Q: What is your involvement with all the rebranding and stuff that’s going on?

A: It’s exciting stuff. My background is in communication, and so the opportunity to refresh our brand is exciting, which is what we started back last March when the President’s Second Century Advisors group was here.

This is a new group that comes and helps us think about “Why EMU for Century Two” —that’s our theme. They even mentioned last March, “It’s been a long time since you’ve done a brand audit.” That’s what it’s referred to in the industry, because most universities do this every 4-6 years, and we hadn’t done one for 9-10 years.

Anyway, Jim and the marketing team got on that. We hired this great consultant from SIR research and Bishop, and we were moving on it in terms of doing some hardline research—with perspective students, with alumni, with students, with parents, with faculty and staff—these digital focus groups.

So I was involved in it just in terms of knowing what they were doing and finding out what the preliminary research points were along the way.

Where I’m now getting more involved in it is as we move from the brand positioning work that we’ve been doing in terms of who are we and what is our ideal student that we want to attract, it now is moving to an external phase, where we really are looking at a new tagline; different kinds of stories that refresh our values of community building, peacemaking, discipleship and service; and doing that in a way that connects with 15- to 17-year-olds today. We can’t just assume that those words mean anything and that they’re connected in powerful and inviting ways to outcomes.

So as we move from an inward focus—which is what the brand positioning statement is—to an outward focus of advertising and marketing, we want to make sure that it dovetails with our new enrollment action plan. As we look forward to a comprehensive campaign, as I presented to our faculty and staff, we really have had three research agendas going on at the same time all year long, and they’re interconnected: the enrollment action plan, the brand refresh, and then getting ourselves ready for our first comprehensive campaign for the Second Century.

So that’s kind of all up there, pie in the sky, but it’s been really fun to trace the actual comments that people are making about their experience here, which really feels good.

It’s one of the reasons for 2018—we were named a Forbes Best Value university and that’s because again, compared to other private and public schools, our graduates rate very high on their satisfaction level with their degree and their ability to give back.

We’re trying to do this from a position of strength.

Q: What is your vision, specifically, for this rebranding? Your hope for the EMU community?

A: The real challenging and inspiring role that a president plays is that when you look at where we’re going, a president needs to be saying where we’re going and here’s why we’re going there, that our research is supporting that we need to do this. It’s not as though we’re changing our mission; everywhere I go, I continue to say, “This is the best place for meeting a noble mission.”

Our mission is to prepare students to serve and lead in a global context. What we’re trying to do is to take our wonderful Micah 6:8 and show how are we doing that in a new way. What does it mean to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God? How does that relate to a 17- or 18-year-old who’s wondering, “Why would I go to EMU for this nursing program as opposed to JMU?”

Well, the answer is in not just the outcomes: the answer is not just [that] our graduates passed on the first time more frequently than JMU; it’s that you’re going to have this added value experience for a lifetime and to be able to show how that happens each year, what it means to have high impact, high-touch experiences. It’s, again, trying to make that palpable. What does it mean to publish with a faculty member as an undergraduate? That’s unusual—it happens here. What does it mean to have a transformational experience in a cross-cultural encounter, whether that’s three weeks, six weeks, or 16 weeks? It happens here, and it’s additive.

It is all about equipping our students to succeed as both very competent people, and very compassionate people and people who can really move their communities forward—so I love it. I don’t get tired of that.

Q: Just looking back at this year, specifically, is there anything that really stood out to you? How has this year been?

A: It’s been a great year in lots of ways. I’m very thankful that after two years of being here, we have a full day to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, of taking the day off so that we can take the day on. What a beautiful series of events and service projects in connection with the Northeast neighborhood—and the opening of the barber shop.

These things are fundamentally EMU. They’re about community; they’re about the importance of diversity and inclusion and the importance of celebrating. That was a highlight for me in terms of student life and on campus things.

Certainly, another highlight is just the outpouring of generosity this year. We had our best total giving year ever in 2018, and then you add what’s happened just in the last 8 weeks. We raised a quarter million dollars for two things: Love EMU Day totals which with were about $115,000, and the Mt. Kilimanjaro Climb for MJ Sharp’s scholarship, the legacy of MJ Sharp—that was another $115,000.

So the fact that in the course of 6-8 weeks, we can raise that kind of money, is a testament to the goodwill and the sense of pride that is out there, and what EMU means. Those are some of the highlights.

Q: Is there anything specific that you’re hoping to accomplish in the coming year? Either to do with rebranding or in general?

A: The rebranding and the comprehensive campaign are going very much together. We need to make sure that we’re taking our new refreshed stories and tagline and reminding folks of the importance of an EMU education, and we have to combine that with getting to the heart of the fact that our primary stumbling block right now for undergraduate enrollment is price.

We’ve got to get a handle on access and affordability. If I had to name one thing that we that we will tackle in imaginative and effective ways, it will be that.

As we position ourselves to grow a campaign, it will put students first. How do we grow our endowment so that we can add additional kinds of scholarships to the tuition?

I don’t need to tell you that tuition is high. So that’s my goal, to work on that piece. It matters, not just on an economic level; it matters on a moral level—the idea that we don’t want people coming here and getting his great education, but graduating with big debt.

We just can’t do that.

So that’s where we’re going.