Higher Ed Icons

Higher Ed Icons

Celebrating the pioneers, thought leaders, trend setters, and change makers in higher education marketing. With your hosts: Voltaire Santos Miran and Mallory Willsea.

Episodes

  1. 8h ago

    Episode 9 - The J. Crew Dean, the Need for Hip, and the Importance of Vibe

    Lee Coffin made Tufts cool. Then he walked into Dartmouth and did it again. Over 30 years, Coffin turned two very good universities into two of the most wanted schools in the country. He gave the field its language — "the qualified muddle," the creative essay, the case for putting voice next to data on every application. In 2024 he made Dartmouth the first Ivy to bring back the SAT, and the rest of the Ivy League followed inside a year. He's spent the last 32 years and 100-plus podcast episodes pulling the curtain back on the whole process. If higher ed admissions has icons, Lee Coffin is one of them. We got him for the kind of conversation you only hear from someone in the top of the ninth, his words. He explains why volume is not the coin of the realm, even at a 6 percent admit rate. How he turned a test score into a story by reading it against the room it came from. Why he leaned Dartmouth all the way into rural when a consultant told him to sell urban. And what it costs to be the warmest gatekeeper in the Ivy League and still say no to 94 of every 100 students who knock. We also get into where it started: a public-school guidance counselor who looked at a straight-A kid and said "I don't have time for the smart ones," and the first-gen instinct that became a 30-year practice of translating this process for the families nobody helps. 🔑 What You'll Take Away Why a bigger pile of applications isn't a win and what selective colleges chase instead How a test score means more once you know the school behind it Why so many applicants look identical on paper and the idea ("the qualified muddle") that changed how schools tell them apart What it costs to love saying yes in a job that means rejecting almost everyone Why a student's grades and their story work as a team

  2. Jul 21

    Bonus Episode - The Hard Things Institutions Don't Do and the Lies That They Tell

    Every institution claims students belong there. Dayana Kibilds says that claim falls apart the second you hold it up against the experience students find when they arrive. She has worked every seat this industry offers. She led domestic recruitment at Western University, ran brand and messaging engagements at Ologie across dozens of institutions, and now serves as AVP of marketing and community at Simpson Scarborough. She co-wrote Mailed It, the book higher ed marketers reach for when their email program stops performing. OnDeck Marketing CEO John Reid takes the host chair for this one.  Day’s argument: the field avoids talking about the parts that are hard, and students pay for that. Academically rigorous institutions leave the rigor out of the marketing, so students show up unprepared for the reality. Every institution names community as its differentiator, which drains the word of meaning. Getting closer to right means showing instead of telling, then letting the audience decide whether the challenge described is the one they want. 🔑 What You'll Take Away Why "everyone belongs here" flattened institutional differentiation across the field What separates institutions closer to getting brand right from the ones repeating the same claim How to pitch a pilot when there is no data and no support in the room Why Day reversed her position on print and in-school presence The audience question that sits underneath every channel decision Thank you to our founding sponsor. OnDeck Marketing keeps colleges and universities visible where high school decisions actually start—inside the school day. Their North American in-school network puts branded screens in high schools and runs digital channels that maintain consistent presence in feeder markets, so institutions don't go dark on students before they ever start searching. Learn more at ondeckmktg.com.

