13. Positive PR and crisis comms with Emma Leech

In this episode we’re joined by Ed Fidoe, Chief Executive at the London Interdisciplinary School. LIS a brand-new university with its own degree awarding powers. It’s launching in September 2021 and has attracted academics from prestigious universities including Oxford, Harvard, UCL and LSE. They have developed the UK's first interdisciplinary degree. Focusing on interdisciplinary problems and methods, rather than specialising in one subject. Ed talks about their focus on extraordinary teaching, teaching design, their alternative admissions process and how they planned a brand new university.

In this episode of disrupting the degree, we’re joined by Angela Sexton, Head of Marketing Innovation and Development at the University of London and former Head of Marketing and Communications for the British Council. We discuss the University of London's non-traditional approach to higher education, marketing non-campus-based provision, international recruitment and big tech in HE.

Emma Leech, Director of Marketing and Communications at Nottingham Trent University, former President and current Vice-President of CIPR joins us for this episode of Disrupting The Degree. We discuss the importance of positive PR for brand, managing crisis communication effectively and how she's created high performing marketing and communication teams.

We're joined by Collette Lux, Executive Director of Communications and Marketing at UCL (University College London). We discuss the importance of branding for universities, the process she uses for defining a brand and the inspiration she takes from outside of the education sector. We talk about her career in brand marketing, from Unilever to the BBC and then to higher education.

Designing accredited degrees for the jobs of the future. This episode explores the brilliant strategic vision of Dr Abdullatif AlShamsi, President & CEO of Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE. We discuss the future of higher education, using AI to personalise degree programmes and universities switching to a life long learning model. HCT is the UAE's largest applied higher education institution, with over 23,000 students attending 16 modern technology oriented campuses.

Manchester University’s Covid fence protest, overpriced food parcels for student’s self-isolating and using influencers to promote institutions they didn’t attend. In our tenth episode, we discuss some of the issues the media has picked up in UK higher education and how they could have been avoided. We discuss the importance of communication, empathy and authenticity in marketing.

Affordable, accelerated learning and connecting graduates with employers - why Facebook have moved into professional education. This week we’re joined by Facebook’s Nicole Goldstein. We talk about the new Facebook Social Media Marketing course, why they felt there was a skills gap that universities weren’t satisfying and how they’re connecting graduates of their course with employers. Nicole leads Facebook’s growth strategy, customer acquisition and retention. She shares the learnings from developing this innovative online professional certificate and the importance of affordable, accelerated learning. We were particularly interested in how they created simulated online environments with Coursera, to teach their students how to run social advertising campaigns.

This week we discuss the difference between digital transformation and digitalisation in higher education, the opportunities disruptive technology presents, and we unpick AI. To do this we’re joined by Cameron Mirza, an expert in international education reform within the UK and Middle East.

This week we’re joined by Martyn Edwards, Director of Marketing & Advancement at Loughborough University. We discuss the importance of diversity and empowerment in a high performing marketing team. We also go in-depth on brand, data, differentiation and marketing strategy for higher education.

How to plan for 2020! In this episode we’re joined by Rebecca Lever, Associate Director of Marketing and UK Student Recruitment at Swansea University. She talks about their planning process, the fire on campus, virtual events, Covid and Clearing 2020.