Marian University: Language Programs
- pjwoolston
- Jan 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 7
Situation
The language programs at Marian University were struggling with small enrollments. The university offered instruction in four: Spanish, French, German, and Latin; of those only Spanish was offered as a major. The faculty was concerned that if enrollment continued to struggle, programs would be cut.
Solution
Given the relatively small role of language programs, it was clear that those programs would not figure into the traditional marketing for the university. We partnered with the language faculty to identify a knowledge gap that they could fill for more effective marketing through making stronger language speakers.
High school language teachers are using traditional textbooks less than at any time in the past. Consequently, we identified an opportunity to provide branded language reference materials for students that could fill in that gap. We adopted a format that would be conducive to student materials, a three-hole punched card that could live in a student binder. The most important need to fill was verb conjugation, since that would facilitate language use more than anything else. Each faculty member determined how to convey that most effectively.
We also knew that we needed a pictorial element in order for the publication to be attractive to students. For languages, we determined that that element should clearly be a map. Since the university is located in the center of Indiana, we used one side of the reference card to map all of the cities in the state of Indiana with ties to the language.
We identified an intuitive distribution opportunity through the Indiana Foreign Language Teacher Association (IFLTA) meeting in the fall in Indianapolis. We published 1,000 copies of each chart, and offered them to the school teachers from throughout the state in attendance at the conference.
The chart was instantly so appealing to teachers that we gave out every copy and started a follow-up mailing list of teachers to whom we could send an immediate re-print.
Because of the success of the initiative, we decided to do a second volume. For the language aspect we captured prepositions, and for the imagery we mapped the US, labeling a key aspect of each language in the country. We re-printed volume 1 and took both versions to the next year’s IFLTA conference. Despite printing more, we again ran out due to the popularity of both charts.
By year 3 we had built a lot of momentum. We chose another aspect of language (pronouns for French and Spanish, verb conjugation for German, and declension for Latin), and mapped the world with each country labeled in the target language and we shaded the countries where each was an official language. We brought all 3 volumes of all 4 languages to the conference. We had teachers eagerly anticipating the charts this year, and they told us that they had begun taking bets about what content we would be highlighting!
Obviously we were going to do a volume 4. We captured irregular verb conjugation, and did something unique for each map. For Spanish we indexed Spanish-speaking countries, for French we mapped the regions of France, for German we indexed German-speaking countries, and for Latin we mapped the Roman Empire with a corresponding timeline.
We entered year 5 intending to culminate the campaign with a final volume in which we contrasted the “universe” with the “university.” We showed a “map of the universe” on which we labeled each of the bodies in the solar system in the target language (along with a tongue-in-cheek label for Marian University on the Earth!), and on the other side we listed university vocabulary. This was an important knowledge gap to fill because even experienced language speakers stumble on specialized university vocabulary like “major” and “dormitory” and “freshman.”
By this point we were buying a table in the exhibit hall for the faculty because we were bringing 20 stacks of charts, 5 volumes each of 4 languages, and we had learned by this point how many we needed to publish to have enough for distribution.
The following year we knew we wanted to continue to build the immense reputation we had developed, so we tried an entirely new approach, again with the intention of filling knowledge gaps and empowering teachers. We conceived of a multi-themed, 4-part notebook:
Part 1: An essay in the language on the topic
Part 2: Interpretive tasks (across 7 sections)
Part 3: Interpersonal tasks (opportunity for dialogue with a classmate in the target language)
Part 4: Presentational tasks
The first year we profiled food, and we indicated clearly that there would be 4 subsequent topics in the following years. Then we re-published a longer notebook each year. And of course, since it was a notebook, we included an ample page count for note taking, essay writing, etc.
Success
As noted, this campaign became immensely popular with language teachers throughout the state and boosted significantly the brand for both the language programs at the university and the university overall. Each piece was published with the logo and the website of the university specifically to build the overall brand. Teachers from all over the state were requesting stacks of charts that they could give out to their students, essentially marketing FOR the university. Multiple language organizations throughout the state began requesting specific languages or volumes annually for events, such as the Staatskongress organized each spring by the Indiana Association of Students of German. Within just a few years, the faculty were able to stabilize enrollment and solidify the place of language instruction within the university.
And the reputation of the language programs continued to grow through the usefulness of the materials they were freely sharing. As much as teachers valued and appreciated the value of the language reference charts, the notebooks proved an entirely different valuable use. Teachers told us they were able to build entire lesson plans around the notebooks we published and shared with them.
Postscript
During the fifth IFLTA at which we presented volume 5 of the language charts (along with the previous 4 volumes), we also had on hand a giant blank poster and stacks of thank you cards. We asked teachers as they stopped by, if they were willing and interested, to either sign the poster and/or write a quick thank you note to the executive leadership of the university. We then presented a handsome complete set of all of the language charts, along with a volume of thank you notes and a large card signed by teachers from all over the state.
