Enrollment Marketing for Higher Education

Cathy Donovan [00:00:00]

In a crowded and changing higher ed landscape, colleges and universities are seeing some rising interest from students looking for unique, off-the-beaten path academic experiences. At Paskill, we’ve been helping institutions connect with the right-fit students for decades. And today we’re talking about recruiting students to remote campuses.

I’m Cathy Donovan, Agency Marketing Director at Paskill. Over the years, we’ve worked with over 600 institutions across the country, including colleges in remote locations like the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Today, we’re talking about the growing trend of students considering higher education in remote areas and how colleges like UAF are attracting them with their custom recruitment strategies.

My guest today is Conrad Haber, Assistant Cross Country Track Coach at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. After earning his law degree from Rutgers Law School and serving as a Head Cross Country Track Coach at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, Conrad made the bold move to Alaska. He’s here to share how UAF is attracting student athletes to this incredible remote location.

Welcome, Conrad.

Conrad Haber:

Thanks for having me, Cathy.

Cathy Donovan:

Well, let’s get started. So, you made this adventurous decision to move to Alaska. Can you share what drew you to UAF and how it’s different from other institutions you’ve been part of?

Conrad Haber:

So, the biggest thing, one of the biggest things that drew me to UAF was this sort of adventure aspect of it. I had been looking into transferring into college coaching. So Germantown Friends School, it was a great place. I loved it there. It was a high school. I had a lot of success with the team there. I love the families, the students, the faculty. But I had always wanted to coach in college. And as I started looking at the college coaching opportunities that were presented to me, there were, you know, I could go to some rural area in the middle of the US.

No offense to anyone that lives there, or I had this opportunity to go to Alaska, which seemed pretty cool. I talked to the head coach. She was fantastic. We got along really well. And then for me, it just turned into this you know, what could be totally different than living in the city of Philadelphia. Then driving seven days across the country, through Canada, through mountains to come to Alaska, which is a absolutely totally different landscape and style of living.

But it’s been an awesome experience with how different it’s been and the adjustments and just sort of having a new sort of frame on everything. Like driving six hours now is nothing. Driving six hours before would have been like, I don’t know, that’s like a pretty long commitment. I’ve driven six hours to Anchorage and back on the same day just to watch a cross country race.

So that’s something I’ve gotten used to. The school itself is different in terms of just the way everyone’s wired. Everyone up here, if you say like, hey, what do you, what are you doing this weekend? It’s, I’m going hiking, I’m going biking, I’m going kayaking, I’m camping. There’s a ruggedness to everybody where, I mean, we already got snow.

We already have snow on the ground and, you know, it’s 29 degrees outside. So, you know, everyone is just, there’s this ruggedness to everyone. And, you know, even when I went on my first hike, when I got here, a local guy named John Estill he drove me, we’re in this area called the Delta Mountains.

He goes, all right, we’re here and he goes, let’s go pick up the trail. And he just like starts walking through a bush. And I was like, John, like, what the hell are you doing? And I was like, there’s no trail here. And he’s like, what do you need? What do you think a trail is? I was like, like a groomed trail with like a tree with a little dot on it so you know where to go. And he was like, oh no, in Alaska, if you just want to go there, you just go. And that’s kind of like the mentality of a lot of people. You want to go climb that mountain? Well, go climb it. And you just walk up it. So like you kind of see that within the context of the school itself.

And in terms of given our location with travel and things of that nature, the professors are very accommodating of student athletes having to travel. You know, we’ll leave on a Wednesday and come back on a Sunday and the professors are all very like aware of it and they’re very supportive of athletics.

Since there’s no pro sports teams here, the college is kind of the local sports team. Hockey’s number one, of course, hockey would be number one up here. Skiing’s number two, obviously skiing’s number two, but they are very familiar in the community with everything that’s kind of happening at the university.

So, they’re very, they’re very supportive and there’s newspapers up here that write about what’s happening at the colleges. So there’s people that the local community has an idea of what’s going on. So that’s probably the two biggest things the entire school really is invested in sort of the success of the student athletes and, you know, that sort of rugged nature that the oldest person you see is more rugged than probably your average person on the East Coast.

