Communications and marketing leaders in higher education need to be able to answer the following questions to navigate an increasingly complex reputation management landscape. Together, they represent key inputs for an effective brand strategy that puts the right stories and messages in front of the right people, at the right time — in ways that are authentic and proactive.

1. Who are our key stakeholders? (prospective students, current students, alumni, faculty, etc.)
2. What do they value most — or not value — in their relationship with our institution? (personally, professionally, experientially, etc.)
3. What values drive their decision-making? (equitable access, accountability, academic freedom, institutional autonomy, social responsibility, etc.)
4. Where/how do they get they news and information?
5. When they consume news and information are they seeing/engaging with content about our institution that aligns to their values and what they value?

Five topics, Admissions, DEI, Free Speech, Tenure, and Labor Relations, saw notable increases in conversation volume compared to the previous academic year. In this report, we explore each of them in depth.

In addition to monitoring online conversation, this report analyzes media coverage through the prism of political bias. Using the AllSides media bias chart as a framework (albeit an imperfect one) we identified nearly 26,500 higher education articles, written across the political spectrum that reference at least one of our five trending topics.