Happy 2023 and the start of another academic year! There is always a new feeling towards the start of a new year and even academic term. No grades have been set, publications for the year start from square one, and everything is fresh and ready to go.
While working on prepping for my classes (including teaching social media for the 12th year AND tenth officially at UofL), and working on the second term as Director of The Bird’s Nest. I realized I had not done a recap of some of the lessons and takeaways from the first six months of my new position.
Well, we got to remedy that! Reflections and takeaways are not only good for personal purposes, but I’ve been approached by friends and colleagues from other schools who want to do the exact same thing.
University Leadership support is SOOOO crucial. I am very grateful to UofL for their continued support of what we are doing for TBN. The support they have given to make sure this is part of our university commitment for engaged learning has been tremendous.
In order to get leadership buy in, there are certain aspects to consider:
- Outlining how the student agency aligns with university and community goals (for us, engaged learning is one of our grand challenges for the next few decades, so tying this in is key!)
- Identifying KPIs and metrics the student agency would be able to report and connect to university, college, and department goals.
- Understanding the potential outcomes and benefits for talent management and recruitment to the university with the student agency from the community and beyond.
- Create a list of partners on and off campus your student agency can coordinate with.
- Timeline for what you want to accomplish for Y1, Y2, etc.
- Cost (how much is needed and how much needs to be fundraised)
Built (expand) your curriculum to work with the student agency. This is very important for us as TBN is a full service agency. Identifying the key classes, experiences, and skills the students need to have in order to participate in the student agency is key to outline.
For example, we have a shell team dedicated to content creation, so if a student wanted to work there, they would need to have taken several of our courses (like my social media class), our video/film classes, writing, and more.
We also have some great partners who are working with us to support efforts for the student agency with their services. For example, we have of course Adobe products for the students to get access to for their work, but we also have Agorapulse to assist the students with listening and monitoring reports, social media management, and more.
Trust your students. This is a student run agency, and it needs to be run and operated by students. The work the students have done for the agency in the past six months has been tremendous. I was constantly sharing how proud I was of their work, and they were doing everything that needed to be done. Branding, content creation, recruitment, and more – all was run by the students.
I learned during this process while I am the Director of TBN, I am also a colleague and team member. We are all on the same team and want the best for TBN, so everything was on an equal level of collaboration. We would share ideas – some I proposed were good, and then there were some ideas I proposed the students felt was not on the right track – and that’s OKAY! That’s how things are like in the real world.
Like a lot of things, PhD programs do NOT cover how to manage and build an agency. This is not a surprise, but a potential opportunity. There are many things that are not covered in PhD programs, and this is one of them.
My experience working with agencies and having my own consulting business have helped me in directing TBN. However, I do think student agencies could be an added element for PhD programs to consider adding as part of their pedagogy requirement as they are part of the teaching and service component.
Learning the ropes of everything that goes behind the scenes. I have learned more about different departments, teams, and expectations at the university in my new role than I had in the time I’ve been at UofL!
For example, setting up different financial accounts and how many different types there are. Some are for endowments, others for salaries/fees for students, and general funds.
There’s a lot of learning that happens on the ground and throughout the process, so be prepared for that!
History does repeats itself. When I first started teaching social media, I researched all online to see which professors at the time where teaching classes and if they had any suggestions, recommendations and best practices in how to go about in doing this. I had some kind professors who shared with me what worked for them (and as a doctoral student, this was so helpful!), but I had many (MANY) professors tell me that they would not share b/c this was “their area” and they were “the social media professor.”
Well, funny how things work out. In the same situation, I had reached out to several faculty colleagues at other schools who were directing their own student agency. Some were very helpful and gave me some great tips (thank you!), but unfortunately – I got either the silent treatment, a response saying of course (and then be ghosted,) or the classic flat out no.
I have always been a believer we are all on the same team here – creating great learning experiences and opportunities for our students since they are the future of our field. I am also a believer in order to succeed, you have to have the following attributes:
- Persistence (I come by that naturally as most of my extended family is Swedish!)
- Explorer (being confident in going forward without any safety nets or assistance from colleagues who advise student agencies)
- Researcher (be willing to see what works, what doesn’t, and what lessons can be taken away from the experience while adapting and adjusting to the insights)
- Visionary (understand what has been done before, and do things differently)
What has been the result? So far, so good. We are doing things on our own with our advisors and team members and the community. We are persistent in creating something uniquely special. We are adaptable in adjusting our strategies in where we are going. We also know we are doing something uniquely different at UofL that is not present at other schools.
But here’s the difference – I will make sure we share with other schools and faculty members who want to start a student agency and help them do that. That’s what I’ve done when it comes to teaching social media, and this is what I will do here.
If you build a student agency, followers will come – but your first ones will be other student agency faculty advisors. We officially launched TBN in September 2022, and the response was amazing! We got some stories and tons of coverage about the official launch. The students created the branding and all of the social media channels. When looking at the initial reporting, the students shared with me the first followers of our accounts were other student agency faculty advisors or directors.
I was a bit surprised by this because while we did look at other student agencies for our SWOT and branding analysis ahead of our lunch, we did not follow any of them. Some professors and faculty advisors went so far to reach out to members of TBN’s Board of Advisors and ask them details about what we were doing for the student agency.
I was amused when I heard this, and all I can say is this:
I have and always will be an open book – so if anyone wants to chat about what we are doing with TBN, I am a DM, email, and text away.
Practice what you preach for student agency branding. If you are going to be representing your services in branding, social content, or even marketing – you got to walk the walk and talk the talk as well. What I found to be extremely beneficial for the students in the fall semester is not just working with initial clients, conducting workshops, etc – but it was getting hands on experience building a brand from the ground level up and be part of something special.
Having students create everything from the tagline to logo to assets and brand identity is so important. Not only is it great experience for them, but it also ties in the application aspect of what you learn in the classroom.
Prepare to be “labeled” by others: What I mean is – it’s interesting to see how many times our colleagues in our profession try to put us either a singular box, or label us in a way that constrains what we are doing in our role.
For example, I had several colleagues from other institutions tell me they were surprised I would take on a Director role of an agency because it was considered to be “below what a Full Professor should be doing.” Or stating the fact I should not be in this role because I am not a Professor of Practice, and this person would have more professional experience.
One thing I’ve learned in my years of academia is how many colleagues love to talk about all of these rules to follow, and none of them are written down. I am also someone who wants to show that there are always different pathways and journeys to go on – and this is mine.
Utilize your network and resources. When it came to building out TBN, I knew there were certain aspects that needed to be completed and implemented, so I reached out to my network.
This is where creating a Board of Advisors came into play, a community list of advisors and specialists to assist with students and clients, etc. I am SO grateful to all of these professionals who are committed to helping TBN grow and expand. I am very excited to work with all of them! Having a BoA is so important to have, but you want to make sure you note the time commitment and obligations are for each member and communicate this effectively.
Always remember the golden rule. This is something that is applicable in ALL aspects of life, and if you follow these principles, you will be good to go. It’s simple – things always take more time and money! We have some big ideas and proposals going into the year for fundraising, and you may have an idea of what things will take, but it’s best to always assume things will take longer and cost more (especially in this economy!)
This is just the beginning. Seeing things come to life after months of planning, coordinating, and strategizing is very rewarding. We have just gotten started, and we have many things in the works over the next few months and the rest of the year. We will be announcing more updates and partners soon, along with some other exciting ventures.
I will also be discussing a lot of these lessons and takeaways this year at ProfCon, which I am very honored and excited to be a part of for the third year in a row.
Hope you all are doing well and have a great day.
Best Wishes,