No offense to the East Coast.  They are just wired differently. I can’t put it any other way.

Cathy Donovan:

Understood. So, Gen Z, they’re a demographic that looks for authentic experiences. How do you approach recruiting student athletes to this rugged location? What have been some cool experiences that have happened that maybe you didn’t think would work out?

Conrad Haber:

Well, I thought being so far away, would be a huge hindrance and in the end, it’s kind of part of the draw.  The biggest selling point we have as a school is that kind of all the things I just alluded to. The people here are wired differently and if you’re a student athlete that likes to hike, likes to mountain bike, rock climb, ice climb, ice skate, any number of camping, Denali National Park.

There are so many students here that share those same sort of desires and you know there’s clubs that do every one of those things. There’s a mountaineering club. There’s an ice climbing club. There’s a mountain climbing club. There is a mountain climbing wall, but I feel like a lot of schools have a mountain climbing wall on the inside so that’s not that that different.

There is a fat tire bike club. That’s people who bike on the snow, the tires that are like the size of like monster truck tires. So, there’s a community here for all those students that may not exist elsewhere. We have ski trails that you can access from your dorm. Pretty much any other school you would go to, you would have to drive 40, 45 minutes to access ski trails.

Literally right out your front door, you can strap on skis and go cross country skiing. There’s also a downhill ski resort, about 15 minutes from campus called Moose Mountain. So there’s all these things in this like, tight little…  and it’s that adventure that’s really the big selling point, you know, if you’re a student athlete from an inner city, like Philadelphia, and your idea of fun is to like, hang out, you know, at a coffee shop and then Uber to like, a club or something like that, then Alaska is not like your selling point, but if you’re someone who really enjoys the outdoors, there really is no better place.

I was not inherently someone that liked the outdoors yet just last weekend, I decided to drive 45 minutes to go hike up this mountain and went on a four hour hike and sort of kind of gotten into sort of the spirit of what, you know, people do here for fun, but that’s really what everyone does here for fun.

They go hiking and camping. And my first weekend here, when I started coaching, several members of the team went to Denali camped and then went mountain biking in Denali National Park on the weekend, which is not something you could do in a lot of places. So, it’s just there’s this, it’s so accessible and there’s just so many people you can do it with. I know this year we have a few freshmen and the first weekend they were here the seniors on the team took them on a 10 mile hike on this secret mountain that they know of because they’re local and everyone loved it.

And the next weekend they went on a mountain biking ride where it was super challenging. It was like a 3000-foot climb that came down on these windy trails. So that’s really the really big hook is that if you’re into outdoorsy things, adventure being far away, isn’t that much of a negative because it just gives you access to so many things that you just cannot get anywhere in the lower 48.

You can’t, all those things are within. You know, there’s buses that the school will drive to take people to do those things like there’s a club that goes camping in the Brooks Range, which is further north to be in like the tundra type area, and they stay there for two weeks. Um, there’s just a lot of those opportunities, which when I was in college, that never existed.

There’s no like, Oh yeah, let’s get on the university bus. We’re going to go skiing or something like that here. It’s, you know, you don’t need a bus to go skiing, but you can take a bus to camp to go mountain biking too. I mean, ice climbing is crazy. Kids climbing waterfalls. Like they climb a frozen waterfall and they have an ice, they have an ice climbing wall to practice like it’s crazy.

Wow. Like it’s just like totally different. But that is the, you know, the thing that really thinks that separates it from most other institutions.

Cathy Donovan:

Well, you’re sharing all the fun stuff. So, what are some of the challenges of keeping these student athletes once they enroll and what do you do to help ensure their success on and off the field?

Conrad Haber:

The goal is, is that through the recruiting process those that aren’t really interested in coming to a school like UAF don’t end up at UAF. And more often than not, as student athletes are making that decision, most of the time they are sort of figuring out like, oh yeah, this isn’t really what I would want or this is what I want.

