Higher Education Can Take A Lesson from WVU
© Rene A. Henry
Millions of dollars of free advertising time went to
waste during the recent NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament. If the NCAA, various conferences and colleges
and universities wanted to win public financial support for higher education,
they lost.
You could take any random number of commercials produced
by the institutions, switch the names and no one would know the
difference. Most
appeared to be produced only to give alumni bragging rights and with no central
message. They generally opened
with a bell tower, showed students walking across campus and then with
professors in a laboratory. Not one
really told the American public how they benefited from what higher education
was doing with their tax dollars.
That could be one reason so many public universities who
once claimed to be “state supported” became “state assisted.” Some today just say they are “state located”
when it comes to the percentage of total expenses paid for by state funds.
I was fortunate to recently hear David C. Hardesty, Jr., president
of
Hardesty also pointed out some of the other good things
the university is doing for the people in the state: university physicians provide $50 million of
charity care each year; law students give 11,000 hours of free legal services;
students give 100,000 hours of community service; 3,600 new and experienced
miners are trained in safety each year through the Mining Extension Service;
30,000 children participate in summer reading programs; state farmers are
increasing sales $1 million a year by participating in university programs; the
university trained 17,500 volunteer firefighters from around the state and U.S.
last year.
And, the university’s math department earned $739,000 of
national grant money to support math education in Appalachian middle schools; 97,000
people subscribe to WVU’s small-community water resource publications; more
than 340 companies are involved in energy saving research projects; and 100 new
histories of
The citizens of
Private institutions are affected as well. When money is needed, the colleges and
universities go to the public for support.
With federal programs being cut or reprioritized, competition for all available
funds is extremely competitive.
More than 10 years ago, I directed a program at Texas A&M to gain support from the legislature. Just as consumer products companies use
research to determine the message and media to use, research told us the
message our public wanted to hear and to direct it at sports fans. It worked. Instead of a mandated 10 percent budget cut,
the legislature increased spending nearly 7 percent which represented a swing
of more than $1.5 billion.
The
former Southwest Conference further launched its own successful program which unfortunately
ended when the Big XII Conference was established. Some of the most professional commercials then
were produced by the Big 10 when Miles Brand, the current head of the NCAA, was
president of
The NCAA, and the Big East, should follow the leadership
of David C. Hardesty, Jr. who connects directly with the state’s taxpayers and
lets them know how