Tackling Social Media
CURRENTS Article Communications consultant Chris Syme writes about the results of a recent social media training program she conducted for student athletes. She also discusses how college and university athletic departments are addressing the issue of social media training and provides examples from institutions that are guiding their student athletes in the responsible use of social media.

Trading Places
CURRENTS Article This article highlights a contest that Canada's York University began in 2012. A York undergraduate student won the right to switch places with the institution's president for a day while the president took on the student's classes and schedule for the day.

Office Space: Social Connection
CURRENTS Article In this column, a young social media coordinator discusses the mistaken notion that age should be a factor when it comes to working in social media and offers advice to people working in the field and the people who manage them.

Odds and Ends: Talkin’ ’Bout Their Generations
CURRENTS Article Jane Buckingham, CEO of the market research and trend forecasting firm Trendera, discusses generational differences and how they relate to students belonging to Generations Y and V (her term for the latest generation because so much of their experience will happen virally). In this Q-and-A, Buckingham talks about marketing to these age groups, how institutions are doing communicating with them, and how to teach young people about using social media responsibly, among other issues.

What to Ponder Before You Pin
CURRENTS Article This article discusses the criteria that the social media staff at Marquette University developed to help them decide whether to devote time and resources to new social media platforms. It also looks at how Marquette University and advancement professionals at other institutions use social media channels such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr.

Hail to the Tweeps
CURRENTS Article This article looks at how college and university presidents and chancellors are using social media channels, particularly Twitter, to communicate and engage with students, faculty, staff, parents, and the campus community.

Odds and Ends: Online Life Is a Virtual Cafe
CURRENTS Article In this Q-and-A with Jonah Peretti, CEO of BuzzFeed, he discusses virality, social readers, and how people portray themselves on social media, and likens how people use social media and the Internet to time spent in a Paris cafe.

How Permissive Are You?
CURRENTS Article Manage the permissions of your social media accounts through the website mypermissions.org.

Outlook: Just Do It
CURRENTS Article Social media is a tool in an organization's communications arsenal, not the sole means of disseminating a message.

Odds and Ends: Device Daze
CURRENTS Article CURRENTS talks to MIT professor and author Sherry Turkle about the adverse effects of our digital dependence.

Fast, Broad, and Frequent
CURRENTS Article Social media tools (now used in some form by 100 percent of all four-year universities in the United States as a way to reach students, according to a 2011 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth study) have become essential for university communication departments, and they take on even more importance during emergencies.

Plus One More?
CURRENTS Article This article looks at Google's latest foray into social networking, Google+, a tool that debuted in summer 2011. Higher education social media and communications professionals discuss the potential of the new tool and its uses and implications for higher education institutions, particularly in terms of its brand pages, which were released in early November 2011.

Prepare to Engage
CURRENTS Article This article discusses the importance of focusing on building community and creating a two-way social media conversation with your institution's constituents. Experts advise that institutions using social media should be less concerned with the tools they're using and more concerned with whether and how they're engaging their alumni, students, and other constituencies. In addition, rather than jumping into using several tools, it's more important to first use a tool well before moving on to add another tool. The article also discusses some of the findings from the 2011 CASE/mStoner/Slover Linett social media survey.

Odds and Ends: Eyes on the Hill
CURRENTS Article In this interview, Brian Lamb, the founder and CEO of the cable public affairs television network C-SPAN, discusses the renaming of Purdue University's college of communication after him, why he doesn't use social media, and why he prefers nonfiction over fiction.

These Gowns Are Made for Walking
CURRENTS Article This article discusses Brigham Young University's "Walk" campaign, the centerpiece of which was a lighthearted yet sentimental YouTube video designed to encourage students to participate in commencement.

Worldwide Connections
CURRENTS Article A chart shows social networking usage data by country.

Outlook: New Directions
CURRENTS Article As education and advancement leaders are exhorted to be more open, they fret about letting go of control. What leaders need to accept to succeed in today's social media landscape is that they are no longer in control (and probably never really were to the degree they thought).

Homing in on Hits
CURRENTS Article A flash mob at The Ohio State University's student union that went viral got a campus communicator thinking about what makes some videos popular, which has led to some experimenting and strategizing to develop ideas that elicit what may be the key: authentic, happy reactions.

Top 10 Global Markets for Twitter
CURRENTS Article A bar chart showing the top 10 global markets for Twitter.

Location, Location, Location
CURRENTS Article This article discusses several location-based social networking services (also known as geosocial networking), including Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, and Facebook Places, and provides information about how some institutions are experimenting with them to connect and engage with campus constituencies.

Rising Above
CURRENTS Article This article highlights eight of the 2010 Circle of Excellence Award winners. Each year the awards recognize the best programs and products in advancement services, alumni relations, communications, marketing, and fundraising.