And the goal is to the recruiting process to be open and honest and like not trying to pull wool over someone’s eyes because when they get here, it’s going to be pretty, you know, someone says, is it cold? The answer is yes, it is cold. Does it get dark? Yes, it does get dark. Now, I don’t think the cold is as bad as one might expect, which kind of blew my mind because you hear minus 20 and you go like, oh, hell no, but East Coast winters, I think are more brutal because you have wind and that wet cold, but those are the challenges, you know, someone thinks that maybe they can handle the cold or the training limitations that sort of arise from being in a place like this, where, you know, we have to crosstrain a lot during the winter because it’s really hard to run outside minus 20 and everything’s frozen.

The darkness can affect some, where it’s like, oh, this is totally different from what I expected. But so far in my experience, I haven’t run into any student athletes that have gotten here and have then decided like, hey, this wasn’t for me. I want to leave this place. And I think the commitment that it takes to say I’m going to Alaska, especially from the lower 48, I think that kind of whittles out those that might have just haphazardly been like, yeah, you know what, on a whim, I’ll give it a try. I think when student athletes are coming here, they’re like, yeah, this is something I really want to be a part of. And I really want to go to a school like this. I know there are some other athletes at the school that have transferred out.

I don’t know exactly why it could be for any number of reasons. The transfer portal has kind of changed the, changed the landscape a little bit where someone might be wanting to get more money somewhere or something like that, but the athletes that I’ve had the experience of working with it’s sort of like whittles itself down, but those challenges are really the cold, the dark, and for some, the distance away from home, which I always think is kind of cool because you have to fly a lot.

So then you get like cool status on the airline. So then you’re like a big wig. When you walk in, you get your bags free, all that stuff. But if someone is really close to their family, that would be something that would be really challenging. And I would say one of the challenges that does present itself is if there is something that happens back home, that is, you know, something happens within the family, something tragic, it becomes difficult for that student to sort of figure out, like, how do I go home and sort of stay in tune with the classes and as a program we’re supportive and we say, hey, like do what you need to do, like get home if you need to.

But I know that it becomes more of a wrestle than if it was like, oh, it’s a two-hour drive or a three hour flight. You know, for some people, we’re about a three-and-a-half-hour flight from Seattle. And then from Seattle, you would then fly to wherever you’re going. So, for some people, it’s a five-six hour trip without the layover.

And, you know, they can’t just go back and forth real quick. Like, oh, I have an exam on Thursday. So, that’s sometimes can be very, very challenging and kind of like a difficult time that the student athletes need help navigating. But it hasn’t resulted so far in anyone being like, this isn’t the place for me, but those would be the three biggest challenges. This is from family, the cold and the darkness.

Cathy Donovan:

Got it. So, you talk about not having professional sports in your area. So, the surrounding community is really supportive of your teams just I wanted for you to talk a little bit about, you know, how that team engages with that broader UAF community. I would love to hear, you know, what are some traditions? You know how aside from the adventure outdoor stuff, are there other, you know what makes up the culture? And how does that connect with the local community?

Conrad Haber:

There’s a very large running community in Fairbanks. There’s a really big running club called Running Club North that hosts a lot of races, runs throughout the year, legitimately throughout the year. They will put spikes on their shoes and they wear these masks so they can run if it’s like minus two, like they’ll run every day. There’s these people here that bike to work every day regardless of the weather and that are running every day regardless of the weather.

Cathy Donovan:

Oh my gosh.

Conrad Haber:

Like I said, they’re rugged. I’m just like, damn, I’m in my car blasting heat. And I see someone biking and I’m like, that person’s nuts.  But we do several, we reach out to the community in several ways. We host running camps over the summer for kids from like kindergarten up to about eighth grade, where we have every other, like we have one week and then we have like a week off.

And then we have another week where we have a day camp and we take them through, you know, there’s athletes on the team that are part of the camp as well. The coaches, me and the head coach, Eliska and one of the ski coaches, Ben, he’s also there and we, you know, we have like theme days like hill day or sprints day, distance day, and it’s an opportunity to sort of meet a lot of the parents as they drop their kids off and throughout the chaos when the kids are running around, we get to chat with parents and they sort of get to see, put a face to the names that they might see in subsequent news stories later on.