  3. Jul 14

    Episode 8 - I Came in Like a Wrecking Ball

    Teresa Valerio Parrot is the person higher ed presidents call first. Principal of TVP Communications, CASE Laureate, Crystal Apple winner, PR News industry innovator, and to the leaders she counsels, the "president whisperer" — the one who can get a guarded administrator to say the true thing out loud. In this conversation, Teresa walks Mallory and Volt through what that discipline looks like when it holds and when it slips. The president who wanted to make a public statement about undocumented students, and why 5 private conversations protected those students better than a headline ever would. The call she got wrong: a team that swore no one had talked, a leak she didn't see coming, 2 weeks of her life spent putting the pieces back, and the shadow plan she now builds every time in case the worst arrives early.  It's a conversation about putting the institution ahead of your own reflection in the glass, about honesty that arrives wrapped in optimism, and about a career built by getting out of her own way. 🔑 What You'll Take Away The one question Teresa runs every hard decision through, and the moment a leader's answer tells you it's going sideways Why "go bold" almost never means grab a megaphone How to build the plan that assumes the leak, then execute like it won't happen What sitting this close to presidents for 20+ years teaches you about the job nobody wants anymore Why honesty needs a delivery system, and what a wrecking ball needs seated beside her How to carry other people's weight across a whole career without letting it harden into your identity

  4. Jun 30

    Episode 7 - The Politics of Storytelling in a Polarized Nation

    Jack Martin came to higher education from politics. Before he ran marketing at the University of Washington, before he built one of the most admired storytelling programs in the field, he worked for Governor Kathleen Sebelius. He ran comms for a congressman. He spent the first decade of his career learning how to move audiences who didn't already agree with him. Then he walked into higher ed and noticed something. Nobody was polling. Nobody was testing the words. Nobody was asking what the public actually thought of the institution — they were just telling the institution's story louder and hoping it would land. Universities, Jack realized, are political actors operating in a politicized country, and most of them are flying blind. In this episode of Higher Ed Icons, Jack walks Mallory and Volt through what it looks like to bring a campaign operative's discipline into a major public research university and what the field still doesn't understand about its own audiences. He talks about the immersive storytelling program at UW that set the standard the rest of the field is still chasing. He talks about the Big Ten We Are Here campaign — a $1,500 ad that landed 250 million impressions during football season — and why every conference should be doing the same thing. He talks about the moment President Robert Jones tested the phrase debt-free and watched public perception of a UW degree jump twenty points overnight. And he says the thing nobody else in higher ed will say on tape: the academy is naive about politics, and naivete is costing the field. 🔑 What You'll Take Away Why universities are political actors whether they want to be or not, and what that means for how comms gets built How a $1,500 ad reached 250 million people, and what the Big Ten model means for every other conference The polling discipline that turned one phrase, debt-free, into a 20-point gain in public perception Why the job of a marketing leader is bidirectional, and why the inbound half is where the institution actually changes How to make the case for survey research when the academic side thinks the data should speak for itself What separates institutions still telling their story louder from the ones learning how to test it

  5. Jun 17

    Episode 6 - Why Playing It Safe ... Isn't

    Terry Flannery has been the first person to hold her job three different times. First marketing director at the University of Maryland. First VP of Communication at American University. First-ever EVP and COO at CASE. When the institution offered her the founding marketing role at Maryland with a $48,000 budget, no staff, and a job description that read "coordinate the deans' messages," she turned it down. Then waited for the institution to come back and ask what it would actually take. In this episode of Higher Ed Icons, Terry sits down with Mallory and Volt to walk through the career that shaped how higher ed thinks about marketing. The original argument she made to skeptical faculty using a definition borrowed from a Northwestern academic. The four-step process behind WONK that most institutions skip. The dial-up, dial-down brand architecture that let WONK speak to faculty, alumni, and donors in three different registers without losing the through-line. She also names something most senior marketers won't say out loud — that politics is the job, not a distraction from it. That the fights in higher ed are vicious because the stakes are so low. And that the people who do this work well are the ones who stop pretending the political work is separate from the strategic work. It's a conversation about building the function before the function exists, the discipline that makes bold creative possible, and what thirty-five years of being the first person in the room taught her about saying no until the institution is ready to say yes. 🔑 What You'll Take Away Why the founding move of any marketing leadership role is refusing the underbuilt version of the seat The four-step process behind WONK  How Terry made marketing acceptable to faculty by routing the argument through a source they already respected Why "polarizing" is the wrong frame for distinctive creative and what to aim for instead The dial-up, dial-down architecture that made WONK work across faculty, alumni, and donor audiences What thirty-five years of retail politics inside universities taught Terry about moving institutions

