As college presidents face pressure to respond to protests and social-media-fueled controversies, their teams are also feeling the heat. Communications staffs, in particular, are struggling to keep ahead of public discussions that seem only to get more volatile and intense.
“I said last year at this time, I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Teresa Flannery, vice president for communication at American University. “And I said it again this week.”
The week before classes started this fall, before students had even arrived on campus, activists at American were already gearing up for their first events and activities, she says. Ms. Flannery has had to discourage the eight staff members she might call on in a crisis from taking vacations in mid-August, because “we’ve got to be ready to go.”
Her staff, which hasn’t grown in about five years, is big enough to handle strategic communications and minor challenges that may require institutional reaction during an ordinary week. But given protests over campus climate last year, on top of minor controversies popping up all the time, ordinary weeks are becoming less the rule.
“When something breaks, everything has to shift,” Ms. Flannery says. “Then we’re allocating time from other communication priorities to pay attention to whatever the issue du jour is.” Such issues are rarely resolved in hours. Often it will take days.
Ms. Flannery, like others in her job, does her best to anticipate and prepare for issues that may arise. In addition to a full-time social-media coordinator, American employs software that monitors social-media platforms 24 hours a day, searching for mentions of the university that may require some intervention or response. Students are often on social media through the wee hours, and “you could be smacked in the face when you get to work if you haven’t had an alert that something broke” overnight, she says.
American uses such social-media scanning, and information funneled from departments across campus, to try to make contact with activists before protests start. The offices of campus life or public safety may contact the organizers to ask about what they’re trying to achieve and what they’re planning. “Let’s establish some rules of the road so that you can be successful and work is not disrupted and academic activities go on as planned,” Ms. Flannery says.
On the Fly
Figuring out how to respond to activists or agitated stakeholders without creating further anger has become difficult. At the University of California at Berkeley, any statement released by the university is parsed “almost at a Talmudic level,” says Dan Mogulof, executive director of communications and public affairs there. “Any perceived diminution in the strength of the rhetoric, or perceived diminution in the rank of the sender, can easily be seen by a particular group as insulting.”
Mr. Mogulof cites a recent example in which plans called for Nicholas B. Dirks, the chancellor, to respond to a particular interest group. When a staff member pointed out that a recent response to a similar situation had come from an associate chancellor, the university sent the response from an administrator of a similar rank to avoid the perception that one group’s concern merited more attention than another. “It was fine, but these are the kind of discussions that just weren’t happening three or four years ago,” Mr. Mogulof says.
The need to respond effectively often clashes with the need to respond quickly, in order to keep social-media voices from controlling the narrative. Berkeley has created a process in which messages sent out by the university are reviewed by as many as a dozen people in an effort to anticipate potential objections or blind spots in the rhetoric. But waiting for review by that many people “can obviously really, really slow things down,” says Mr. Mogulof, especially on the fly.
He and the rest of the communications team at Berkeley do what they can to be prepared. Berkeley, like many universities, holds monthly “issues” meetings to discuss situations that might arise in the near term. The university often sends observers to scheduled protests in order to make sure that the communications staff has firsthand information about the events and their rhetoric. Mr. Mogulof sometimes prepares for protests by asking particular vice chancellors or deans if they can be available to comment shortly afterward, or to review statements prepared by the university, if necessary.
Figuring out how to better respond to future crises involves looking back to examine what has worked and what hasn’t. In years past, leaders at the University of Kentucky, for example, sometimes held “after action” meetings in the wake of major natural events, such as ice storms, “to learn from what we’d done and continually refine how we approach these problems,” says Timothy S. Tracy, the provost. Administrators now hold such meetings after more-mundane incidents, as when recent reports of an assault off campus gave rise to false rumors of dormitory lockdowns that led the university to respond.
Five years ago, that incident probably wouldn’t have spurred an after-action meeting, says Eric N. Monday, executive vice president for finance and administration. Now, he says, “we’re doing it each week.”
The pace and intensity of the current communications environment may force further changes. More and more management time among senior administrators is being taken up by “making sure that we’re making the most wise institutional decisions” in reacting to protests and social-media flare-ups, says Ms. Flannery, of American University. Time spent by communications staffs putting out fires means less time to work on strategic goals.
Even with tight budgets, many colleges may have to spend more on communications in the years to come. “Can you afford not to apply resources that will help you respond well?” Ms. Flannery asks. “Probably not.”
Lee Gardner writes about the management of colleges and universities, higher-education marketing, and other topics. Follow him on Twitter @_lee_g, or email him at lee.gardner@chronicle.com.
