Connecting more with students through technology – too good to be true?

Two articles this week caught my attention, both focusing on technology but from different directions: marketing and promotion vs. retention and attrition. Separately, the articles had merit enough but I believe the strong discussion is when the concepts emphasized in both are linked together.

The first article, “How colleges use, misuse social media to reach students” on CNN.com by Umika Pidaparthy, discusses an idea that is not entirely new and some people in this class have already blogged about this week: social media.


Colleges are more and more frequently using social media as a pubic relations tool to entice students to attend a particular school or to reach out to students who have already been accepted to the institution. While many schools have been incorporating Facebook and Twitter feeds into their public relations, some schools are doing a poor job of keeping their accounts up to date. The Washington Post subsidiary, StudentAdvisor.com, has been doing critiquing of how schools marketto potential students in its “Top 100 Social Media Colleges” list.

The site’s main purpose is to help students of all ages find the school that is right for them through online information provided by advisors and peers. The idea of letting potential students of any kind ask any questions in a relatively professional forum that is not managed or controlled by administrators for a particular institution is close to what youth in society today expect from the Internet.

Think of this as the Wiki of Higher Education institutions. 

Of course, it is also a not so subtle marketing tool for the Post’s special advertisement sections pertaining to being a college student. Ads and commercials from Bed, Bath and Beyond, Staples and others mix with hot tips and insights, supposedly from other student product testers. However, perhaps this is how youth of today prefer to receive their marketing. They would rather not to be advertised to unless it is catered to their desires and needs, such as with the commercials on Facebook. Needless, irrelevant print material sent by colleges and universities are tossed away without a glance. The “magazines” offered by StudentAdvisor are there for the taking but not forced into someone’s face in the manner of pop-up ads or direct mailings.

Having an alum from particular a school share the inside scoop on the best meal to get on a Tuesday in the dining hall or having a peer relate what to expect at a basketball game makes the potential college seem real and welcoming. Is it all true? Can the real answers be found by asking what seem to be random strangers? Maybe not, but that isn’t stopping potential students from trying.

The other news story from Inside Higher Ed coveredtechnology used as a personal assistant for students who need a little extra boost to their academic motivation and perseverance. 

Paul Smith’s College, akaThe College of the Adirondacks, in upstate New York is known for degrees ranging from the culinary arts to forestry. Now the school may be known for a groundbreaking method of student interventions.

When a student’s grades drop below a certain mark, or if the student has forgotten to submit a form, multiple college personnel are notified through the use of an early warning database. These instructors, advisers and administrations then contact the student and initiate the reminder or conversation about the circumstances that caused the warning. 

Proponents of the “behavioral intervention team” hope this is another way to provide student support and not allow anyone to fall through cracks in the higher educational system. They have put much thought into how much information can be shared and used, according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). But has there been thought put into how to best help students begin to advocate for themselves? By increasing the amount of guidance provided by the school, are we then taking away from the student’s development? How can students learn responsibility if they are not allowed to fail once or twice?

Considering how popular the Siri personal assistant on the new iphone 4S has already become, I imagine the use of personalized checks and balances to ensure student retention and success will be something students appreciate, if not outright request.

Both the StudentAdvisor website and the database early warning system are new technologies being used to associate with students in a more effective manner. Even though the method of communicating online or electronically may seem less personal, the connection established is meant to be unique for each student. People in society today as a whole expect individualized attention. This attitude bleeds over into how the students of today and tomorrow expect their relationships with their institutions to begin and continue beyond graduation. As professionals in higher education, we’d better be on our toes.