Higher Ed Storytelling University

John Azoni: Um, okay, Alison, thanks for joining the podcast here today. It's great to have you on.

Allison Turcio: I'm so happy to be on. We've been talking about this for a while, really.

John Azoni: Yeah, so I've, I've enjoyed, um, following your [00:05:00] podcast. Your podcast is the, is the application on Enrollify Network.

Allison Turcio: Yes, that's it. That's the one.

John Azoni: A lot of good guests on there.

John Azoni: I appreciate like the snack sized, you know, kind of approach. They're like 20 minute long episodes. I think it's been good.

Allison Turcio: Thank you. Yeah. We try to keep it really short and actionable because you might not have time and there's all so many great longer. Higher ed marketing related podcasts out there.

Allison Turcio: And so hired marketer only has so much time in the day. So I was trying to get something going that fit into their schedule so that they could still maintain the other really great podcasts that I know that they're listening

John Azoni: to. Yeah, for sure. It's great. I like it. Um, so today we're talking about, uh, creating an environment at your institution where the student experience is so great that they want to spread the word naturally.

John Azoni: tell their own story, and you are coming from, uh, Siena [00:06:00] College, uh, and so tell me about Siena. Let's just give us a broad overview of Siena and your role there, and then we'll jump into that topic.

Allison Turcio: Cool. My favorite topic is talking about Siena. Second favorite topic is talking about higher ed, so this is perfect.

Allison Turcio: So Siena College is a small, regional, liberal arts, private college, Catholic college, just outside of Albany, New York, which is New York State capital. And we have about 3, 400 students. They're almost all traditionally aged undergraduate students. So you can imagine, if you know much about higher ed, Siena is not the type of college that should be winning right now, right?

Allison Turcio: Uh, and the cliff is going to impact colleges like Siena the most, but we're, we're doing really well. We have our highest enrollment ever at the college right now. And so really exciting times at Siena. And, um, it's a combination of the college investing in really strategic things like marketing investment, but also.[00:07:00]

Allison Turcio: Being really smart about the new programs that it's bringing online and so we're really reaping the benefits of those two things colliding at the same time We just finished first year of our new strategic plan and the centerpiece to that strategic plan is experience the employees Experience and the student experience and so that's why this is what we're chatting about that topic today.

John Azoni: That's awesome Congrats on you know, the the enrollment numbers and and stuff like that. That's not We don't see things going in that direction.

Allison Turcio: No, we're on paper. If you looked at us, you'd be surprised that. We're doing that right now.

John Azoni: Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, okay. So one thing I've started to ask guests on the show is, um, and I didn't prep you with this question.

John Azoni: So we can edit this if you need some time to think. What's something that people would be surprised to learn about you?

Allison Turcio: Surprised to learn about me? I'm, [00:08:00] I'm a huge geek. Really, I am. I've, I'm the, I'm the kid who sat in the front of, well, maybe that won't be a surprise. Probably it won't be a surprise to any of you who have ever talked to me, but I'm actually a huge dork, huge geek.

Allison Turcio: I'm like, sit, sit in the front row of class, love school. Loved school my whole entire life. I read more than 50 books a year. I was in high school. I was president of the marching band. I mean, you don't get much more geeky and dorky than, than me.

John Azoni: That's great. I was the opposite. I was in a punk band, sat in the back of the class, fell asleep.

John Azoni: Everything that, everything that you would imagine that life to look like. But I hung out in the art room a lot. So like I, I excelled there and my parents were like, super glad that that worked out for me. They were like, he actually made it to college and isn't. And it actually has a wife and two kids, and they're all not starving, [00:09:00] you know,

Allison Turcio: So they let it play out. They played it just

John Azoni: right. . Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, okay, cool. Good to know about you. Um, so gimme uh, oh, you told me, you told me Sienna College, uh, FRA, Franciscan and Catholic Institution. So what, what is, what makes it like a Franciscan? What's, is that a different thing? Yeah,

Allison Turcio: so Franciscans are friars, so they're, uh, some of them are priests, but all of them are at least brothers.

