Umass/Amherst, Flagship of Higher Education
According to a blurb in PRWeek "The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is seeking PR support for an outreach effort to grow enrollment at the school."
More specifically, "the campaign is set to take place after the University completes a year-long project with qualitative and quantitative research to develop messages to improve perceptions of the institution. The university system hopes to increase enrollment by making it students' first choice as they pick schools ..."
Value of said contract? $450,000. Okay, nothing wrong with a little promotion I guess -- but $450,000!
I always thought that's why UMass/Amherst has an Office of News & Media Relations with a full time, year-round staff of seven with a combined salary expense this year of $451,628.
And that does not include John Kennedy, Vice Chancellor of University Relations at $222,784; Nancy Buffone, Public Relations Manager at $89,553; and Lisa Queenin, News Office Director of Community Relations at $69,596 or a total of $833,561. Including employee benefits and health insurance easily brings the grand total to well over a million per year.
And it's not like any of these folks are knocking themselves out over the summer.
Proud flagship Umass/Amherst has already made a major leap to "improve perceptions of the institution" by joining the town to combat off campus bad behavior by a tiny minority of their students. And that is something worth marketing.
But does it have to be so, um, expensive?
17 comments:
"a year-long project with qualitative and quantitative research to develop messages to improve perceptions of the institution"
In other words, how to make the purgatorial cesspool not smell so badly from a distance...
If the place didn't suck, they wouldn't have to do this. If they weren't worried about enrollment, they wouldn't be doing it either.
Something tells me that they are getting worried -- and they should be.
Isn't this a bit schizophrenic, i.e., a man who insists that the university that awarded his degree is a "purgatorial cesspool" is the same man who insists on calling himself Dr. Ed, to let everyone know about that degree?
Ed, when you say "something is telling you," do you mean that literally, like a voice you can actually hear?
Isn't this a bit schizophrenic, i.e., a man who insists that the university that awarded his degree is a "purgatorial cesspool" is the same man who insists on calling himself Dr. Ed, to let everyone know about that degree?
How is this schizophrenic? UM did everything possible to preclude my getting the degree, but I did it anyway, and now I use the title that I am legally entitled to use so as to gloat. I had to be at least three times better and work three times harder than everyone else, but I am and I did -- and I have no problem letting everyone know of that success.
Kinda like a veteran proudly wearing his metals -- he earned them after all -- and while he is proud of that, I doubt he would like to go back to where he earned htem...
Oh, a "voice" would be "someone and not "something." Not to confuse any of you morons with the facts, mind you, but I'm nof hearing voices (I'm kinda disappointed, I guess, but I'm not...).
Ed, as a fellow alumni, please send back your diploma.
Oh, by the way who was that talking horse, Mr Ed or Dr Ed.
I am going to add this: "Vyalotekushchaya Shizofreniya."
That's what got the Soviets kicked out of the World Psych Assn (although I think they technically resigned first): they defined all their dissidents as being Schizophrenic.
I find it ironic (and troubling) that someone who apparently is bright enough to be able to spell it correctly doesn't quite understand what schizophrenia actually is -- of isn't.
I find it more troubling that the academic left simply defines its critics as insane. It's a terrible precedent that the left will eventually regret because political tides turn and when the right again controls academia, it will be free to do the same to the left.
Next time, it won't be "America, love it or leave it" -- instead it will be "you are schizophrenic."
Hampshire college is in the same position and currently hiring 18 month positions in the PR/fundraising department to try to increase enrollments.
Hey, "facts matter" cretin: What makes you think I'm in academia, or even left-leaning? Apparently you're too obtuse to grasp the simple notion that criticism of you can be aimed exclusively at your personality and your mental health, not your politics.
You're an embarrassment to anyone who shares your views, a joke to those who don't, and a threat to absolutely no one. Next time you feel that courageous urge to back down for the greater good -- "like a cop who chooses not to engage in a high-speed chase" -- why don't you suppress that urge and show us what you're made of? I'm pretty sure we can handle the fallout, but I'm also certain that that's one form of entertainment to which you will never treat us.
The name of the game is grab what you can while you can...grab that cash with both hands and make a stash...go get yours, there's plenty out there...
"a year-long project with qualitative and quantitative research to develop messages to improve perceptions of the institution"
Ed, that doesn't mean you can't still compete with your opposing goal of worsening the perception of UMass...but I think you need a message board with a broader viewership, as you're just one little man, you know? These guys at the University play hard ball, if you know what I mean.
Keep it up, Ed, you're doing great.
criticism of you can be aimed exclusively at your personality and your mental health
The former is the "Ad Hominem" fallacy and the latter is libelous.
Also criminal -- practicing without a license if you aren't a licensed mental health professional, violation of numerous force-of-law ethical canons if you actually are one.
Or have the standards of what constitutes the protocols for arriving at a diagnosis no longer in effect?
You're an embarrassment to anyone who shares your views, a joke to those who don't,
My, my, I seem to have struck a nerve, haven't I?
and a threat to absolutely no one.
..... if you only knew.....
why don't you suppress that urge and show us what you're made of?
Why? I don't mean "why" as in some orgy of machismo but "why" in the context of what part of anything I care in/about would doing so advance?
I'm free to say that UMass Amherst SUCKS and I am saying so, in forii far more important that this. Likewise, I'm free to criticize Team Maria and am doing so, again in forii far more important than this.
So what is it you would have me do? Revisit the purgutorial cesspool and engage in some Clockwork Orange orgy of gratitutious violence? Against whom -- forget the "why", against whom?
Not only are you not worth it, I don't even know who you are. Nor, really, do I care.
You're not going to silence me, and anything beyond that, you not only aren't worth it but haven't even given me cause. You hide in shadows tossing insults -- I think that says more about you than anything else...
Well, yeah, but it's in response to and in defense against people like you who spend their days standing in broad daylight tossing insults at the good, hard-working people of Amherst...
Yes indeed, you touched a very raw nerve, Ed, for I am a member of that rarified and hypersensitive group comprising only those people who share your views and those who do not.
I'll spell this out in terms even you may understand. Have you ever met someone and thought, without knowing anything whatsoever about his political beliefs, "What a douchebag?"
I eagerly await your lawsuit against me for practicing douchebag diagnosis without a license. And while you're at it, while don't you tell us all about the dire threat you pose to... what? An unopened bag of Doritos?
Someone must be over the target...
And while you're at it, while don't you tell us all about the dire threat you pose to... what? An unopened bag of Doritos?
While I presume that was intended as an insult, you put a smile on my face.
So what is it you would have me do? Revisit the purgutorial cesspool and engage in some Clockwork Orange orgy of gratitutious violence? Against whom -- forget the "why", against whom?
How 'bout yourself?
How 'bout yourself?
Why? It is c-heads like the schmuck who posted this that I have issues with -- notwithstanding everything else, suicide is an effective means of revenge against those who have harmed you???
In exactly what dimension of reality?
Nature abhors a vacuum and a lot of cultures/religions (including mine) believe that evil is returned to the evil-dooer sevenfold. I can already see it happening, and living well is the best revenge.
Word's out: UMass Sucks, the Town of Amherst Sucks -- and we're not even getting into the visceral reaction "Middle America" is having to the DSM-V. Change is coming -- and I will enjoy watching it...
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