My favorite article of clothing is a ten-year old red sweatshirt with the name of my alma mater emblazoned on the front. It is incredibly comfortable, but most importantly, it is a conversation starter. I have had fabulous conversations with fellow alums, alums of our rival institutions, students and parents thinking about college, and a host of others. 

I am not alone in publicly advertising a deep connection to my university. In 2022, the revenue for collegiate-licensed apparel industry exceeded $4.6 billion dollars. That is a whole lot of t-shirts, mugs, koozies, onesies, and stuffed mascots.  Our willingness to spend so much money on “merch” is a significant piece of evidence that our love for our institutions of higher education runs deep and wide.

When I rep my alma mater’s brand, it is because I am proud to be associated with what that brand stands for. This pride is an important element in the ongoing work of “friend-raising” in higher education. My alumni pride translates into recruiting, advocacy, and fundraising gains for my institution.

A university’s brand has two component parts:  image and identity. The “image” is what audiences on the outside understand about the organization. Image is influenced by media coverage and advertising campaigns and can change over time. Institutions may see their image wax and wane with successes or failures, but, unless the failure is a catastrophic one, changes are not perceived as existential threats to the institution.

“Identity” is what people closely connected with the university see as its fundamental character. Identity is understood through lived experience and remains relatively unchanged over time. Faculty, staff, students and alums often see a university’s identity as a core part of their own personal identity. Threats to identity are perceived as existential threats to the institution.

Colleges and universities who are considering a significant change in their mission, a wide-ranging partnership or a full-on merger, or even a name or mascot change, are likely to face the fear that an organizational change will undermine or eliminate an identity that is valued by their constituents. If those fears are not managed proactively, they can derail a strategic decision that is in the best interest of all parties. 

Any evaluation of potential partners must include a thoughtful assessment of a partner’s image and identity. It is essential that the images and identities of the respective institutions be brought together in exciting ways that speak to legacy constituencies. Your strategy should include answering the following key questions:

Universities that navigate a change in identity well invest time with their constituents.  In leading the name change at Augusta University, we prioritized engagement of faculty, staff, alumni and students at every stage of the process.  We spent a lot of time uncovering the shared parts of our legacy institutions’ identities and what connected our people to those places.  Those shared values, traditions, images, etc. formed the basis of the new brand. The time spent with our constituents enabled us to roll out a new brand that felt familiar. The new brand was embraced and has served the consolidated institution well.

To learn more about SPH Consulting Group and how we can help your organization, contact office@sphconsultinggroup.com.

Writer: Karla Leeper, Senior Consultant, SPH Consulting Group

© SPH Consulting Group 2024

Student-athletes are often a microcosm of the overall student body of an institution. The student-athletes of an institution are students just like all others there to get an education, but they also represent the institution in most public arenas and are often at the forefront of the institution. But when an institution is merging with another or even closing, many of the student-athletes are treated the same as every other student, even though they have additional needs that must be considered.

When an institution decides to close, they should create teach-out plans either at the same institution or with another institution to make sure their students have a home to finish their degree without any delays. While this is important to student-athletes as well, a student-athlete must consider more than just the completion of their degree but also the completion of their playing career, if they so choose. Student-athletes choose an institution for reasons of academics but also because of the coach or coaches who recruited them, the teammates they knew already were on the team, and a myriad of other reasons not completely related to the academic program in which they are enrolled.

When an institution is closing, the student-athlete cannot necessarily just go to another school and join a team but must find the right fit for the person and position they occupy on the team. A baseball or softball player who plays catcher cannot just choose any new institution and team but has to consider their remaining eligibility as well as opportunities for playing time at the new institution. If the team has a better catcher, the player has to decide to try to earn playing time or find a different opportunity. All of this takes time. More time than simply transferring to a new academic program, which is why when closures are abrupt and immediate, the student-athlete suffers the most.

When considering mergers, there are differences in the considerations of the general student body and the student-athlete population. Reducing two bursar’s offices or business schools into one is different from the same consideration for athletic departments. With a single institution, one bursar’s office or one school of business is all that is needed and can handle as many students as needed. If more than one athletic department exists within merging institutions, a decision must be made whether to maintain or reduce the number. Unlike the school of business’s ability to handle as many students as there are faculty and classroom spots, each athletic department has a limited number of roster spots per team as well as a limited number of teams. If the decision is to keep all departments, then people continue on with business as usual. If the decision is to eliminate a department or even a team, then the same considerations exist for student-athletes as in a closure, as the number of roster spots are reduced.

Overall, mergers and closures in higher education are occurring more frequently. Each transaction must consider the impact on students. Student-athletes should not be overlooked in the process and should be given the best opportunity to be successful, not just in academics, but in their playing career as well.

To learn more about SPH Consulting Group and how we can help your organization, contact office@sphconsultinggroup.com.

Writer: James Hagler, Consultant, SPH Consulting Group.

© SPH Consulting Group 2024

When higher education institutions merge (consolidate) to create a new institution, most academic and other departments are combined to reduce duplication of positions and services. This helps reduce the number of administrative positions and creates economies of scale which helps reduce operating costs. But what becomes of athletic departments in a merger?

There are generally three options for athletics when multiple higher education institutions consolidate into a single institution. The easiest to manage can be seen in the consolidation Middle Georgia College and Macon State College that resulted in what is today Middle Georgia State University, in which only one of the institution had athletics department. In this case, the single athletic department is continued.

The second option was seen in the consolidation of Georgia Southern University, which was a member of NCAA Division I, with Armstrong State University, which was a member of NCAA Division II. In this case, the choice was to discontinue Armstrong’s athletics (in what ended up being the Savannah campus of Georgia Southern University) and the Division I program was continued on the Statesboro (main) campus of Georgia Southern University. In this case, the decision appears to have been based on which division the merged school chose to continue and invest in. But even in the example provided, a number of questions remain. What happens with students interested in athletics who are on the Savannah campus of the merged entity? In the Georgia Southern University example, one institution was dissolved while the other remained in operation. But what happens if two institutions have operating athletic programs and both institutions are dissolved in favor of a new consolidated institution? These are complex questions that require careful analysis and lead to the third possibility.

A third option that may be considered when each of the merging institutions have an existing athletic program, is to keep both athletic departments open and run as separate departments on different campuses. Whether the departments are in the same association (NCAA, NAIA, etc.) or not, maintaining two athletic departments is an option that often needs to be considered. The mergers in the University System of Pennsylvania are an example in which six different institutions were merged into two (three in each case) yet each retained a separate athletic department on each campus, and compete against each other.

Maintaining separate athletic departments can become a necessity for enrollment. Mergers are designed to help the school become stronger and losing a percentage of student-athletes due to combining athletic departments can have a negative impact. At smaller, private institutions, student-athlete enrollment can comprise as much as 60%, if not more, of the overall student-body and adding new athletic teams or club sports for increasing enrollment. If two institutions are merged in order to increase the sustainability of both, losing any portion of the student population due to the loss of an athletic program needs to be balanced against overall costs of that program, financially and politically.

Considering which program to continue and which to discontinue will depend on many factors including the extent to which enrollment, branding, and fundraising depend on athletics, the costs of the program, Title IX and equity considerations, future potential, athletic association, conference, and much more. Determining how to manage these questions is a key component in the process of merging institutions of higher education.

To learn more about SPH Consulting Group and how we can help your organization, contact office@sphconsultinggroup.com.

Writer: James Hagler, Consultant, SPH Consulting Group.

© SPH Consulting Group 2023