Allison Turcio: They're the guys that wear the brown robes, right, with the three knots. So if you've ever seen, and also the best way to understand where Franciscan comes from, I mean, the Pope, the current Pope took his name of St. Francis. That is the leader of the Franciscan movement. So, a lot of the things that you hear that the Pope is really, um, behind, especially with climate change and caring for the environment, those are all very important Franciscan values.[00:10:00]

Allison Turcio: Um, but, but the values are things, very universal, I think, that people inclusivity.

Allison Turcio: Care for the environment, um, being other centered versus self centered, um, being relationship centered. So, that's really, um, The ways that we try to live the Franciscan tradition. And we still do have friars on campus. They teach. There's one that works on the enrollment team. There's one that runs the international programs office.

Allison Turcio: Um, there's one that's vice president of admissions. So it's kind of cool that we still have them really integrated with our community. And they're well known by the students.

John Azoni: Do they wear brown

Allison Turcio: robes every day? They do. They do. They don't have to wear them every day, but they mostly do.

John Azoni: That's awesome.

John Azoni: Speaking. I mean, I like this, but I don't follow popes, you know, too, too much in my life. Um, but I like this pope. I think, I think we've, we think we've got a good one right [00:11:00] now. I like his kind of philosophies and his kind of just balance of like, you know, humanity and like you said, climate change and things like that and not getting sucked into like the politics and all

Allison Turcio: this stuff.

Allison Turcio: Yeah, he feels very human, right? So whether or not you agree, perhaps, with some of the tenets of Catholicism, um, his approach is very human, whereas the last pope was more intellectual. Yeah. Yeah.

John Azoni: Um, okay. Let's move on. Uh, so talk about, um, how do you go about fostering a sense of belonging, uh, for students at Siena College?

John Azoni: What, what kind of like programs, initiatives do you have? What, what have you found, uh, effective?

Allison Turcio: Well, first, the first thing I'd say we found effective is that going to other colleges who are doing this really well. Um, and listening and seeing how are they doing this and and how are the students [00:12:00] feeling about what's happening at those colleges.

Allison Turcio: So we have visited a couple colleges. One of them is Texas Christian University. They're very well known for their student experience. This summer we went to James Madison University. So the first thing we did when we. sort of honed in on this idea of experience being so important is we went out. We wanted to learn from the people who are known for this.

Allison Turcio: And so that was the first step. And the second step is, um, intentionality as decisions are being made. Really putting ourselves in the shoes of students and trying to think about how are they going to feel. Is it, are they going to feel how we hope that they will feel if we're doing this initiative. So there's a decision making and a cultural component.

Allison Turcio: Of course there's lots of tactical things. To execute on when you're trying to do this. Um, but I think those two things were more important than any of the tactical pieces that we've implemented. Yeah. Going

John Azoni: to just seeing what's already working [00:13:00] is huge. And I, uh, that's like advice that applies to just, you know, content marketing, storytelling in general, like.

John Azoni: especially like on social media and things like that, where it's always changing, always changing, the algorithms are changing. Just go look at what's already working and then, and then iterate from that. And I think that's a good way to kind of apply that to the student experience, just looking at what's already working.

John Azoni: Uh, what are, what are students naturally responding to what you, versus what you assume they would respond to if you were to just make assumptions and then implement. Yeah.

Allison Turcio: And I think what we found is it's not, add this specific thing, add this event, you know, um, TCU does a concert almost every weekend at their stadium when there's not a football game.

Allison Turcio: That is not on budget for Siena, you know, that's not going to happen. But there's an intentionality about how they, you know, engage students in the process of building [00:14:00] out this kind of programming. The students often are executing on this programming, um, and, and intentionally behind the why. Why are we holding these concerts?

Allison Turcio: You know, there, so I think the lesson learned from visiting the other campuses is not do exactly this, it's more about, um, changing your thinking to be more student centered and changing your decision making to have that intentionality behind it. That was really the lesson because the way it gets applied depends on your school and depends on your student body, right?

