This story was written by a staff member of The Independent, Clark College’s campus newspaper, as part of a collaboration with The Columbian called Voices From Clark College. It was published Wednesday in The Independent.
An ounce of defiance and a play off the old saying “when pigs fly” are among the tools Clark College officials are looking at to deal with a $3.6 million budget shortfall that threatens the existence of some academic programs.
Tim Cook, the college’s vice president of instruction, and Bob Williamson, vice president of administration, both pointed to a drop in enrollment over the past five years as a major contributor to the budget shortfall.
College officials last month launched “Penguins Fly,” an advertising campaign they hope will bring new students to campus for fall and beyond. The ads also feature a series of Clark graduates and current students boasting about their successes in the face of adversity. The campaign encourages current students and recent graduates to share their Clark success stories on social media. At the same time, the college is also advertising on both YouTube and basic cable.
As the economy has started to rebound, enrollment has dropped by at least 3,000 full-time equivalent students. That’s since 2011-2012, when enrollment was at its peak of 10,000 students, according to Sandra Sand, director of business services.
Clark is projecting around 7,000 full-time equivalent students for the upcoming year, Sand said.
A full-time equivalent student — or an FTE — is someone who takes 15 credits per quarter for three quarters. The number of students as measured by FTEs has dropped each year since the economy began its slow recovery.
The new ad campaign is part of a broader strategic enrollment plan.
“One of the pieces of the plan is to develop programs to recruit older students,” Cook said. He believes that these changes are having a positive effect on enrollment, even if it is hard to tell from the numbers. “The question we will never be able to answer is if we hadn’t done all of this, would our enrollment be much worse.”
Chato Hazelbaker, the college’s chief information and communication officer, is one of the driving forces behind the ad campaign, and said he believes Clark can succeed in times of a decent economy.
“There are so many people that would like a better job,” Hazelbaker said.
He pointed to the fact that higher education often leads to higher income as a reason people should continue going to school.
This is not the first ad campaign that the college has run. In 2010, Clark spent $234,000 on marketing, even when other colleges in the area curbed their funding, according to an Independent story written in spring 2010.
While Clark continued to advertise, enrollment still dropped.
Hazelbaker hopes that better tracking metrics will lead to a more successful campaign. Hazelbaker is able to track exactly how many people visit the “Penguins Fly” homepage, and how many are looking for more information.
Today, the marketing department has one of the smaller budgets of any of the departments on campus, according to Hazelbaker. He said $80,000 to $85,000 was spent on enrollment marketing this year. The “Penguins Fly” campaign cost around $35,000.
Hazelbaker said the budget is much less than those of other colleges in the area. Hazelbaker also compared the marketing budget with those of for-profit colleges, such as the University of Phoenix. “As much as 30 percent of their total budget goes into advertising, while Clark spends around one percent of its total budget,” Hazelbaker said.
Nicholas Bremer, Clark multimedia specialist, produced and directed the “Penguins Fly” campaign videos. The videos show recent Clark graduates telling the audience what they have achieved in a defiant manner.
Bremer likens the Clark slogan to the common saying ‘when pigs fly.’ Bremer wanted the defiant penguin attitude to shine through in the ads. “I’m a Clark student. I’m a little bit defiant,” Bremer said. “We can achieve our dreams no matter what you say.”
Bremer said he believes the key to raising enrollment again is to raise the public’s general awareness of the college. Bremer compared advertising for Clark with advertising for Coca-Cola.
“Everybody knows about Coca-Cola,” Bremer said. “It is much less introducing people to the product and more about being the product.”
Bremer said he hopes that Clark is the first name that comes to mind when someone thinks of colleges in the area.
The nursing, welding and automotive programs, as well as the low tuition prices are Clark’s best selling points, according to Bremer. He hopes these programs will help to eventually turn enrollment around.
The campaign is aimed at potential students ages 18-30, as well as adults with no prior college experience. Currently, the ads are only running in Southwest Washington and are set to run until at least late June.
While no increase of enrollment can be attributed to the ‘Penguins Fly’ campaign yet, Hazelbaker hopes to see an increase in fall enrollment numbers. Sixty-four students have looked into applying so far, according to Hazelbaker.
“I feel really good about the efforts we are making to ensure that the marketing dollars we spend will have a high rate of return.”
