Employing Strategic Communications to Accomplish Outreach Goals for Experiential Programs
- Conference
- Location
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San Antonio, Texas
- Publication Date
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June 10, 2012
- Start Date
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June 10, 2012
- End Date
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June 13, 2012
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Cooperative & Experiential Education
- Page Count
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10
- Page Numbers
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25.523.1 - 25.523.10
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--21281
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/21281
- Download Count
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382
Paper Authors
Heather Lynn Ogletree San Jacinto College
Heather L. Ogletree is a Program Coordinator at Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. As a coordinator, Ogletree is responsible for the recruitment, selection, and placement of interns at JSC and serves as a liaison to interns during and after their experience. Prior to this, Ogletree was the National Project Coordinator for the Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP), NASA’s largest agency-wide undergraduate STEM internship program. While with USRP, she generated a series of 87 online articles, which gave a qualitative look into the USRP internship experience while increasing program exposure and recruitment. Many of her articles were regularly featured on NASA's Higher Education website for educators and students and were published or used for background research for articles in university/local newspapers. Before NASA, Ogletree served in the Air Force as a personnel officer, where she gained experience in project management, event planning, and all aspects of military human resources.
Anthony Zippay Arizona State University
Anthony Zippay is the Manager of Education Strategies and Communications for the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Zippay comes to ASU from the Universities Space Research Association, where he worked as the Principal Investigator and Project Manager of the NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program, one of NASA’s largest national higher education projects. In his role with USRP, he led the program to tremendous growth through a comprehensive strategic communications plan, resulting in exponential increase to the applicant pool, as well as the participation of the program. USRP later received a NASA Group Achievement Award in 2010 for Management Excellence. Zippay graduated from Bowling Green State University with a B.A. in communications and marketing. His background involves working as a marketing research executive for Insight Advertising and a corporate account executive for the University of Texas, Pan-American, thus he brings a unique perspective to NASA education programs. He has successfully managed major advances in enhancing the nation’s STEM workforce through experiential education. Zippay has implemented and designed new approaches to education program strategy among NASA projects through the use of new multimedia applications and web based tools for the purposes of student outreach and public engagement within NASA opportunities and professional development experiences. Zippay has a passion for research both in marketing and education and is dedicated to finding unique solutions that solve problems and have true and positive impact within the STEM education pipeline.
Abstract
Employing Strategic Communications to Accomplish Outreach Goals for Experiential ProgramsIn 2010 NASA’s Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP) implemented a uniquestrategy to reach out to STEM students, develop deeper University partnerships, andcommunicate program activities through the use of multimedia products, social media andweb/print periodicals that resulted in national media attention including Forbes online andenhanced University and industry partnerships to further the impact of the program outreach intothe STEM education community.This paper presents a strategy - focused on the unique and compelling stories of the student andmentor participants - that was implemented to achieve a greater impact in program outreach andgoals while reducing program management costs. This strategy incorporates a qualitativedimension to traditional program metrics which add context which better illuminated the impactof the program on the larger STEM community. The strategy was also effective in deepeningstrategic partnerships with stakeholders through the promotion of the students host institution,unique campus organizations, the mentors organizational mission and NASA technical programs.Overall, the results demonstrate that a compelling communications campaign can increaseawareness of your program among your target audience and transmit the excitement ofparticipation from key stakeholders to a larger community.
Ogletree, H. L., & Zippay, A. (2012, June), Employing Strategic Communications to Accomplish Outreach Goals for Experiential Programs Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21281
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