Allison Turcio: Yeah,

John Azoni: what were some, aside from the concerts and things like that, what were some other things that you guys picked up on as you kind of studied other schools?

Allison Turcio: Well, one really specific idea that I think TCU does that is just amazing, they have this thing called Frog Camp. And it's before orientation and what happens is the first year students sign up for trips with each other, small trips.

Allison Turcio: I think it's about [00:15:00] 30 to 40 students. And what's better than going away? With a group of people to develop a sense of belonging. Oh yeah. And travel to a destination. So they've gone all over the place. They've gone to Alaska. They've gone to New Orleans. They do one that's on campus, because some students want to do it on campus.

Allison Turcio: The coolest one that they do is Mystery Camp, where they show up on campus, or they show up at the airport and they have no idea where they're going.

John Azoni: Whoa, that's cool. Yeah. That's awesome. And you're, you're right. Like, uh, the, the, the, the times that like I have traveled for an extended period of time with people.

John Azoni: Cause I used to do like through my church, I went to admission trips, went to Brazil, um, did some stuff in, in, in Utah, Mississippi when the Katrina happened and all that stuff. And like those times, I'm just like those people. And like, are we just, you just developed this, incredible bond. Um, [00:16:00] that when you, I imagine when you bring that back to a, uh, a campus where all those people are on campus, that's like an elevated bond.

John Azoni: You know, when you go on like mission trip with people, they're usually scattered and, you know, and then you kind of lose touch over time. Um, but that's cool. That's, that's a great way to, I think that's a great idea. Just doing these

Allison Turcio: trips. And the way, one of the ways we implemented at Siena, and we did try our version of that this summer very successfully, but, but an even better idea was for all of our accepted student admissions events, we've thought about, What are the ways we can change the schedule, change the structure of this, so that we create more opportunities for the students to engage with each other and find their people and start to create that sense of community and connection amongst each other.

Allison Turcio: So, whereas we always had opportunities for meet and greet, you know, Oh, class meet up at this time, but we became very intentional about how that time was structured so that [00:17:00] they could find Their people and start to build those friendships early

John Azoni: on. So does, um, Siena do a lot of like service projects, mission trips, things like that, where that would, um, you know, kind of form those relationships.

Allison Turcio: Yeah. Service trips, especially our Habitat for Humanity trip that they do for spring break is very popular. And also study tours at Siena are very popular. They go all over, they go to Italy, they've gone to Japan. There's one going to Poland. Next academic year, and those are very popular too, and we know from experience because we have sent videographers or social media people on the trips, some of these trips as chaperones, and then to capture the experience.

Allison Turcio: Those become very defining in terms of friendships. They might not know this person, but after this trip, they're connected forever by this experience. So, having these experiences that bring people together, even in [00:18:00] small groups. can be very impactful on how they feel about the college experience as a whole.

John Azoni: Yeah, that's great. Um, what are some ways that you encourage positive interactions between, uh, students, faculty, and staff? How do you create kind of a supportive, welcoming atmosphere?

Allison Turcio: I think the first thing is really thinking about those first moments. Right, and the onboarding and what, what does that look and feel like and thinking about it from the student, student perspective.

Allison Turcio: Last year, for the first time, we implemented a, um, ceremony the night of move in. It's sort of a transition ceremony where the students, we have our, these arches next to our grotto on campus. Our grotto is, um, a place of prayer with lots of candles, kind of like a cave. Looking where you can light the candles, um, and we have these three arches and we had this whole, not initiation ceremony, that's the wrong word because that's for [00:19:00] sorority, sororities and fraternities, but this sort of transition into I'm a saint now and they walked through the arches, um, and we're ringing the bells that are in the arches as they walk through and they got a blessing from the friars.

Allison Turcio: As they went through, they had a blessing on them. So we had this, we created this moment of welcome. The symbolic moment of you are now saints, you are now part of us. So I think it's looking for those opportunities to make people feel connected. Ensure that you're setting the stage. You can't force someone to feel that they belong, right?

