UTPB: Leveraging Your Experts

Situation

Of all of the programs at UTPB that were working for greater enrollment, the English program had both unique challenges and unique opportunities. The challenges stemmed from the wider public discussion about the utility and practicality of a liberal arts degree like English. On the other hand, one of the primary areas of curricular focus for the English program was writing, a critical skill for any and every program or profession. Various externally-managed events were being hosted throughout the year on campus, many of which involved middle school and high school youth, and faculty from the English program were invited to exhibit at those events. They did not have material beyond simple promotional information sheets conveying facts about the English program at the university, and wondered if they could develop something more engaging.

Solution

Using the Woolston Inventive philosophy of using every interaction with customers to make them smarter rather than promoting our offering, we quickly identified in consulting with the faculty that they had a unique and novel way of approaching how to write. They had long since recognized that writing well is an essential aspect of anything that every student would do, and used part of every course they taught to teach students a universal approach to writing that could be applied regardless of the discipline or the medium, whether the writing was creative or technical. We worked with the faculty to capture that three-step process of Invention, Drafting, and Editing, and publish it in an attractive tri-fold brochure. Given the format that emerged, we had space to supplement this with helpful information on how to read critically, and how the writing process would be useful across other disciplines.

Immediately they had not only a beautiful publication that they could offer while exhibiting at these events, but a promotional piece for the program that they could share in countless other venues on their own or with the admissions and recruitment office. It was actually so versatile that they found use for it as part of the curriculum in the courses they were teaching.

Success

Like so many Woolston Inventive pieces, this one “flew off the shelves.” It was a tremendously popular offering at the events where faculty featured it, and they were able to start using it as a tool to recruit majors from the pool of exploratory or undecided students, thus helping to improve retention for the university.