  6. Jun 2

    Episode 5 - The High Cost of Certainty

    Marketers have been sold the wrong order of operations. Permission, then proof, then scale. That's the sequence most of us were trained on. Devin Purgason argues it's exactly why so many marketers are stuck — and the people actually moving on AI, on student experience, on work that matters, are running it the other way. Proof first. Permission after. Scale once the evidence is in the room. From there, the conversation opens up into how that mindset plays out across an entire career. How to choose what to prioritize when the budget is fractional. Why community college marketers should be sitting in graduate enrollment sessions. What agentic AI is actually doing to the role, and why brand awareness gets more important in an agent-mediated world, not less. We also get into the case for collapsing marketing and student care into one function and what happens when the team responsible for the promise is also responsible for whether the promise gets kept.   🔑 What You'll Take Away Why "permission, then proof, then scale" is the wrong order — and what to run instead How to use other people's sessions, budgets, and playbooks as your R&D What agentic AI is actually doing to the higher ed marketing role Why brand awareness becomes more important in a zero-click, agent-mediated world How student care belongs inside the marketing function, not next to it What seminary teaches you about taking complex ideas and making them land

  7. May 19

    Episode 4 - Our Business Model Is F'd

    Ashley Budd saw it before most of the field did. Sitting in admissions at RIT, watching tuition climb and the enrollment cliff inch closer, she made a bet: higher ed was going to have to learn how to fundraise, and the old playbook wasn't going to cut it. She moved to Cornell, joined a brand-new digital innovation team, and got to work. But she didn’t just rewrite the playbook. She changed the game.  In this conversation, Ashley walks Mallory and Volt through the moments that shaped the modern advancement playbook: the Kickstarter-era realization that higher ed's business model was breaking, the first crowdfunding experiments at Cornell, the Black Thursday giving day that raised $7 million the same day the market crashed, and the stubborn, ongoing work of turning Cornell's giving day into a 12-year tradition that still grows while peer institutions plateau. She also takes on the inbox. As co-author of Mailed It, Ashley has spent years arguing that email isn't dead — we just wish it were, because we've made it miserable. She talks about why 85% of higher ed communication is a call to action and why that's a problem. She unpacks the deceptively simple idea that's animated her whole career — alumni have lives, and our job is to insert ourselves into them through games, through kitchen art for new grads, through email people actually want to open. She closes on AI, returning to a trust framework as old as Aristotle to explain where the technology helps and where it will quietly erode the relationships we've spent decades building. It's a conversation about reach versus relationship, the difference between running a playbook and reinventing one, and what it looks like to be the person who keeps moving the whole field forward. 🔑 What You'll Take Away Why higher ed's business model demanded reinvention, and what crowdfunding got right that traditional fundraising missed How Cornell built a giving day that keeps growing while peer institutions plateau What separates institutions running the playbook from the ones still rewriting it Why "email is dead" really means we've made it miserable, and how to make the inbox a place people want to be How to stop confusing reach with relationship in alumni communication Where AI helps, where it erodes trust, and the framework Ashley uses to tell the difference