Allison Turcio: But you can set up experiences. You can set the stage. You can set the tone for that to happen You can create the opening for that to happen.

John Azoni: Yeah, it kind of makes me think of When my wife and I first got married, community has always been really important to us. And so we moved into our, our first house.

John Azoni: We didn't do a great job of like [00:20:00] introducing ourselves to neighbors and like kind of getting to know people, um, until it was like, we've been living there for a few months and now it's kind of like, well, now it's kind of awkward to like, just be introduced. Yeah. So we really just didn't know anybody. And then we moved to.

John Azoni: the west side of the state and, uh, we, my wife got, went to, um, uh, Western to get her, uh, master's in social work and we ended up living in this sort of like old people's community because we had, uh, this woman, um, uh, just let us stay there for free if we would like mow her lawn and stuff, stuff like that.

John Azoni: Um, and so we were surrounded by just these. Um, we met these, these, um, elderly people and we just made it a point to just go door to door and be like, here we are. Like, right when we got there and it was amazing. Like, the, the, the difference in belonging and connectedness. Like, my next door neighbor, uh, him and I would go golfing, you know, and, and stuff like that, which is like a world of a difference from just like, not knowing [00:21:00] people.

John Azoni: Yesterday, I, I joined a new, uh, gym and yesterday was my second day and I actually was thinking this very thing where it's like. It's like awkward, you know, you're like moving into it, coming into an environment where you kind of vulnerable, everyone's been there for a while. Some people, you know, maybe some people are new, but, um, and I just kind of hearken back to that, like, all right, I have to go introduce myself and, uh, and, and, and meet some people.

John Azoni: So like just getting over that hump, meeting a couple of people. And it was like. It was like when you, when you break that seal, like people are so willing to be like, Oh yeah, yeah. How's my name? Like, tell me about yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, but yeah, like those first moments. Cause I feel like if you wait too long to create that belongingness, it's, it becomes awkward, you know?

Allison Turcio: And now more than ever, if you're thinking about traditionally aged, um, college students coming out of high school. So the ones that are starting this year as freshmen in college. the pandemic hit them March of their freshman year of high [00:22:00] school. That is a very formative time in terms of social groups, right?

Allison Turcio: Think about that's just when you're getting your feet under you in high school and maybe starting to get those friend groups solidified. And the rug was pulled out from under them. So I think The social piece and finding friends is top of mind for them, but maybe they don't know how to take that first step, so you have to set the stage.

Allison Turcio: Yeah, you have to create the comfort level so that that can that can

John Azoni: happen. Yeah, absolutely I mean, I remember in college some like awkward meet and greet like icebreakers and things like that But uh, but really I mean, it's like the people that you end up interacting with daily like in classes and stuff like that where you eventually kind of find your way.

John Azoni: But yeah, man, I can't imagine. I remember being so nervous to go to high school like my freshman year. I can't imagine like going and then just having that rug pulled out, [00:23:00] you know, and then it just figuring out like virtual school and all that stuff. That's just hard to put yourself in that position.

John Azoni: Yeah.

Allison Turcio: I mean, we've been very focused colleges and universities on the deficiencies or what was missed on the academic side and of course the mental health. Health has been top of mind, but I don't know if everyone's been thinking so much about the social aspect that was missed. Yes, that contributed to some of the mental health increases that we've seen, but they might not know how to take that first step.

Allison Turcio: We have to make that first step. More than

John Azoni: ever. Yeah, absolutely. What, uh, what about like faculty and staff? Like, what, what role has Siena faculty and staff played in making students feel comfortable, feel like they can open up? How do you like foster those connections? I think

Allison Turcio: honestly we tried to [00:24:00] start that with the admissions Team.

Allison Turcio: So when we talk about Franciscan and earlier, I said that Franciscan is all about relationships, right? Really? Everybody is in relationship with with one another we're in relationship with the earth the environment and the way that we do Recruiting, and I do call it recruiting for Siena because that's what we're doing.

