The announcement of a new president is exciting, pivotal, even historic news. How many other developments at a university offer greater opportunities to celebrate the institution, convey a message of promise and progress, and let the campus community at large share in the moment?
Having led a number of these rollouts across the last few years, I have often been asked, "How fast can we get this news out?" I understand the sense of urgency. The news is important, the community is waiting, and the search committee has been working intensively for months. But even just a slight delay can make a big difference in this rare moment’s value to the institution, and to the new president.
When, most recently, Clark University’s Board of Trustees asked me to lead their announcement, the Clark team and I had a month across the winter holidays to work with the incoming president, board chair, and campus partners to build something robust.
A few factors can help convince leadership to take that time:
1. Comprehensive communications are the announcement’s best chance.
Every tool in the kit—from email to web, video to social media—can and should be brought fully to bear on this announcement. The full press is the fighting chance this news has to deliver on its potential. If the board involves the head of communications as soon as the new president is chosen—as it should—the strategizing can begin right away.
2. Every audience matters.
Typically, planning conversations start with how to inform the campus and alumni of this news. But these rollouts can also be used to engage donors, community and political leaders, parents of current students, and prospective students and their families. When the communications team involves the heads of admissions, advancement, and government affairs in the planning, leadership will know that best thought will be given to engaging every community and supporting the new president in building early momentum and foundational relationships. And it will be clear that such thorough planning takes time.
3. The sense of urgency is usually misplaced.
Only in exceptional circumstances do campuses face predicaments in which they must release the new president’s name as soon as the choice is made. After all the work of a thorough and orderly search, the announcement should meet those standards too. The risk otherwise is to turn this special great situation that the institution controls into a crisis in which we’re reacting rather than strategizing.
4. The “press release” is barely the beginning.
Although communications staff know that the days of such a vehicle being able to break through are long gone, not everyone involved in searches does yet. We have to paint a picture for leadership that shows how, with a little time, the communications can move from a simple news announcement to far more compelling results. We can involve everything from a comprehensive microsite to segmented and carefully timed emails, from pre-filmed video interviews with the incoming president to calls informing key groups and individuals in the hours leading up to the public announcement.
5. Most news media don’t care much.
Few are the situations anymore in which media outside the local outlets pay much attention to the appointment of a new campus president. When we have helped secure bigger media coverage—e.g., The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Boston Globe—for appointments of new presidents, it’s been because we were allowed time to pitch, engage, and land the interest. Which leads to this: so what if the news leaks? I don’t mean that literally—no one wants the news out before the board and search committee are ready. But without corroboration, the rumors are nothing more and should not be allowed to affect planning.
The rollout of a new president can serve the entire institutional community—and the relationship of the future president with it. We can help others see that with a few key steps, and a little more time than is sometimes expected, the reach of the news can live up to its promise.