  8. Apr 21

    Episode 2 - Pulling Threads: Bravery, Curiosity, and the Heart of Creativity

    This episode starts with a simple idea: what happens when you pull more threads? In a space defined by templates, sameness, and risk-averse decision-making, Tracey Halvorsen makes the case for something different — a culture built on curiosity, bravery, and exploration. Not curiosity as a buzzword, but as a discipline. A way of working that leads to better ideas, stronger teams, and more distinctive work. We get into the origin story that explains everything, from turning down lucrative work as an artist to building teams that refuse to follow formulas. From there, the conversation expands into what it actually takes to foster that kind of environment inside higher ed: hiring for curiosity, creating space for experimentation, and resisting the pressure to be everything to everyone. The work improves when teams explore, but most institutions are structured to prevent it. We also dig into how this mindset shows up in practice from internal R&D projects that keep teams sharp to the uncomfortable shift away from “best practices” toward asking better questions. If you want better ideas, you don’t need more process. You need people willing to pull threads and see where they lead. 🔑 What You’ll Take Away Why curiosity is a strategic advantage, not a personality trait How “pulling threads” leads to stronger creative and better outcomes What it actually takes to build a culture that supports exploration Where higher ed’s reliance on formulas is holding teams back How to hire for curiosity and how to spot it in interviews The difference between staying busy and doing meaningful creative work

  9. Apr 7

    Episode 1 - The Fundamentals Are Still The Fundamentals

    There are people in higher ed who see what’s coming. And then there’s Michael Stoner — someone who’s been building for it before the rest of us even had language for it. From the earliest days of the web to social media to mobile, Michael didn’t just follow trends. He anticipated them. And more importantly, he made decisions before they were obvious — often when the cost, the risk, and the skepticism were at their highest. In this first episode of Higher Ed Icons, co-hosts Mallory and Volt sit down with one of the architects of modern higher ed marketing to ask a deceptively simple question: How do you know what’s real — and what’s just hype? Because if you listen closely, this isn’t just a retrospective. It’s a mirror. Michael walks us through the early days of digital in higher ed — when presidents questioned whether websites were worth the investment, when “new media” wasn’t a job title, and when every decision felt like a gamble. And the parallels to today’s AI moment are impossible to ignore. You’ll hear how he approached uncertainty by asking better questions than everyone else in the room. This conversation lands on a tension every higher ed leader is feeling right now: We’re moving faster than ever, but we’re not always thinking more clearly. Michael brings it back to fundamentals — goals, strategy, people, and the discipline to separate signal from noise. Because while the tools change, the work doesn’t. And maybe that’s the real takeaway: The leaders who get the future right aren’t the ones who move the fastest. They’re the ones who stay grounded long enough to see it clearly.   🔑 What You’ll Take Away The hidden cost of chasing tools instead of defining outcomes How skepticism (done right) becomes a strategic advantage What hasn’t changed in 25+ years of digital transformation — and why that matters now The difference between reacting to change and actually preparing for it

  10. Apr 1

    Announcing Higher Ed Icons

    Higher Ed Icons celebrates the pioneers, thought leaders, trendsetters, and change makers in higher education marketing — the people whose decisions transformed it from a campus afterthought into a strategic function.   Co-hosts Voltaire Santos Miran and Mallory Willsea pull back the curtain on the origin of Higher Ed Icons—from a single text message to a full platform built to document the people and moments that shaped modern higher ed marketing. But this isn’t just a launch story. It’s a recognition of something the industry has missed for too long: the insights that built today’s strategies have been scattered across conference decks, hallway conversations, and people’s memories—with no real record. This show is an attempt to fix that. In this kickoff conversation, they unpack: Why higher ed marketing finally earned its seat at the table The moments that changed the trajectory of the industry And why capturing institutional knowledge now matters more than ever They also tease their first guest—someone they both credit with shaping not just their careers, but how they think, lead, and show up. If you’ve been in this work long enough to remember how it used to be—or you’re trying to understand how we got here—this episode sets the stage. Welcome to Higher Ed Icons. Thank you to our founding sponsor. OnDeck Marketing keeps colleges and universities visible where high school decisions actually start—inside the school day. Their North American in-school network puts branded screens in high schools and runs digital channels that maintain consistent presence in feeder markets, so institutions don't go dark on students before they ever start searching. Learn more at ondeckmktg.com.

  • 10 Episodes

5
out of 5
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About

Celebrating the pioneers, thought leaders, trend setters, and change makers in higher education marketing. With your hosts: Voltaire Santos Miran and Mallory Willsea.

Information

  • Creator
    Higher Ed Icons
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Higher Ed Icons

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