Allison Turcio: Admissions is, we admit students to the college, but we're recruiting to the college, right? That's, that's, there's two different kinds of colleges out there. Ones that have admissions offices and ones that have admissions offices, but mostly they're recruiting. Right? Explain the difference to me. Well, some people are deciding on the exact right makeup of who gets in.

Allison Turcio: They don't need to recruit. They have such a grand name. They don't need to recruit the students that, you know, it's the high yielding versus the lower yielding schools, right? Our admissions team creates these [00:25:00] one on one relationships with students. Hundreds of one on one relationships because Our entire communications flow is built up to be one on one.

Allison Turcio: It is not, oh, here's another, now here, let me tell you about the school of business at Siena. Now let me tell you about undergraduate research. That's not how it goes at all. What we try to do is, tell me about what you're picturing for college. We ask questions like that. What, when you think about your first days of college, what, what comes to mind?

Allison Turcio: And then we talk about how Siena might fit that vision that they have for themselves, right? So it's a very one on one. We're asking very personal questions and then tailoring the information one on one back to them. That tells you what it is to be Franciscan without telling you, right? We're telling by in our action and how we're, we're approaching students.

Allison Turcio: And I think that's, That is super important for sort of defining so employees, faculty, staff, [00:26:00] administrators, we have to think about how we act, how, how we portray what it means to be part of our community in our actions, not just being able to rattle off a mission statement or rattle off the core values, right?

Allison Turcio: You'll sound a lot like other colleges when you do that, but how and how we approach our students. Do we, do we show them how we're different and show them what it is to be a member of the Siena community?

John Azoni: Yeah, I like that. I think, uh, just that one to one approach and, you know, we talk a lot in this podcast about like mass communications, like creating a video, putting on YouTube or email newsletters or, or whatever like that.

John Azoni: But there is so much power in just getting real granular and just connecting with one person and getting to know that one person and kind of helping them like onboard them. I

Allison Turcio: was at a preview day last week. I was standing next to one of the admissions counselors actually the admissions counselor who is assigned to our most local region around Seattle.

Allison Turcio: His name's Jim. [00:27:00] And I cannot tell you the number of families coming up to Jim. Oh, Jim this, Jim that. They feel like they really, really know him because of how the admissions team approaches this. It's really impressive. Now, Jim usually takes, after a couple quick questions, he'll, he'll remember who this family is.

Allison Turcio: Sometimes they don't remember exactly who the family is, but because... 40% of our class comes from right around Siena, right? So, that's a lot of families for Jim to be able to track in his mind, right? That he's had conversations with. But the thing is, they all feel like Jim knows them, and I know Jim. That's really important.

John Azoni: Super important. I, I, that's, I, I remember, um, college recruiter that came to my high school and formed a relationship with me. Um, and then I went to some like, uh, it was like, I don't know what it was like an event. There was like a bunch of art schools [00:28:00] there and, um, the recruiters were there.

John Azoni: Um, And then she, she sought me out. And she knew my name and she went and found my parents and was like, you know, we want John to come to our school and like, I, now I realized like that was probably, that was like her job, you know, but I like really felt, I really felt like connected to the school because somebody took an interest in me personally.

Allison Turcio: It's so easy. We can't lose that. We can't lose that. It's so easy to though, because now we have so much data, we have CRMs, automation, that stuff runs the risk of taking the human side out of what we do. And so we try to really pay attention to keeping, in an intentional way, the human approach in what we do across the board.

Allison Turcio: And we're really hoping that that does something for the student experience.

John Azoni: And we were talking about [00:29:00] just, um, you know, how that leads to natural storytelling, like people that just now have been affected and want to share that, like, can you think, can you think of any examples of maybe where that's occurred? Um,

Allison Turcio: Well, you just did one. So thanks, John. Yes. I mean, your example is exactly you.

Allison Turcio: I'm not the first person you told that story to, right? Right. Yay. And so we create these moments that, where that happens. I think the best example for us and the most rewarding thing for us is we put together a senior class video and the videographer on my team goes out and interviews 20 plus students and what they say is not generic.

