By Alex Piazza
Meet the Team:
Steve Averett- The joint content manager; mostly works on magazine, weekly newsletters and WA blog.
Kyana Johnson- Works on social media, photo archive, video editing and design elements.
Amy Morris- Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications. “I also oversee all of [WA’s] communication efforts, in charge of the calendar, overview of what’s going on academy-wide… strategic priorities and planning with admissions.”
Marla Goncalves- Handles fundraising communications for Marcom. “I also write for the magazine, blog, website, and any other things that are needed.”
Nija Meyer- Vice President for Enrollment Management at Woodward Academy. Handles admissions, financial aid, marketing communications. “I consider myself a dot connector with all the strategic initiatives throughout the academy, and making sure that marketing-communications supports those adequately.”
What Is Marcom?
Nija Meyer: “One thing about marketing communications is the thread that continues through from the very first point of contact when a family wants to learn about our school, and it captures their interest, and it helps draw them in marketing communications to continue with giving those families the collateral, the material that they need.”
What Are the Differences between the Different Positions in Marcom? Is There a Lot of Collaboration?
Steve Averett: “I feel like there’s a lot of [responsibilities] where we’re all in the room together, kind of collaborating, but specific tasks, I think, are more narrowly defined. But, you know, for instance, when we’re on a website or a magazine issue or something like that, we often all startup and run together and look at those ideas, and then things can be signed out, and people drill down to the specific things that they’re doing.”
Amy Morris: “Yeah, I think we have a lot of overlap intentionally too, so that we can back one another up when, you know, someone might be out of the office. So there’s some backup there, which works out well. But a lot of, you know, I think everyone has sort of specialized skills that we collaborate together on most things that we’re doing from the top level.”
How Has the Day-To-Day Changed Given That This Year Is WA’s Quasquicentennial Anniversary?
Nija Meyer: “We actually started last year planning for this. So throughout last school year, we were attending meetings, and I mainly worked on that because advancement was over the planning for our celebration. So there were, like, meetings throughout the whole school year. [It] Was like a big committee with representatives from all over campus, and then we had a smaller, kind of task force group committee that met to implement things. So, like all the website, and the web page plans for events that are going to be taking place, all of the branding that you see on the banners around campus, the lead time on that is really long. So we started that last fall, working with advancement and working with a designer who has worked on our overall school branding. So that was really a year’s effort ahead, and now we’re continuing to implement the branding and communicate about events and, you know, build enthusiasm.”
Amy Morris: “We’re also producing a history book, a big, beautiful coffee table history book. Marla’s run point on that with our advancement colleagues, but it’ll be basically from 1900, our founding as GMA, until the complete Woodward history, up until present day. So that’ll be a really beautiful thing to have, sort of in celebration of our 125th year.”
How Does WA Stay Politically Neutral?
Nija Meyer: “As an academy, our stance– or our hope, I should say, because nobody is perfect, is not that students stay neutral, because we want [students] to have [their] voice and we want you to have your opinion, but it shouldn’t be driven by what somebody in an authority position has to say, not the matter. Our students need to have that interchange of ideas and have different stances.”
What Is Your Favorite Thing about Your Job?
Amy Morris: “No two days are ever really the same, which is what I love about doing this work, because it’s always changing, like you’re never you never get bored, and a lot of times it can be something totally random that, like we didn’t anticipate we would be working on, or I would be working on that day, but it keeps everything exciting and fun. Working around this house, we refer to our offices as our rooms, like it is our home.”
What’s It Like Working Together in One Big House?
Marla Goncalves: “There’s no door slamming going on.”
Steve Averett: “It feels very familial, and we are one team. I will say we have… conflict, possibly with other parts of campus, but I think in that situation, what happens is you try to build up communication.”
Nija Meyer: “Find a grown up solution, and when you find the solution, it is really important that nobody shows that they were in favor of that. Like, once you’ve reached this is what we’ve decided to do, then all of us need to support it publicly.”
