One of our favorite services at RHB is Circles of Influence (there’s more background here and here). We love talking to students and the people who influence their college journeys as we look for alignment or gaps between the student experience and marketing messaging. We use our analyses of the conversations we hear to provide…Read more
Author: Aimee Hosemann
Inspiration, Reflection, Recharging: RHB’s Annual Summer Reading List
In higher education, when summer comes the work doesn’t stop. It takes a new seasonal shape. We hope you have been able to get away from work for a little while and spend time reconnecting with the people, activities and ideas that matter most to you. Even when you can’t travel, books can reliably take…Read more
Make a Real Statement about Diversity in Tenure-Track Faculty Job Ads
Many institutions are ramping up for the spring cycle of faculty hiring. It’s a time of excitement and overwhelm for everyone on all sides of the hiring equation. In a context in which a single tenure-track job ad can harvest 400 or more applicant packages, institutions are asking for greater volume in application materials as…Read more
Why You Don’t Need to be Afraid of Performativity
In our study of 108 active higher education strategic plans, we discovered that by far, the most common theme in strategic plan goals or priorities was diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Further, because DEIB-related initiatives were often distributed across all the goals in some plans, it became clear that some institutions were holistically reimagining…Read more
Is it Time to Brand Your Core or Gen Ed Curriculum?
One of the fun components of our jobs providing counsel at RHB is helping institutions develop branded core or general education curricula. These distinctive experiences encapsulate your market position and can create strong brand awareness. Before I came to RHB, I spent a semester teaching at an institution on a block plan, meaning students took…Read more
What Do You Really Say When You Talk about Race and Culture? Part II in a Series
As we at RHB conduct diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) audits, guide executive leadership through consequential moments or conduct research and discovery for institutional marketing projects, we encounter a lot of different institutional language about recognizing human diversity. The fact that we continuously encounter race and culture as themes which make themselves evident in…Read more
So, How Do You Talk about Race? Part One of a Two-Part Series
At RHB, we’ve been having conversations with clients and prospective clients about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). Specifically, we’ve been talking about marketing and communications products and how those relate to DEIB initiatives laid out in strategic plans and communications flows. These conversations occur in the service of engaging in the complicated and deeply…Read more
The Joys of Strategic Planning (Yes, We Mean ‘Joy’)
If we told you that there are plenty of reasons to feel quite positively about higher education strategic planning, you might not believe us. And, yet, it’s the truth. Maybe it wouldn’t even cross your mind to wonder if it could be a positive experience beyond something to grit your way through every time there’s a…Read more
Virtual Research, Real-Life Meaning
As part of our continued research and discovery efforts, we’ve been holding virtual Circles of Influence for clients, via Zoom. Circles is a proprietary research method that is a variation on the idea of a focus group in which a pivotal student tells the story of their journey at a college or university through their…Read more
Why an Anthropologist Chose RHB
Why is there a linguistic anthropologist at RHB? Now that I have just about reached my one-year workaversary at RHB, I guess I have enough perspective on why I am here to answer that question from my position as said anthropologist. I have pursued a variety of professions that allowed me to learn about others’…Read more