Allison Turcio: What they end up saying is, is stories. And that, that's the difference. Can you produce a senior class video in the end that's saying sort of generic things like, Oh, this was a great experience, best four years of my life. Everybody has students who say that. [00:30:00] Or are they talking about how Dr. LaRoe, I would not be on my way to medical school if Dr.

Allison Turcio: LaRoe didn't help me every step of the way. That's the difference, I think, really, in what you're going to get in the quality of storytelling. It's in the real detail, real characters, real detail, right?

John Azoni: Yeah, for sure. Like, is that, what would be the output of... That like your videographer going around. Is that like one video and you're he's like, he or she is mashing up all these responses

Allison Turcio: or yeah, it's a mashup that gets played at commencement, but then we use it.

Allison Turcio: You know what? We often use it to open up our admissions info sessions because what's more valuable and admissions counselors. Standing up in front of that room, giving the spiel or letting our students be able to tell that story. And so what we're finding is that we have way more opportunities to let the students tell Sienna's story in our marketing as well.

Allison Turcio: But I think just naturally, we know, we are [00:31:00] marketers, we work in this. When you're creating experiences like this, you're driving word of mouth. So they're not just saying that stuff on camera. I'm confident to my videographer. That's what they're saying to their parents. And that's what they're saying to their family and their friends.

Allison Turcio: And, you know, I'd put myself out of a job, truly, because I would love to see a world where colleges across the board are making the experience so valued, so good, that I don't need to market to them. I don't need to advertise and fixes our higher ed reputation problem we have where people think college isn't worth it anymore.

Allison Turcio: Yeah. Or the cost is way too high. We could, we could fix this all, everyone. We could, if we really focused in on the student and their experience and we ensure that that's what's happening.

John Azoni: And the, and those stories, like the stories are the most powerful thing. I mean, I think if you're going to have a, if you're doing a fundraising event or anything like that, [00:32:00] it's like, that's the stuff that, that matters.

John Azoni: I read, there's a book I like called stories that stick. And she, um, Kendra, Kendra Hall, she, um, is the author talks about how she consulted with this, uh, what is it like a medical organization? And then they had like this yearly kind of like fundraiser or whatever. And normally they would choose like. the big shot doctors and surgeons to come and talk about the impact that they're making and then when she came on board, she was like, no, let's, let's, let's hear from patients, you know, who have had, you know, a great impact and we don't care what their pedigree is.

John Azoni: Uh, and she said, and I don't know what the stats were, but it was like monumentally You know, more money, more outcome, um, because people don't really care about, I mean, they care about your president and, and the, the, the, the staff and stuff like that. But what they really care about is like, can they see themselves in, uh, the students story, um, you know, for their son or for their daughter or whatever it is.

Allison Turcio: Yeah, we have a commercial that we, one of the commercials that we have, one of the [00:33:00] 32nd spots we have is entirely student voiced and it's just what they say about Sienna. Mashed together in a commercial. It's very emotional versus rational approach. We try to run both because The mix works too, right?

Allison Turcio: Sometimes you're appealing to the rational, sometimes to the emotional, but I, but I do think it's so powerful, but you have to be creating an environment where that's possible. So I think when we start thinking about student stories and students as ambassadors and a lot of the times, we go right to marketing.

Allison Turcio: Right. We go right to who can produce this video and who? No, it has to start with. They have to have something we're talking about, right? Which is not just marketing. That's everybody. So when you get everyone thinking that way, I think it can be really powerful. We're hoping we're not perfect at this. This is what we're working at at Seattle, right?

Allison Turcio: This is what we're all. [00:34:00] It's all top of mind. It's what we're trying to center ourselves around. So it remains to be seen. I can't But that's what we're hoping, because there's an arms race in marketing and advertising, Ben. I'm sorry, there is. And we're not going to be able to keep up with it. I can't more than double my marketing budget.

Allison Turcio: Sienna can't afford that, because we're trying to put the money into the student experience. So, um, we're really counting on... The focus of student experience driving enough word of mouth that we're less reliant on needing traditional advertising and digital advertising, you know, cause any, that is so much more powerful than any ad I can ever run.

