Marketing role in focus at Town Hall

Chapman University has an abundance of good things going on, from the cutting-edge research of its faculty to the growing selectivity of its students, Chancellor Daniele Struppa said in remarksFriday at the first Town Hall meeting of the 2010-11 school year.

Now how best to get that message out to a national audience? That was the question at hand at the informal lunch forum, held in Beckman Hall.

“It takes a long time,” Struppa said. But there are methods for moving it along and key among them is marketing, he said, taking the opportunity to introduce Mark Woodland,  the new vice president of strategic marketing and communication.

All the ingredients are in place, Woodland said.

“It’s not so much about moving the needle, but raising awareness,” he said.

Among the topics touched on in the forum were possibilities for hosting academic conferences, ways faculty can bring mainstream attention to their work through newspaper and magazine essays and how to target support toward programs where students are doing particularly distinguished work.