The College of DuPage has hired a consultant at the cost of $290,000 in an effort to create a "brand" for the school that will improve its public reputation and allow it to transcend the stigma of "community-college" status, the Daily Herald reports.
According to the paper, Ohio branding and marketing firm Ologie already is interviewing students and others affiliated with the college to lay the groundwork for the rebranding. The college hopes to move away from its highly public battles with the Village of Glen Ellyn and its own faculty, and focus on the school's transformation over the past few years, including a $500 million renovation.
"I know it is a community college even though we don't have 'community' in the name," COD President Robert Breuder told the paper. "But I'd like it to have hybrid status ... I can't see why we can't be spoken of in the same breath as the University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University without intimating that we are something less than.
"We don't want to run with the pack. We want to run at the head of the pack."
*** "Officials say an expected increase in the property tax levy of $1.4 million...."**** https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130220/news/702209590/
Spent thousands of tax dollars for social media and logos and graphics. I am waiting for the Board to require staff to produce the return Lisle taxpayers got for all that "branding" investment!
To that extent, trying to market COD and its strengths, so that it better competes with students looking at other community colleges in Chicagoland makes sense. There are probably increasing numbers of students who have the brains to get into well-regarded 4-year colleges, but may lack the financial resources to attend all four years. But, I don't see how COD can create a brand. College brands develop because of academic reputations, whether it's an elite private school like Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, Chicago, Duke, or Stanford, or an elite public school like Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Cal, or UCLA. Illinois has developed its brand within the past 30 years or so, as the price of private schools has skyrocketed, and more elite Illinois residents have chosen U of I. Harvard has been working on its brand for nearly 400 years. Probably, the money would be better spent on recruiting and developing data as to where COD students go to obtain their bachelor's and graduate degrees.