John Azoni: Absolutely. And I think, and just what you mentioned, cause I was going to ask you like what you're, um, do you have like a story collecting kind of approach, but even just that, like send a videographer out. Into the campus and just like pick people off, you know, they're walking around like a man on the street kind of [00:35:00] thing and just, uh, and just like capture their, their stories, put that together.

John Azoni: And so I think we overcomplicate everything. We think that you got to have a drone, a drone shot and, uh, you know, it's got to be perfect lighting and you got to have people pointing at computer screens and stuff, but it really can just be like shot on an iPhone. Uh, tell me, tell me a story of. You know, a time that you were impacted by Siena College, you know,

Allison Turcio: look at what they're watching on YouTube.

Allison Turcio: It is not highly produced.

John Azoni: It really isn't. It's not. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think that's, I think that's great. And like more and more, I, I. I like really encourage that sort of lo fi approach. And despite the fact that like, I have a vested interest in like high quality productions and stuff like that, but you know, for, for my company, but at the same time, I'm also, I'm also like, there's a lot of value in not doing that.

John Azoni: It's

Allison Turcio: both, John, I [00:36:00] think it's both. I think that's the world we need to live in. It's not either, or it's both and having both enhances each other. Yeah, I really believe that

John Azoni: for sure as you guys have been trying to create these student experiences Has there been any any missteps that or like any learnings that where it's like, okay, let's do that differently next time or Anything like that.

Allison Turcio: I think the biggest lessons usually is how are you? Engaging students up front early on. It's probably not going to hit if they're not in on it from the beginning. You know, you can't put it on, put it on to them. Um, it's just not, it's just not going to happen. I think another thing we've learned is, it's okay if you start with the new students.

Allison Turcio: Because it's really hard to create a new [00:37:00] tradition, say, for the students who have been here for two or three years. Yeah, and just and throw that if you start with a first year class with some new experiences that you're trying to incorporate by the time they're seniors. Now it's been fully adopted, right?

Allison Turcio: So it's okay. If when you're first going out, say you're gonna, we never had homecoming before. We've only had homecoming, I think, for two years now. No, we don't have football. So now we've done homecoming aligned to basketball, created all of these Events around it, and it's okay if all the students don't come.

Allison Turcio: Cause what, a senior's like, what, homecoming? Right. What's that? It, that's okay. And so I think the lesson is that things take time to take, uh, to, to become part of the culture. It takes time. You can't force, you can't [00:38:00] force this stuff.

John Azoni: Yeah, and like, and I just think the idea of belonging is so paramount for, for especially a freshman coming into college and how can you create an environment that Facilitates connections, uh, facilitates like, natural connections.

John Azoni: I'm, I'm a little bit anti, like, icebreaker. You know, like, uh, two, two truths and a lie, or whatever, like, like these, like, company, company icebreakers that you do for like, retreats and stuff like that. Um, But not to say that that's bad, but like for finding other ways to like create these, these, uh, connection points where, where students can feel like, okay, like I was given a chance to get to know some people get to know some names.

John Azoni: They know me, people are interested in me. I finally feel like I belong somewhere. I've it's just like that whole college experience is, is, is, is almost as much about belonging as it is about academics and what job you're going to get later.

Allison Turcio: [00:39:00] Absolutely. I. Retention is about both too. A lot of times we think about retention as an academic thing, or maybe a financial thing.

Allison Turcio: They can't, they can't say they didn't, they couldn't hack it in the classes, they struggled, so they're, they're leaving. Or you think about a financial circumstance change, but belonging plays a huge role in whether or not a student stays. And graduates on time.

John Azoni: I believe it. Um, well, cool. This has been, this has been great.

John Azoni: What would you, um, what final words of wisdom would you give to, to colleges who are wanting to create deeper, uh, deeper emotional connections with their students?

Allison Turcio: Find one initiative that people can rally around. So, whether it's the onboarding, whether it's we're going to start a homecoming, whatever it is, something that [00:40:00] crosses a lot of different departments, and you're going to take a student centered approach to building that initiative. And a collaborative approach to building that initiative.

