This is a heart-wrenching and challenging time for university communities - students, faculty, administration, alumni. It's never constructive to play Monday Morning Quarterback, and I won't do that here.
As tensions remain high and events continue to unfold, I do believe there are five sets of questions that every college president and their communications leadership should be asking right now:
1. What are our core values and beliefs? Do our policies and actions reflect those values? Are we being true to them, consistently? In our communications to community members are we clearly articulating them?
2. Are we proactively communicating with the community? Are they hearing from us directly or are third parties filling an information vacuum? Nobody can tell your story better than you. If you're not sharing information in a timely way, then other actors will.
3. Have we established an effective way to have two-way communication with community members? In highly-charged situations like these, you must list. You always try and do the right thing, but sometimes you don't. What's most important is that you're receptive to constructive criticism and can course correct quickly, with your institutional values as your north star.
4. What actions - beyond just words - can we take that reflect our values and would be constructive at this moment? While putting out a statement is an important part of a communications strategy, what's ultimately critical is what you're doing to improve the situation and support the community.
5. A day from now - a week from now, a month from now - will we look back and be proud of what we've said and what we've done? These are challenging moments. It's impossible to please everyone. You can't placate all of your critics. Yet, when you reflect on this crucible, will you be able to say that you never wavered from your core values and beliefs, you listened and responded in good faith, and you always made choices in the interest of the community members that you serve?
The goal is not to "win the news cycle" or simply survive another day. The goal is to be thoughtful in your decision-making, proactive and clear in your communications, and always true to your values.
Comments