Growing roots, finding wings Latest New North, Inc. marketing campaign spotlights higher ed | Insight on Business
By Kate Bruns
Insight on Business
Bob DeKoch says the frustration was palpable at the spring 2024 New North, Inc. board meeting. Then-UW Oshkosh Chancellor Andy Leavitt had asked for time on the agenda to discuss the challenges our region’s higher education institutions were staring down: declining funding, declining enrollment and national rhetoric that maligned both the work and the value colleges and universities provide.
UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander, Lakeshore College President Paul Carlsen and St. Norbert College President Laurie Joyner were among the higher education leaders who joined Leavitt to ask the 18-county economic development organization for help.
“They were making a pitch to the board that … the marketplace is not communicating the value of higher education in a way that inspires young people to make decisions to do four-year degrees, and even two-year degrees,” says DeKoch, who co-chairs New North Inc.’s marketing committee. “They [said] legislators don’t appreciate or understand the value that higher education brings and that business leaders in the area were not standing up for that fight.”
DeKoch saw the request as a challenge to his committee, which is made up of what he describes as “the best marketing minds in the region.”
For more than a year, DeKoch, his co-chair Donna Rippin and New North, Inc. VP Renee Torzala worked on the issue: Knowing that Northeast Wisconsin lags the national average for four-year degree attainment (18% compared to 21% nationwide), how can we tell the higher ed story to prospective college students and their parents? How can we help business leaders, whom we know believe strongly in the value of higher ed and need educated workers, to step up and tell the story in their own words?
In May, on the heels of the revelation that Wisconsin has continued to drop nationally in public funding for four-year higher education and now ranks 44th of 50 states, New North, Inc. convened a summit focused on the vital link between higher ed and workforce, featuring remarks from UW System President Jay Rothman and Titletown Tech Managing Partner Craig Dickman. The event set the table for the hard launch of New North’s latest marketing initiative June 5 at its annual summit.
“Growing Roots — Finding Wings: Learn and Thrive in Northeast Wisconsin” is a two-year campaign featuring testimonials from business leaders including Sachin Shivaram of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, Bethany Skorik of Fincantieri Marine Group, Dennis DeLoye of Associated Bank and Laurie Butz of Capital Credit Union.
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