Writing from SSATB and thinking about all that we’re being asked to do that is “virtual” and “online”. Even the Admissions Leadership Council (which you heard me speak of at today’s luncheon if you’re here in Boston) was debating meeting just once a year, and conducting the rest of our business through tweets, wiki, email, etc. Does anyone else believe this to be counter to the nature of your average admissions director?
We’re “people people”. While it may be exhausting or even frustrating at times, I think most of us would choose standing behind a table at a fair engaging a family in conversation over sitting behind a desk responding to emails. So how do we balance our innate “people-ness” with the manifold growing demands of web-based marketing, online applications, databases, social media and evolving technology? (If your office doesn’t have at least one iPad at this point, you can count yourself behind the curve!)
Fortunately for me, I had the opportunity to hire for it. I’ve got a young, bright, hard-working new staffer who loves all of this. She still needs guidance with messaging, brand and content, but how it gets into the virtual world and into the email inboxes of the right people is entirely on her. As for me, I had to go to the Tech Help Desk last week for assistance to change the batteries in my wireless keyboard.
It makes me wonder if the generation of admissions directors to follow is going to be required to have college degrees somehow related to technology. Has even the admissions profession gotten to the point whereby us liberal artists are no longer welcome? Will the new generation ever go out and meet people and engage them? Will future headmasters when hiring care if their admissions directors are personable, can look you in the eye, have a firm handshake, manage a decent outfit from out of a suitcase or even…gasp…tie a bowtie?
Great post Andrew. I remember an Ivy admission dean reminding her staff not to select only "people people" like admission folks. Interestingly, I was just on another top university campus where the advising team said they counsel students *not* to send emails to the faculty luminaries they want to meet but to go out and actually meet them in person -- break out of the virtual comfort zone and use the physical setting a campus provides to network. Perhaps the good news is that today's brightest "liberal artists" will learn to integrate virtuality and reality.
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