Allison Turcio: That is going to start to get this idea of student experience being so important and student centeredness being so important into people's Minds and their behavior and into the culture better than any marketer or any leader at the organization Top down kind of approach saying all right. I want everything to be this way now, right?

Allison Turcio: We have to work our way through this This isn't something you can just snap your fingers and say this is now our focus you have to work at it so I think picking an initiative that crosses a lot of different divisions of the college brings a lot of different people together and really you work through it as a group about and and you check each other on staying student centered in how you're making those decisions, I [00:41:00] think that's where you start.

Allison Turcio: So you don't have to start with everything. Start with one thing. What's the one thing at your school that you can bring multiple parties together

John Azoni: to work on? Yeah. And when you say student centered, what does what does that look like versus process? What is, what does it look like to not be student centered?

Allison Turcio: Well, so I often have heard that, you know, student centered means we're going to have to say yes to everybody. You know, yes to everything a student wants, which is a big problem on a college campus. We can't give everybody A's. Right? We can't say everything, but I always use this example. The admissions office says no to the most amount of students of everybody on our campus, right?

Allison Turcio: They tell them no, they can't come to Siena. And the financial aid office has to say no, I'm sorry, we don't have any more financial aid to give you. Those are hard no's to deliver, but so how can you be doing that? How can it be a no, but someone still feel valued? Someone still feel heard. [00:42:00] Someone still feels connected.

Allison Turcio: I think that's really what student centered is about, but also it's about using student insights to make your decisions. Collecting all of the data you can, all the stories that you can, because stories can be qualitative data for sure, to, to inform the actions that you're taking.

John Azoni: Awesome. That's great advice.

John Azoni: Um, anything else that I didn't ask you that I should ask you? Good? Alright. Awesome. Well, where can, um... Well, first of all, I encourage everyone to go listen to the application podcast. Are you so where are you like, is there another season coming out? Like what's the future for that?

Allison Turcio: Yeah, I have another season coming out this fall.

Allison Turcio: So keep an eye out for that. It's going to be a 13 episode season. I've already started recording, have some really awesome, great topics. The first one is on first gen students. And web user experiences and marketing to first gen students. So don't [00:43:00] miss that.

John Azoni: That's interesting. So when you do a new season, do you, do you release them all at once?

John Azoni: Or do you kind of drip them out? They're

Allison Turcio: released every other week.

John Azoni: Okay, cool. I like that. Maybe I'll start doing seasons. Cause that seems a little more palatable, you know? Yeah. Every week, it's every week. I'm just kind of like, okay. Got

Allison Turcio: it. Got to get it out. Got to get an episode out.

John Azoni: Yeah. I try to get ahead as much as I can, but, uh, but I do like.

John Azoni: the idea of, of doing seasons and, uh, and just kind of like just banging it all out and then just kind of dripping them out, you know? Yes. But um, where can, so where can people connect with you at? If they have questions. If they want to learn more about Siena.

Allison Turcio: Well, if you want to connect with me, I actually have a website, alisontercio.

Allison Turcio: com, that you can go to, but I'm very active on Twitter and LinkedIn. You'll find links to those on my website. I also publish a newsletter for higher ed marketers called the Higher Ed Marketers Digest, where you'll [00:44:00] find that on my website too. You can sign up for that. It's really just a collection of the awesome podcast, the awesome blog posts, the awesome LinkedIn posts, the tweets that our industry is putting out.

Allison Turcio: And I just try to put them all in one place because it's really hard to track them all over. So I try to just collect them for everybody so that you can kind of skim through and see what's most valuable to you.

John Azoni: I, I agree. I, I, uh, I am a subscriber to this email list and I, I just recently subscribed and I got my first, uh, installment.

John Azoni: Um, the other day it was very helpful, very like jam packed with tons of links, like a great roundup of like, you know, higher ed marketing stuff. So I think, uh, everyone should go, uh, subscribe to that. Um, all right. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here. I appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks, John.

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