Just under two years ago, I became the Vice President of Advancement at Nevada State. This promotion came with an organizational change. Prior to this, I oversaw our Development and Alumni Department. With the reorg, I continued to manage that department, but I also began leading our Marketing and Events team. While I have worked very hard to learn about the frame of the two departments and ask a lot of questions, it is during this year (2024) that I have started to institute some changes to help bring efficiency and new focus to the division, along with introducing new goals.
The Development and Alumni Department oversees all activities for alumni, including events, connections to Career Services, support and more. Development is another word for fundraising. We oversee the 501 c3 nonprofit arm of Nevada State, which includes a volunteer board made up of community members. We ask people for donations that in turn help the university. Examples of the work Development does includes raising funds for scholarships, some of the money we needed to build the Christenson School of Education, and funding the Student Emergency Fund.
Marketing and Events oversee our external brand – this includes the website, social media (the official campus pages), and all advertising, and the events team quite literally is involved with every event we have. Marketing’s focus (and to an extent, Events) has ONLY been to recruit students….until the campus reorg. Now, I have asked them to look for ways to build the brand in the community as a whole, not just to recruit students. We have tried a few things, but continue to have a heavy focus on marketing to recruit students.
In addition to the organizational change, Nevada State is now 21 years old, and we are in a place of “becoming”. President Pollard jokes that at 21 years old, we can drink legally but are probably still on our parents health insurance and can’t rent a car on our own. All this to mean, we are still a young institution and need to create systems and structures to move the university to the next level.
Because we are only 21 years old, we have so many opportunities. One of which is to start athletics at Nevada State.
“Research has shown that athletics can serve as a catalyst to increase enrollment, increase national exposure, and build stronger ties to alumni and the university community by providing numerous engagement opportunities.” (ADU.com). As we look at creating the next evolution of the university with athletics, all of the reasons to create athletics are compelling and important.
Athletics will directly affect both of my departments. Both groups will have to do things they have never done before.
Timing of this is challenging. With budgets severely limited due to other budget constraints, I can’t hire new fundraisers for athletics or new marketing team members to promote the programs or even a new events person to create and execute the game day experience. I’ve got to motivate the current team to push harder, do more and create new in addition to the work they already do.
Your Assignment
Issue 1 – How would you lead these teams through these major changes? As a leader, what would you be looking for to help the groups manage change in their day to day work? I’m hoping (using our materials as a guide) you will provide me suggestions on what leadership style you would use to lead the team, how to avoid communication pitfalls, and how to avoid common dysfunctions of a team. Also, based on our material, what things am I not thinking about that could be important to the success of athletics at Nevada State? Use the background info above and below to get an understanding of what kind of frame we work in and possible challenges.
Issue 2 – While athletics at Nevada State is huge for us, much of our local community doesn’t even know our campus exists, let alone that we are going to have athletics. Based on what we have learned about communication, leadership and other concepts, what suggestions do you have on how I share our athletics programs with the community? What strategies would you incorporate to help people learn about who is Nevada State along with the vision of athletics, how we grow the brand of the university and athletics to the community, as well as get more community members engaged with campus?
I’m asking for a paper that helps me solve both issues mentioned above. Obviously and as always, I’m looking for you to reference the materials. This is the perfect opportunity for you to apply our concepts from the entire class. I’m also looking for ideas and suggestions. There are no wrong answers or ideas too outlandish for ways to inspire the team to bring athletics to market. Below is a little more background information about the two departments, what we do, etc. Feel free to email me with any questions and I’ll share the answers as announcements so everyone can get the info. I am not going to put a page limit on this, as I don’t want “filler” info, but I believe you will end up with a paper that is, at minimum, 3 – 4 pages.
