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Week in Review

Ali Lincoln

It’s late on a Friday afternoon, and your productivity is probably waning. But instead of finding ways to pretend that you’re doing work, get caught up on the week’s happenings with the TVP Comms team!
What’s new this week:
NASPA president Kevin Kruger made an audio appearance at This Week @ Inside Higher Ed to discuss the findings of this year’s freshmen survey.
Drake University had a big week! The school celebrated a fundraising milestone of $200 million; the campaign will continue until June 30, 2015. Drake was included in a NYT.com slideshow of college traditions. And finally, congrats to our colleague Niki Smith, who was selected as a 2015 SimpsonScarborough Scholar!
What we’ve been talking about:
Our very own Erin Hennessy offered her expertise in PR Week around the communication challenges faced by college and university administration when handling sexual assault cases.
Snoop Dogg made some excellent parenting moves with his son’s college choice and Teresa Valerio Parrot weighed in on the blog with lessons to be learned from his classy example.
 What we’ve been reading:
 Kristine Maloney
This is a great reminder of how to respond to factual errors in media stories, in a way that’s respectful of journalists and will help keep relationships in tact. Our first instincts (and the instincts of those closest to the story being told) often lead to reactions that end up doing more harm than good. As the mother of a four-year-old, this article truly blew my mind. I’m all for being prepared, but the pressures this approach exerts on the entire family seem unnecessary at such a young age. Seems each year the college search process creeps a little more toward infancy. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to this story from earlier in the week in which economists give some compelling reasons why millennials might want to consider skipping the four-year degree.
 Erin Hennessy
Beyond higher ed, the other thing I’m obsessed with is restaurants and the people who run them. This piece, about the restaurant Grace in Chicago, is the inspiration for a film (For Grace) that will premiere at SXSW later this year. I also read this piece, recommended by two friends including Teresa, about how introverts are the best networkers on Twitter. I don’t know how good I am at networking on Twitter, but I know I’m a classic introvert.
Teresa Valerio Parrot
This piece was just so well done—it drew me in and I’ve emailed, tweeted and texted it to people in my network in the last week. It’s a fascinating read. And, the Parrot family binge listened (is that a phrase?) to Serial over the past week and dissected the story over the dinner table for many nights. Our final conclusion—we have no idea what happened but we each have our own theory. And just in case you are worried about me and my family, this was also a favorite.
Ali Lincoln
Maybe it’s all the snow we’ve been getting that’s keeping me down, but I had a lot of bleak reading this week. I read this piece on poverty destroying families, an article from IHE indicating a sad state for incoming students’ mental well being, and just to add insult to injury, apparently I’m not as smart as I think. Bummer.
Kyle Gunnels
One of my favorite things this week has been the lesson Robert Mugabe has taught about not being able to hide things from the Internet. I also found this article interesting—an analysis of education hubs from around the world to see what makes them work and whether or not they’re sustainable. And finally, did you know that more that 50 percent of the world’s population knows and uses more than one language regularly? This is a great piece from The British Council about the process of learning multiple languages.
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