketball-shoe company, and American Eagle Outfitters Inc., which focus on teenagers.
“We have to be in touch with their aesthetic,” says Mr. Kumarasamy.
The viewbook set the tone for the brand. A feature headlined “Last night a pizzaman saved my life” talks about research done at Dayton. (It highlights those ubiquitous thermal pizza bags, which were invented at Dayton to keep vaccines at the proper temperature.) And the viewbook’s splashy colors and sometimes frivolous questions point back to the Marianist values of dialogue and discovery.
The university used to project Catholicism the old-fashioned way, says Molly Wilson, director of creative services in the office of enrollment management. The old viewbooks were filled with pictures of the Catholic brothers and gave prominent placement to the campus chapel. “We’re not counting the number of collars in the viewbook anymore,” she says.
Dayton’s sharper message is crucial as the university extends the brand throughout its operations. Mr. Curran already had 160over90 help polish the president’s report.
Last academic year, the university sent copies to presidents of peer institutions, like DePaul University and Loyola University Chicago, and to ones that don’t usually hear from Dayton. Numerous presidents, including those at Harvard University and the University of Southern California, wrote back after they received it, Mr. Curran says. “One president commented on the Dayton Early College Academy,” a school overseen by the university. “That’s gotten national media attention, and they still weren’t aware of it.”
Catching other colleges’ attention — even for a brief moment — is important, he says. Reputation matters to alumni, to donors, to prospective students. Reputation matters in the annual college rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, too. Like it or not, Mr. Curran says, “it is an indicator of what’s going on, or at least the perception of what’s going on.”
Knowing your position in the field also matters. That’s a point far too many institutions miss, says Ms. Sims, of Noel-Levitz. “A lot of colleges actually don’t know what they do well,” she says. “Or they don’t know what’s relevant to their audience.”
The Payoff?
Dayton still has months of branding work ahead, and it may be years before campus officials can assess its impact. But admissions, at least, is showing positive signs.
Dayton’s applications for the 2008 freshman class went up 33 percent. A record number of high-school seniors graduated this year, but Dayton’s increase far outpaced the average 8-percent increase of its peers.
The university isn’t looking to grow, so it became more selective. Even so, 1,995 students showed up for class in August, about 230 more than the goal. “It’s a good problem to have,” says Mr. Benson.
But more important than sheer numbers, officials say, the students seem to be a good fit. And they’re showing up with a broader range of backgrounds.
Most of the students are white, but the numbers of black and Asian students in the entering class have increased, along with the number of international students. And Dayton has made inroads in states, like California and Maryland, where it hadn’t had much interest. Enrollment was steady in its home state, Ohio, but interest from places within a day’s drive — Chicago, New York, Pennsylvania — increased significantly. Those areas will be crucial to the university’s continued success, Mr. Kumarasamy says.
Brian M. Balke, 18, is one of those driving-distance freshmen. As a senior at Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids, Mich., he applied to Dayton as well as to DePaul, Marquette, Michigan State, and Grand Valley State Universities. He was won over by the campus tour at Dayton. “It was my favorite visit.”
That on-campus experience is crucial, says Lawrence Fisher, Mr. Balke’s uncle, who is a high-school counselor. In his 17 years at East Grand Rapids High School, he says, interest in Dayton has fluctuated. High schools often cycle through “hot schools,” Mr. Fisher says, as recent graduates talk up their colleges. Or a couple of seniors get interested in a college and spread the word. Sometimes, it has to do with outreach or marketing.
Whatever the case, no seniors in the 2007 class at East Grand Rapids applied to Dayton. Eighteen did this year. Of the 17 admitted, six chose to enroll.
For now, he says, “Dayton’s back.”
http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 55, Issue 3, Page A26