MANSFIELD, PA— The Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) annual Summer Institute, held at the University of North Carolina Asheville on June 11-13, brought together communications and marketing professionals from member institutions across the U.S. and Canada.
Mansfield was accepted into COPLAC as Pennsylvania’s flagship public liberal arts university in January 2015. MU was represented at the Institute by John Maslar, Department of Marketing’s Web and Digital Marketing manager.
“The focus of the Summer Institute was to share ideas and develop a marketing and communications plan to advance the public liberal arts experience as a known and valued sector in higher education,” Maslar said.
“This year’s gathering exemplified the purpose of the Summer Institute: colleagues came together to share and learn from each other, and to collectively further the mission of the organization,” Claire Bailey, Program Associate at COPLAC added. “The focus was on what our members – despite differences in geography, structure, or history – have in common and how together they can advocate for the value of a public liberal arts education.”
Over the three day meeting the participants formed a steering committee, and developed recommendations that will be presented to the COPLAC member presidents and chancellors Annual Meeting hosted at Eastern Connecticut University on June 25-27.
“Over the next year and beyond, our steering committee will begin to implement our recommendations to reach the goal we have set,” Maslar said. “A big part of the plan will be using social and digital media to advance our message. This dovetails nicely with our own plans and goals at Mansfield. The educational experience we provide at Mansfield prepares our graduates for career changes and for the jobs that will exist in the future. We prepare our students to be ready for what’s next, and that is the message we will deliver.”
COPLAC is comprised of 29 public liberal arts colleges and universities from 27 states and one Canadian province. For more information on COPLAC, go to coplac.org