Promote your program
Positive word-of-mouth is the most powerful way to raise your program's visibility on campus. A good reputation encourages new clients to give you a try, department heads to think of you when faced with an instructional dilemma, and administrators to fund your efforts. Especially for small departments, success one-teacher-at-a-time is often the best marketing.
Susan A.
Holton's chapter on program promotion in A
Guide to Faculty Development presents a fantastic and multi-faceted
plan for marketing your program. Here are some additional ideas and resources.
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- Web site
- Newsletter
- Pamphlets and flyers
- Sponsorships and committee service
- Keep thorough records
Web site
Web sites are important for credibility, archival and promotion. Having a URL on your publicity and documentation helps create a sense of permanence and legitimacy about your center. Once people use that URL and come to your web site, you can highlight upcoming events, promote your services and provide archived materials from past events. If you are not familiar with the process of web publishing (and do not have the time or inclination to learn), perhaps a student can be found to produce a simple site for you as an internship or part time work-study job. The investment is well worth it. Many sample web sites can be found here.
Newsletter
Many centers use newsletters (paper or digital) to communicate with their clientele. Border, Fisch and Weimer have a short chapter in A Guide to Faculty Development that discusses well concerns about audience, tools, and editorial techniques.
The format, frequency and manner of delivery will all bear on the cost and effectiveness of your newsletter. Paper newsletters are more expensive to produce, re-produce and make available. However, their physicality gives them several advantages. As an artifact, they are portable, a bit harder to ignore or discard and can be persuasive. To produce a paper newsletter requires some familiarity with desktop publishing software (e.g., PageMaker or InDesign) or advanced knowledge of a word processor (e.g., Word or WordPerfect).
How to make a newsletter using Microsoft Word 2000 (for PC or Mac)
Electronic newsletters (either e-mail or web-based) are much less expensive to produce and distribute, but e-mails can be easily deleted amidst the flood of "spam" once receives every day. Web-based newsletters must be promoted--very few people will find them on their own--and require web publishing expertise be either learned or hired.
Newsletters feature different things, depending upon their purpose. Some have feature articles about extraordinary teachers, some focus on a particular instructional strategy or technique, some target specific clientele.
- Editorial Tip: If you want to interview and excellent instructor about how they teach, try asking them "What questions could someone ask you to elicit your best insights and advice about teaching well?" Then follow up with those very questions! This approach allows your interviewee to frame the interview comfortably for themselves, and it gives you information you might never have thought to ask for. [Thanks to Georgeanne Cooper at the University of Oregon.]
Here is an example of a nice paper newsletter:
Paper Bulletin: The CIDR Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Center for Instructional Development and Research, University of WashingtonA 1-2 page bi-yearly publication targeting a single topic per issue (e.g., problem-based learning, writing a teaching statement, teaching in sections and labs).
E-mail distribution lists (a.k.a. listservs) can be an effective way to keep your program in the public eye. Many faculty development programs use electronic mailing lists to both publicize specific events and remind their clientele about available services (e.g., "It is week four of the quarter--have you scheduled your class interview yet?")
How you use your electronic distribution is up to you, but here are some factors to consider:
- Opt-in or opt-out. Some programs automatically subscribe all new TAs, faculty members, and event attendees to their electronic mailing list, inviting these folks to unsubscribe if they do not wish to receive the e-mail. This approach gets more people on the mailing list, but has the potential to make program information you send out feel like "spam." Other programs prefer to let their clientele self-select, only subscribing those who request to receive the e-mail. This approach creates a more loyal and active--but much smaller--membership list.
- Size and frequency of post. To leave the smallest-possible "footprint" on the recipient's mailbox, some programs send out only one or two messages per term. Such infrequent postings can make each post fairly lengthy. Other programs choose a topical-but-more-frequent posting strategy. This is a balance each program strikes for itself.
Pamphlets and Flyers
Pamphlets of all colors and sizes fill our mailboxes daily, but that does not mean they are useless for promoting your program. Indeed, most of us look briefly at most of those fliers and in that brief moment you can get your message through.
For ideas on pamphlet and flyer layout, see the sample flyers at stocklayout but be careful! Many of the suggestions for flyers and brochures are made for commercial purposes and are far too slick for an academic audience. Too much attentions to "slickness" communicates a different set of priorities than most academics will respond to.
Sponsorships and committee service
Do not overlook the promotional benefits of being able to introduce a non-teaching-related guest speaker on campus. The broader the activities with which your program is involved, the more exposure it will get and more legitimate its perception. The same is true for committee service--volunteering to serve on committees appropriate to the mission of your program (e.g., classroom upgrade committees, distance learning or technology committees) can contribute to your program being known and valued on campus.
Keep thorough records
It may not seem "promotional" to keep detailed records of your program's activities, but few things speak louder than impressive numbers. Especially when times are lean and low-impact programs are being sought for reduction, it is critical to be able to demonstrate the breadth and depth of your positive influence. Beyond survival needs, keeping thorough records can help you balance your offerings across your many constituencies. Sometimes only in hindsight can we see that we have neglected one group (say, science faculty) but have offered many events for another group (say, Teaching Assistants).
Keeping records in a database or spreadsheet can serve you in many ways. In addition to creating nice-looking reports, these computer programs can help you sort and query data in many ways.
