New SEMO marketing approach

An article in the March 24 Southeast Missourian details how a marketing and communications study must be done to better reach prospective students and the folks that steer them toward Southeast Missouri State University. In this article, it is stated that there is not enough staff and that the staff they do have don't have enough expertise to conduct these surveys. That seems rather insulting to the professors at SEMO who teach marketing research or communications and the students who are enrolled in these classes. Were they even asked?

It seems unfathomable that this can't be done as a class project, with graduate students taking the lead in coordinating the gathering, analyzing and disseminating of the information. Is the payoff of this effort enough to warrant the cost difference between an in-house study and hiring a firm for what is sure to cost into the six figures? I have confidence in the personnel and graduate students, as well as those undergraduate students attending the research classes to use this issue as a class project and get as good, or perhaps better results than a hired firm. After all, these students were the target audience for the hoped upon results just a short time ago. Of course it is my belief that the best measure of a university is how well it can control the cost of attending it by using the available resources for research, development, inventions and services to offset tuition and taxpayer contributions.

DANIEL BUCKENMYER, Jackson