Managing Content, Managing Change
CURRENTS Article This article explores the importance of an institutional content strategy and how institutions can develop cross-platform strategies and repurpose content. What is content strategy, and how are institutions approaching it? How is this changing the role of higher education communications professionals?

Inside Out
CURRENTS Article This article looks at how campus internal communications has changed as communications vehicles have moved increasingly from print to online, how this shift has led several larger universities to embrace the news center model, and how this opening of communication has expanded the audiences that internal communicators address.

Un nuevo inicio
CURRENTS Article Este artículo aborda el importante papel que desempeña un presidente interino en la comunicación institucional y el rol que juega el Staff dando apoyo al líder y llevando a cabo los objetivos de comunicación de la institución.

Clean Break
CURRENTS Article This article discusses the important role an interim president plays in institutional communications and the part the communications staff plays in both supporting the interim leader and furthering the strategic communication goals of the institution.

Messages from Within
CURRENTS Article After conducting a review of internal communications, Northwestern University finds that the electronic newsletter still reigns supreme.

Advance Work: Theft Provides Publicity Boon
CURRENTS Article Stolen mascot costumes at Butler University provided the perfect excuse to go viral and drum up some great publicity for the institution.

Campus Confidential
CURRENTS Article One year after the tragedy at Virginia Tech, are institutions better prepared to handle students with mental health crises? Take a look at how a variety of institutions are changing the way they share information about students at risk while they navigate the muddy waters of FERPA and HIPAA regulations.

Repair Required
CURRENTS Article Managing internal communications can be a challenge. But the way that communications are set up internally really gives the external world a clear picture of your institution's brand and message.

Virtually Secure
CURRENTS Article Institutions are being hacked into more often, and it's the role of campus communicators to educate the campus about risks and precautions. But the task isn't easy. It's difficult to make individuals truly aware of how security issues affect them. This article explores the security problems and issues that institutions face and the strategic communications associated with them and will offer ideas for successful internal communications campaigns based on marketing techniques.

Ground Control
CURRENTS Article This article takes a close look at one campus's process for developing a policy and guidelines for faculty and staff blogs. Included are what led to the development of an official policy, how the conversation began on campus, what administrators hoped to accomplish, who was involved in the discussion, and what issues (legal and otherwise) were considered.

Everything Speaks
CURRENTS Article Everything about an institution, from the tidiness of lobbies to the smile on the receptionist’s face, “speaks” and makes critical impressions on students, visitors, and others. Paying attention to such details can make the difference in whether a campus achieves its strategic goals. This article shares advice on how to incorporate the “everything speaks” marketing philosophy on campus and use it to generate results. The accompanying sidebar highlights the importance of employees and internal communications to this philosophy. It offers suggestions for keeping an institution’s faculty and staff members informed and showing them they are vital to the school’s mission.

Advance Work: Chalk Talk
CURRENTS Article This article highlights one institution's efforts to publicize a new campus service.

Beyond the Welcome Mat
CURRENTS Article We hear so much about communicating with students during the recruitment phases, but what happens once they get in the door? This article explores the ways in which campuses communicate with students while they’re on campus. It looks at how--and how often--communications offices communicate with students other than during crises and what they communicate about.

Advance Work: Keeping an Open Mind
CURRENTS Article Princeton University's publication--Uninvisible: Student Voices on Psychological Health and Well-Being--opens a window into troubled students' minds and identifies campus sources of help.

Inside Voices
CURRENTS Article Internal communications ought to be every bit as strategic as external campus communications, but internal audiences often are overlooked or treated as an afterthought. This article tells how Northwestern University diagnosed its internal communications challenges and responded to them. Northwestern officials conducted extensive market research with 10 different campus subgroups to reveal how each group used the existing channels of communication on campus and how it preferred to receive information. The findings led the university to make significant changes in how it communicates with students, faculty, and staff.

Home Field Advantage
CURRENTS Article Every integrated marketing program should include a multifaceted internal marketing effort. Drawing on his experiences at Texas Christian University, the author suggests several steps, including a campaign to get buy-in, faculty/staff orientation, customer-service training, and better communications with students and between supervisors and staff. This article is of interest to marketing communications managers.

Campus Cheerleader Or Independent Press?
CURRENTS Article Is the mission of a faculty-staff periodical to be a good-news mouthpiece for the administration or to objectively report issues and events? A little of each, says Kelly, editor of the internal campus newspaper at American University. She describes how AU’s newspaper developed credibility, built readership, and maintained the administration’s trust even while reporting on controversial issues.

Write-Minded: The Inside Story
CURRENTS Article To keep faculty, staff, and students well informed and connected to their institution, public relations staff should put a high priority on internal communications. The author describes the online and print publications created for campus audiences at George Mason University.

Small Office: Lift the Fog
CURRENTS Article Communicating with faculty and staff is as important to fund raisers as reaching external constituencies. These strategies can help a development office raise awareness: 1) Get the word out through such channels as the annual report, the campus newsletter, and voice-mail and email broadcasts. 2) Recruit and educate volunteers from the faculty and staff. 3) Use unrestricted dollars to offer competitive professional development grants for faculty and staff. 4) Meet and greet campus colleagues by sponsoring social functions, attending division meetings, volunteering for other offices' projects, and having lunches with faculty and staff.

AdvanceWork: Getting Your Points Across
CURRENTS Article AdvanceWork: Getting Your Points Across