Social Experiments
CURRENTS Article This article presents results from CASE's first social media survey. Nearly 1,000 advancement professionals responded to the survey, which asked them, for example, who managed social media activities in their office, how successful were their social media efforts, which platforms did they use the most, which barriers to social media success were most common, and much more.

Office Space: A New Breed
CURRENTS Article The role of the social media community manager is not just about technology or updating content. It is about engaging various constituencies in thoughtful, strategic ways.

Sizing Up Social Media
CURRENTS Article As institutions increasingly engage in social media, it’s important to understand what effect these efforts are having on your different constituencies. Jerold Pearson, of the firm eAdvancement and director of market research for the Stanford Alumni Association, looks at the findings of a survey about the social media usage of Stanford alumni as well as surveys of how alumni of other institutions use social networks, particularly Facebook and LinkedIn.

Following the Threads
CURRENTS Article In early 2009, Oregon State University halted all of its print publications and focused its communication and marketing resources online by diving into social media. While Oregon State’s "Powered by Orange" is among the most respected social media campaigns in higher education, it is also an anomaly. Most institutions enter into social media by dipping one toe in the water. This article discusses how different institutions have approached various social media platforms; such as Facebook and Twitter, the role that campus leadership plays in their success; and the financial investment and staffing adjustments involved in these efforts.

Bird on a Wire
CURRENTS Article New social media platforms are emerging, but how do you know what is best for your institution? Author Brad Ward examines the landscape of Twitter in higher education and looks at its positives and negatives.

Virtually Yours
CURRENTS Article Technology is providing alumni relations professionals with a new way to organize events and engage more alumni, but it also offers us the opportunity to look at our field through a new lens. For example, using webcams and digital recorders, brick-and-mortar events can be retooled to reach more than just those people who attend. Alumni leaders now have the ability to engage their entire database worldwide without being limited to a particular venue, region, or timeframe.

Virtualmente suyo
CURRENTS Article La tecnología ofrece a los profesionales de la vinculación con exalumnos un nuevo prisma para ver los eventos. Es el fin de una era en las relaciones con los exalumnos. Las evidencias están a la vista, y la mayoría de nosotros no las hemos visto o no estamos dispuestos a aceptarlas. Para muchas asociaciones de exalumnos, la asistencia y la participación en eventos y programas siguen disminuyendo mientras los costos que conllevan siguen aumentando. Los sitios de redes sociales, y otras herramientas web 2.0 ofrecen nuevas formas de comunicarse con los egresados, sin mencionar que son nuevas formas para que éstos se comuniquen entre sí sin la participación de las asociaciones de exalumnos.

Recetas para Alcanzar el Éxito
CURRENTS Article Las redes sociales están cambiando la forma como interactúan las instituciones con los estudiantes, los profesores, los ex alumnos y los donadores. Debido a su tamaño, las escuelas independientes se encuentran, a menudo, a la vanguardia de la tecnología. Descubra cómo se comunican de forma más eficiente las escuelas a través de las redes sociales.

Recipes for Success
CURRENTS Article Social media is changing the way institutions interact with students, faculty, alumni, and donors. Because of their size, many times independent schools are on the bleeding edge of technology. Find out how schools are communicating more efficiently through social media.

Advance Work: Talking Through Twitter
CURRENTS Article Though Twitter is becoming more mainstream, university and college faculty are still slow to adopt this new media tool.

The Sea of Social Media
CURRENTS Article As social media grows in use, institutions need to look closely at how they are using these new tools in communications and marketing. Some institutions are charting a course by using different mediums to meet its strategic goals.

Operation Reputation
CURRENTS Article In today's world of social media, users can post their own thoughts, comments, and content, and readers can take it as fact. So how do institutions navigate the networks and find fact rather than fiction? Take a look at how you can police the posts and still maintain credibility.

Advance Work: All a Twitter
CURRENTS Article A recent look at college and university Twitter accounts reveals that many institutions are not exactly "tweeting" up a storm.

Advance Work: Work with What You’ve Got
CURRENTS Article Live video of a robin's nest with eggs drew an unexpected following for Duke University's Web site and underscored the power of social networking.

Advance Work: Facebook or Bust
CURRENTS Article A survey of 18- to 24-year-olds found that lack of access to Facebook or YouTube at work would cause some to quit.

Advance Work: YouTube to the Rescue
CURRENTS Article When California State University, Fresno, wanted to take the focus off some questionable student content on YouTube, officials decided to use the online video site to the university's advantage.

Advance Work: Get a Life
CURRENTS Article Case Western Reserve University allows prospective students to tour the campus from the comfort of their bedrooms via Second Life.

Advance Work: Virtual Security Blanket
CURRENTS Article Eckerd College launched an online community to help incoming students get to know each other--and the college--before they arrive on campus. Eckerd was looking for an inexpensive way to reach out to admitted students and reduce the number who send in a deposit but don’t end up attending the institution.