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Case Histories

Adler School of Professional Psychology

Telling the Adler School Story

Situation

PCI was retained by the Adler School of Professional Psychology in July 2008 for a campaign that focused initially on articulating the bold application of the School’s first-of-its-kind social responsibility curriculum. While the new curriculum had been launched in 2006, the School had not yet found a way to tell its story in concrete and compelling terms that made clear how the Adler School was “walking the talk” of social responsibility in a way distinct from other institutions proclaiming similar lofty ideals.

Telling the “family.” We partnered with Kym Abrams Design to develop cornerstone materials for the School’s most important “internal” audiences – students, alumni, community partners, donors, faculty, and staff. In addition to launching an alumni magazine and creating a View Book for prospective students, we redeveloped the School’s annual report, achieving a piece that showed the concrete impact of the School’s social responsibility curriculum as an idea in action.

The result was powerful, as expressed by a comment from a former Arthur Andersen executive who told Adler School’s President Raymond E. Crossman, Ph.D., “I’ve never read an annual report like it. It made me read it from start to finish. Riveting. It built and delivered a story.”

Telling the public. In late 2009, having established an effective materials platform, PCI and the School shifted the program focus to articulating the School’s story for external audiences through media relations. We quickly made significant progress, garnering a dramatic increase in media visibility during the 2009-10 fiscal year (Sept. 1 through Aug. 31), with 228 media placements (86 original reporting; 142 online news release pick-up) during FY09-10 in comparison with five media placements during FY08-09.

Action

PCI worked with the School to identify, develop and conduct outreach on news-making opportunities that would showcase the School’s distinctive, community-oriented approach to professional psychology, including advocacy on behalf of under-represented communities. During FY09-10 we identified and publicized a wide variety of story topics, including the: ISE 2010 Social Determinants of Mental Health conference, IPSSJ Faces of Poverty photo exhibit, new Chicago campus, Gerontology program Stages film screening, Englewood Gun Violence Prevention Project, student recipients of U.S. Army Health Care Scholarships, certificate programs, diversity of the School’s board, and appointments of Martha Casazza and David Castro-Blanco.  

One School-led event provided a particularly compelling news opportunity for both academic and consumer publications, ultimately generating 20 percent of the year’s total original news stories (17 out of 86 stories). Among the news coverage generated by the first meeting of LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education, co-hosted on August 6-7 by the Adler School and Roosevelt University, were nine feature articles in national and Chicago publications. 

The event was a meeting of “out” lesbian and gay college and university presidents from across the country, who came together to explore the potential for advocacy and other initiatives for LGBT leadership in higher education. Nine founding members attended the August meeting, forming LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education.

While the event was not tied to a formal Adler School program (and therefore not “School-owned” news), we recommended publicizing the event based on several strategic factors that gave the event strong news value and good alignment with Adler School messages:

  • A national first-of-its-kind, with President Crossman and the Adler School in leading roles
  • Opportunity to position the School as a pioneering advocate on behalf of pluralism, one of the School’s five core values
  • Timeliness of LGBTQ topics due to judicial actions at the time on gay rights issues and potential repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the U.S. military’s 17-year policy of banning gay and lesbian service members from serving openly in the military

We developed a publicity strategy after coordinating with the staff at co-host Roosevelt University. Our goal was quality of coverage, not quantity. There was no action for the public to take; no event for them to attend. We wanted stories that advanced the Adler School’s thought-leadership as an institutional advocate on behalf of under-represented communities.

We identified a select list of journalists, including two seminal higher ed publications: Paul Fain at The Chronicle of Higher Education, who first reported on the small number of openly gay higher ed presidents in late 2007, and Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed. We conducted direct media outreach to offer information and interviews. As we anticipated, coverage by these academic publications – which are widely read by higher ed beat reporters – generated interest and subsequent coverage from consumer news outlets.

Results

Our outreach generated 17 news items between late May and early August, of which nine were feature stories that advanced the School’s thought-leadership and messages related to its vision.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Paul Fain’s Chronicle story was the first to appear (May 28), naming Dr. Crossman, the Adler School, and describing the event as a “possible platform for future advocacy,” stating, “the group could help develop talent, much as other efforts have cultivated future presidents among women, and blacks and other minority groups...”  Fain’s story was noticed by several consumer news outlets, generating subsequent coverage by:

Chicago Reader: “Crossman says it's no coincidence that he's at the Adler School. As a graduate institution continuing the work of Alfred Adler, its mission is to train socially responsible psychologists. "Out of the thousands of schools in the country, only a few have had the courage to pick an LGBT president," he notes. "It's those schools that focus on social justice."”

Windy City Times: Quotes Dr. Crossman stating, “but in those [institutions] that celebrate diversity—like Adler and Roosevelt—the situation has greatly improved. I think gay people, obviously, negotiate all sorts of prejudice and obstacles in their daily lives, but it's much different educationally, especially where the president is gay. There were very few out gay students when I came to Adler, and now the gay and lesbian affinity group is our largest group (Adler PRIDE) on campus. They have a contingent of 60 that will march in the parade this year. It's been a very successful seven years for us. We've gone from being a couple hundred students seven years ago to about 1,000 graduate students in the fall. Also, we've added a second campus in Vancouver, British Columbia. We are moving, as you know. We've added institutes, like social justice. And, maybe most exciting, we completely rebooted the whole curricula to create social-justice practitioners.”

  • Fain’s Chronicle story also generated interview requests and subsequent (FY10-11) feature stories in September and October 2010 by Chicago Tribune, RedEye, and the NAFSA – Rainbow Signals Newsletter, as well as interest and a 2011 interview request from The New York Times “On Education” columnist Michael Winerip.

Inside Higher Ed: Scott Jaschik’s Inside Higher Ed story led a second phase of coverage in August. Jaschik named the Adler School and quoted Dr. Crossman talking about advocacy and social justice, “Crossman said he views such advocacy as a traditional role of a college president... ‘I think that as presidents of colleges and universities there’s always been a role to take positions, to take part in a continuing dialogue in our culture”...“Many of the colleges that have named gay presidents are places with ‘strong social justice missions’, said Crossman.” Jaschik’s story generated spin-off stories in several national news outlets, including The Washington Post, USA Today and The Huffington Post.