Using Communication: Increasing Visibility of Centers' Importance on Campus

This page was developed as a synthesis of lessons learned by participants during an NSEC working meeting and is part of an extended set of toolkits for STEM Education Centers.

Demonstrate the importance and utility of the center through compelling data and personal stories aligned with campus constituents and stake holders

Importance and Utility through Compelling Data

Centers can act as knowledge hubs to gather, organize, synthesize and disseminate knowledge (policies are one example of potential knowledge) valuable to many stakeholders (faculty members, dean's, provosts, etc.). By understanding the knowledge and then using it to lead by example will increase the Centers' value and visibility. The ability to successfully translate the knowledge around your goal and communicate so all stakeholders can converse with each other leads to value gained and an enriched network.

Stakeholders will have different viewpoints and highlighting where their interests overlap within the Center's own interests can create a working community of collaborators. The development of the key variables or components of a Center's data system will consider the queries and needs of the key university-level offices (e.g., provost, government relations, budget office, enrollment management services, undergraduate academic affairs, college access, office of research, etc.). The accumulation of insights and stakeholder input requires open dialogue with these offices and keeping the Center visible and accessible to key constituents. A subsequent benefit of open dialogue and consideration of stakeholder needs is they spread the word about the value of a Center as the relationship grows overtime. The nature of your message to each stakeholder depends on the target audience and the desired function or outcome of the message/Center. The following examples focus on faculty and administrators, but similar approaches to using data could be applied towards addressing external partners such as industry, non-profits, K-12, and political organizers.

Addressing Faculty in STEM Centers can be centered around demonstrating the value of the Center for supporting faculty research, teaching, funding, and professional development. Visiting a department or faculty meeting is an opportunity to promote your Center and communicate the support it could provide or areas of potential collaboration. Some topics you may consider conveying is that the Center can:

1. Help with receiving grants if the Center is focused or contains a component of supporting broader impacts efforts.
2. Help make things easier for faculty and save them time
3. Add value for junior faculty and enhance their tenure portfolio
4. Provide resources and active learning materials - new pedagogy/material development
5. Potential teaching positions focused on STEM Center efforts
6. Valuing Discipline-based Education Research (e.g., dissemination of articles and materials) (read more>>)

Addressing Chairs/Deans/Administrators will focus on student success, alignment with institutional focus, and providing support for the needs of different departments, colleges, and across the institution. Administrators typically have limited time available, therefore creating concise but informative communication documents will efficiently convey a Center's story and utility. Linking data to your presentation will provide more impact and data could be in the form of student satisfaction surveys, quotes from former students/participants, grant awards, enrollment and retention numbers, or any other dataset that may be specific to your institution or question. Including data from the Center's home institution may be more powerful if the Center has existed long enough. Alternatively, connecting to the national patterns will also help provide broader context and support STEM Centers early in their development.

Topics to consider:

• Leverage institutional focus (research, grants, enrollment, and retention)
• Center programming/work can help students persist and succeed; e.g., Learning Assistant program.
• Student recruitment: student satisfaction survey data or quotes from former students/participants.
• Help departments understand what they might need and how you can help them
• Help develop or obtain better measures of teaching effectiveness
• Invite administrators to celebrations (e.g., STEM conferences, award announcements, open houses, etc.)

Importance and Utility Through Personal Stories

Digital media can be used to communicate the heart and soul of the work by Centers. Digital media can take many different forms such as websites, social media, videos, and data visualization and may require effort to create, but the diversity in platforms will payoff in getting your message out. Videos are one tool that may require some production, but personal stories about how constituents interact with the Center and its sponsored programs can clearly articulate what can be accomplished. These can have a lasting impression because of human compassion and the motivation to improve student experiences. Faculty want to help make people's lives better. Personal stories of students and other faculty experiences can help them get motivated to engage with outreach, student support, or their professional development.

• Faculty testimonials - recorded interviews with faculty, posting choice quotes to put on advertisements, emails, fliers, etc.
• Student profiles that highlight the projects, work of the Center, and their impact on students' lives would be one example to utilize.

Sustainability - building structures to ensure longevity of these interactions

The mission of a Center can differ from the perception that others may have of the Center. Clear communication will be important to convey the goals, missions, and accomplishment of the the Center, which can be achieved by a diversified package of communication formats and most importantly, creating a robust network through face-to-face meetings. On some campuses, especially large universities, some constituents (e.g., faculty and students) may not be aware that the Center exists for one reason or another. Learning about your campus culture and how people find resources on campus will help you strategically plan how to best communicate with different interested parties. Based on your understanding of your campus culture context, you can align your Center's goals and initiatives with institutional priorities and needs. By aligning these goals, a Center can develop a strategic plan that builds a structure of support, accessibility, collaboration, creation, and assessment that ensures the longevity of these partnerships. For example, you can help departments and faculty understand what they need and how the Center can support their interests and efforts. Furthermore, ask potential investigators to provide information about where in their teaching and scholarship they would like improvement but do not necessarily know what resources are available and how to go about making change. Using data and testimonials from previous work will help convey what a Center does and the impression it has made for its constituents.

For More on Organizational Structures In building a structure to ensure longevity, you will need your constituents to trust in what you do. You can build that authority with data, testimonials, and accomplishments, but there needs to be a system for future success and inclusion. For example, getting faculty involved in leadership structure will help the faculty view the Center with some sense of ownership and promote its use in their scholarship and teaching. Different layers of participation could also be implemented as new constituents become familiar and grow into greater leadership roles.