The kids that are there get to meet some of the athletes on the team. And so, we had athletes, a year ago that won a local road race. So, they thought she was a celebrity because it was a very big road race in the town of Fairbanks, the Midnight Sun Run. It’s a 10 K that they do basically like at midnight over the summer, when you just have the 24 hours of light.

One of our athletes, Rosie, had won it, and all these girls knew where she was, and they’re like, that’s Rosie! She won the Midnight Sun Run!

Cathy Donovan:
Aww!

Conrad Haber:

So, it’s really cool, and that just, gives them also a chance to sort of see UAF. Most of them do, like it’s a kind of a fixture in the community. But it lets them be a part of it in a way, and we give them like stickers and some swag. So, you know, it’s, it’s a fun experience. We also do a thing called Healthy Futures, which is we’ll have, the team will go to these, it’s like a giant competition for kindergarten up through, I think, fifth grade. And it’s all the schools in the greater Fairbanks area. They will go to a cross country course and they’ll run races for like an entire afternoon.

And what we ended up doing is we have the athletes on the team. One will lead the race. They have like a cape so the kids chase the cape. And then in the back, we have two other athletes as sort of like sweepers,  but they end up normally talking to the different kids who, you know, may not be the fastest and they have come back and they have like the craziest stories of the stuff that these kids are talking about. But it’s a lot of fun. We get to meet all the people in the community. It’s all volunteers. So, it helps, you know, without it, the Healthy Futures wouldn’t really be able to do everything that they’re able to do because we’re also working to finish line, handing out the medals and the awards, and just like being a big support for sort of like, not even just running, but just like promoting healthy kids and healthy lifestyles. And when you go there, you just see like, it’s thousands of kids just running.  It’s funny. Cause you look at some of these kids, you’re like, this kid’s been running around for an hour and now his race is about to start. And then the kid runs the race. It’s like this endless sea of just like child energy. That’s just all it’s like, it’s just chaos. But it’s fun and like the athletes really enjoy doing it.

Cathy Donovan:

That’s so cool.

Conrad Haber:

Normally you go like, oh, we have Healthy Futures. And you might have a few people that are like, oh, all right. They haven’t done it before. So, it seems like it’s kind of a lift. And then they go there and they’re like, oh, that was a lot of fun. You know, cause they were running with the kids and then they see like, you know, It’s hard to not enjoy seeing kids like smiling and laughing and having a good time.

Cathy Donovan:

It seems like that’s not an athletic experience you would get at another university to be that embedded with the community and feel, you know, that you could be such a, like a mentor, feel so connected, just seems like a major differentiator from some other institutions.

Conrad Haber:

I would agree. I mean, when I went to college, that was not even anything that was on, it’s not even anything that would exist in a, you know, a more developed area because there’d be some other paid sort of thing that would be involved that people would be a part of, or like something run by the state athletic association or something along those lines.

And this is just totally community run, community based. It’s literally run by parents, you know, that are part of this Healthy Futures Club. And, you know, we get to meet all of them throughout the course of the, there’s normally four of the events throughout the fall, you know, and some of them that are keeping tabs on what we’re doing and they’re like, congrats on that meet and you’re like, oh, that’s awesome.

You’re paying attention to all that stuff. And the last thing we do is we help out with, uh, there’s a marathon in town called Equinox, which is billed as one of the hardest marathons that you can run. It is really tough. There’s a 3,000-foot climb right at about the 10 mile mark, and it’s about like a five mile. It’s pretty brutal. But every year we help out in terms of running that and that’s another sort of like community event where local high schools are helping out with blocking off roads. And we typically man the top of the mountain where we’re giving out like food and we have a speaker playing and trying to like get people jazzed up as they’re just like climb the mountain and are dead.

And then his one will like crumble. So we’re up there cheering and supporting and giving food. And there’s a relay that they have to part as part of it, we man, the relay exchange zone, making sure that everyone like exchanges their stuff correctly, help with timing and all those things. But it’s just a big day for us because it’s kind of like an all-day event, but it’s another opportunity for us to like be involved with the community and we see a bunch of familiar faces all the time.

