A Tale of Two Universities

How many us hear or see the fantastic amounts of money one can win in some of those multi-state lotteries such as Powerball or Mega-Millions and fantasize - at least for a few moments - of how great it would be to have the winning ticket and take home all that money? How could we not? I bet most people even play out in their heads what they would do with the money if they were to win. Of course, going from a life of living from paycheck to paycheck to suddenly no longer having a financial care in the world would be a positive turn in anyone's life. But as good as becoming financially-independent might be, it would still carry with it its share of stress and challenge. In other words, even good things can be stressful. Good things, not just bad, can be viewed as a crisis.

This observation is the focus of what I hope to turn into an interesting dissertation. By way of illustration, I am going to conduct an extensive analysis of what were arguably two of the most widely covered incidents in American higher education in the past decade: George Mason University's amazing 2006 run to the NCAA Final Four and, one year later, the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech. The two occurrences brought unprecedented attention to each institution. One was a time of great celebration and triumph while the other was gut-wrenching and tragic. Both, coincidentally, happened in Virginia. Both provided each institution with unique communication challenges in terms of striving to manage events and messages.

As I am at the very beginning of researching this topic, it is far too early to speculate on how well each institution, from a communication standpoint, performed under such broad and intense public scrutiny and overwhelming pressure. But my sense is it is going to be interesting to find out. I am also guessing George Mason and Virginia Tech faced many of the same communication challenges despite the fact one was contending with something very positive and the other with something very negative. Did each institution have a communication plan? How well did they stick to their plans? How similar were the publics and stakeholders with which each institution contended? What were the specific communication strategies of each institution? These are just a few questions I wish to explore. A tale of two universities. Opposite ends of the coin, yet similar challenges.