In an effort to raise awareness of the need to give back to Ouachita, the Advertising and Public Relations Campaigns class announces work on a campaign to educate students and alumni about the annual fund.
The class, offered by the mass communications department, is charged with designing a marketing campaign for a real-world client. The class selected as their client Ouachita’s Development Office. They will be working directly with Shirley Hardin, development officer in charge of the annual fund.
“This campaign is more of an education campaign than a campaign to directly raise money,” Hardin said. “It’s to let students [and alumni] know why it’s vital to give back to Ouachita when they graduate.”
Hardin said the annual fund is the money that “keeps the doors open year to year.”
“What most students don’t know is that tuition, room and board and fees only cover about 80 percent of the cost to run Ouachita year after year,” she said. “That other 20 percent has to come from somewhere.”
That somewhere usually means alumni, according to Hardin.
“We’re trying to show students what is needed to sustain Ouachita,” she said. “Henderson, last time I checked, gets $6,500 per student, per year from the state. We don’t get that money. Now, granted, our tuition is more, but that still can’t cover all our costs.”
Hardin said construction is an example of a cost not covered by tuition.
“Student tuition has never built a building,” she said. “Everything [students] enjoy on campus isn’t covered by tuition and fees.”
Hardin said it takes around $42 million each year for Ouachita to operate and the annual fund usually needs to be around $1 million to make ends meet—most of which must come through alumni giving.
She said Rebecca Jones, instructor of the course, previously worked with the development office and knew of the need to educate current students and alumni to give back to Ouachita financially.
“Rebecca Jones approached me last semester when she found out she would be teaching this class,” she said. “She was a former development officer, and so when she thought of a client she thought of the annual fund.”
Jones said the goal of the class is for students to come up with a complete public relations and advertising campaign to gain “a real-world type of experience.”
She said the students will do most of the work themselves, and they are currently in the research phase of the campaign. Students passed out surveys this week inquiring about student opinion.
“Right now they’re collecting data, doing surveys and working with focus groups to assess what students know about philanthropy,” she said. “I mostly just supervise.”
Jones said she chose to help with the annual fund in order to help the school.
“With all this talent, I figured, ‘Why not do something to directly benefit Ouachita,’” she said. “I instigated [the campaign] and we’re working together [with the development office] to carry it out.”
Past classes have put together campaigns for Southern Bancorp and the Clark County Strategic Planning Board. Jones said she believes this campaign directly affects the Ouachita community.
“This campaign has a greater likelihood of actually being implemented,” she said. “There’s a big need, and there’s a lot of interest among decision makers. It has a greater possibility of success.”
By Tanner Ward, Signal Writer