So, it’s not even just like go runner. It’s like great job, Susan. Fantastic run, Frank, like we know by the community is small enough where you can really kind of know all the major individuals within like the different circles. And, you know, and that kind of dovetails into the Healthy Futures and into the camps.

There’s parents that we know of different children, and they have older children that have, you know, that have run for certain high schools, and so we know all their names, and they know all our names, so it’s one of the benefits of kind of being in that kind of smaller town is when we do have this community engagement, it really resonates, and you actually start to know people by name, as opposed to just like, oh, we went to a school, and you know, we helped out for a day and you don’t really know anyone afterwards or have any follow up.

This is like a consistent loop where we’re rehashing relationships every year. And, you know, we’ve seen kids grow up.  The head coach, she’s been here for eight years now. And just through the camps, she knows families that the kids came as kindergartners and then she saw them as fifth graders and now they’re middle school and they’re about to go into high school.

And, you know, so she knows their parents and knows them really well. And, you know, you can be walking down the street and you bump into somebody like that and they’ll be like, hey, I saw you at Healthy Futures. And you’re like, hello, how are you doing? It really helps to foster that strong sense of community.

Cathy Donovan:

So last question for you. How about scholarships? How important are they in attracting talent and supporting your program?

Conrad Haber:

It’s important with regard to attracting the type of talent you need to be successful at the like regional and national level because the other schools are doing it is basically another way of sort of looking at it.

And if you want to attract someone who is really good, and they’re getting offers from other schools to not have to pay money, because I think that is a very prominent feature of the college experience right now is parents. And it’s getting expensive and it’s like, well, where can I go to make this the least expensive?

And parents are pretty savvy. And then you recognize that like, okay, if you’re going to Alaska, that’s going to be more costs in terms of bringing you back for Christmas or bringing you back for holidays. And what do you do for the summers? And how do we get everything up there? So, it is an important part.

I don’t think it is a necessary, like, oh, we need scholarships to attract people to come to the school. There’s people that would like to come here, but in terms of getting the talented athletes that you would otherwise really need to be successful. And it’s just the nature of Division Two Athletics is that it’s really hard to just build from within and have a team that would be at that level all the time, especially, you know, you have schools in California,  Colorado, where they have this pool of athletes that’s very large that they can pull from that are already in state, you know, Alaska small in terms of the number of like individuals that are running, you know, and there’s, there’s several, you know, not every Alaskan student wants to stay in Alaska.

There’s a large portion that are curious as to what the lower 48 is like. So, they want to go and explore the lower 48. A lot of times some of them come back and we’ve been fortunate for those that are like, you know what? I didn’t really like the lower 40. I wanted to come back and they ended up coming to UAF, which is awesome. But scholarships are important to get to top talent, but it’s not so much because kids need to be coaxed to coming to Alaska, it’s more about valuing their skillset and what that skillset can provide them financially. And, you know, as I have those discussions with their parents, it seems more so now than maybe when I was in college where that has been more of a driver of decision making as opposed to being like, well, I really, really like this school and I really, really like this aspect of it, but it’s a little bit more like that seems like a good deal.

 

And it seems like right now there’s a little bit more cost conscious thought put into what is higher ed going to look like?  I don’t want to take out loans or if I do, I want it to be very minimal. And I have these opportunities at these other schools that are similar to be cheaper. So it’s kind of like, we have to sort of play ball against that.

Cathy Donovan:

Understood. Well, I want to thank everyone for tuning in to our conversation with Conrad Haber from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It’s been really fun listening to him talk about recruiting to one of the most remote school locations in the U. S. I know I may not go there, but I might run today.  You did that.

So if you want to learn more about Conrad’s journey, check out the show notes or connect with him on social. And if you’re looking to boost enrollment in remote locations, Paskill is here to help. Contact us anytime for strategies to help your institutions thrive. Thanks so much, Conrad.

Conrad Haber:

Thanks, Cathy. Had a lot of fun.