Our Next Meeting | August 26^th at 1:00 PM CST
Our next meeting will take place on August 26^th at 1:00 PM CST, and you can register in advance. To help make the most of this meeting, we want to cover topics that matter to you right now! We invite you to submit your ideas here for topics you’d like to see covered. 
 

• Print Materials – Do we need them? With most, if not all, study abroad fairs and international student recruitment fairs going virtual this year, many organizations and institutions are going digital with their collateral.
• Online platforms to help create digital versions of your collateral include Publitas and Canva. Canva is very user friendly and can incorporate interactive elements. 

• For now, this seems to be the new way forward to get study abroad information to students.
• Think about students' needs and their digital user experience at the center of everything.
• Some ideas to incorporate content/maximize content digitally: 
  • Launch a landing page that features a combination of Zoom/live opportunities as well as on-demand content.
  • Ask providers/vendors to send in 1-minute pitch videos to be hosted on your fair/web platform.
  • Turn your fair into an all-on-demand content space. 
  • Think about how to add further content that isn’t already on your website. 
  • Think about how you can incorporate returnees. 
• Food for thought: 
  • By trying to make an in-person event into something virtual, it seems that it’s just replacing something at a specific time on the computer that would normally be in person (but experience can’t be replicated). Need to meet the students where they are. It’s online.. so why does it have to be at a designated time (this may be what students are thinking). Offer something that students can attend whenever they want to. 
  • If you’re hosting a fair, and you previously had vendors pay a participation fee, would they need to pay a participation fee if it’s virtual? 
  • Virtual fair software can be very expensive. Think about alternatives and how you could use your website to host content. 

• A huge challenge in keeping messaging consistent. Try to create one message through one source. Need to work closely with other units to make sure the messaging is consistent and not bombarding the students. 
• Messaging international students, but not making them feel “othered”. Send slightly tweaked, more detailed messaging for international students. 
• International students are relying on web updates and regular Q&A with academic advisors to keep them updated.
• Create a new email address for ISS questions specifically regarding fall enrollment on campus for International Students. 

• Comms people from all departments/colleges should be linked up so that all messaging is consistent across groups (this should happen weekly so everyone is aware of changes, approved comms)
• It is important to respond in a timely manner! However, you must have key facts before responding/communicating, otherwise, you may have to send more communications to correct previous communications, and that’s when the real message gets lost.