Student affairs communications work is having a moment. It’s mission-critical to how students find belonging, support, and their people on campus. Yet across the field, the structures and staffing behind that work haven’t always kept pace with what students and institutions now need.
Duquesne University’s Division of Student Life reached that point. With 125 staff serving more than 8,200 students, the division had never had a dedicated communications position. The need for intentional, coordinated student communication had grown beyond what could simply be absorbed into someone’s existing role.
So they decided to build something new: a dedicated role, a strategy, and the systems to support both. And rather than figuring it out alone, they brought in outside partners to help build that foundation alongside them.
A year later, that investment offers a useful look at what can happen when an institution puts real capacity behind student-facing communications, and what it takes to make that capacity sustainable.
The Starting Point
Dr. Leanna Fenneberg, Senior Vice President of Student Life at Duquesne, recently shared the story behind this work on LinkedIn. Her team partnered with me and my team as they welcomed Kayla Gagnon into the university’s inaugural Manager of Student Life Communications role, and set out to build a more intentional, student-centered communications strategy from the ground up.
One of our first steps was understanding the communications ecosystem Kayla was inheriting. We reviewed a full year of content across Student Life-affiliated social media accounts, along with the division’s webpages, email communications, print materials, and existing practices. What we found wasn’t a lack of communication. There was already a robust digital presence across Student Life. The opportunity was to make it more cohesive, strategic, and centered on what students actually needed.
That work surfaced everything from small, immediate changes to bigger structural questions. Could students easily find departmental accounts in search? Did each social account have a distinct audience and purpose? Were departments competing for attention or reinforcing one another? Did web copy lead with what students needed to know, or with information about the department itself? And what shared guidance could help staff across a division of 125 people communicate with a more unified voice?
Those questions became a roadmap for the work ahead: clearer messaging and brand guidance, stronger coordination across departments, more intentional use of social platforms, regular review of content and performance, and tools that would help staff across Student Life put the strategy into practice.
As Leanna described it, the value of the partnership went well beyond communications know-how:
“Working alongside Josie Ahlquist and Danielle Sewell brought far more than communications expertise. They asked thoughtful questions, shared proven resources, helped us establish sustainable systems, and served as trusted thought partners as we built something entirely new.”
That’s a different kind of value than most people expect from a consulting engagement. It’s not “hand it off and get it back.” It’s “build alongside us so we can keep going without you.”
This work resonated outside of Duquesne’s campus, too. Leanna and I had the opportunity to co-present the story as a case study, “From Scratch to Strategy,” at the NASPA Annual Conference, sharing the framework with student affairs leaders nationally.
Start With What Students Actually Want
Before building anything, the Duquesne Student Life team asked students directly. They surveyed them on how they want to hear from Student Life, what they want to hear about, and when.
With 270 students responding, the answers were clarifying:
- Campus events were far and away what students most wanted to hear about. This outpaced safety alerts, university news, and student services by a wide margin.
- Weekly was the clear preferred cadence. Not daily. Not monthly.
- Photos were the most engaging visual element, followed by infographics. Video actually ranked lower than static imagery, which was a useful check on the assumption that everything must be a reel.
- And when asked about tone, 81% chose “friendly.” Only 15% chose “formal.”
None of that is shocking once you see it. But it’s the difference between a strategy built on assumptions and one built on evidence. It’s also why the year’s first priorities landed where they did: strengthening the weekly Bluff Blast events newsletter, launching the new every-other-week Dear Dukes newsletter, building a visual-first Instagram presence, and developing marketing around the division’s Life on the Bluff programming series.
That’s the quiet discipline underneath this whole story: ask first, then create.
What the Partnership Accomplished
1. Staff support that built real capacity, not just deliverables.
- Biweekly coaching for the new Manager of Student Life Communications.
- Executive coaching for the Senior Vice President for Student Life.
- Advising through new initiatives, from initial meetings with department heads and communicators, to launching a monthly Lunch & Learn series for communications champions across the division, to hiring a student intern for support.
2. Tools built to outlast the engagement.
A Student Life Messaging Framework, grounded in the division’s four Pillars of Success (Engage, Belong, Learn, Thrive) and giving the whole division a shared source of truth.
A Messaging Toolkit of ready-to-use headlines, calls-to-action, and sample language written specifically for Student Life audiences.
A centralized content calendar system that lets every department’s social media manager see the full division’s plans in one place.
A centralized Data & Insights Dashboard to guide ongoing decisions.
And real, measurable movement. Over the course of the year:
- Launched Dear Dukes, the division’s student newsletter, achieving a 35% open rate
- Developed strategic marketing for Life on the Bluff, the division’s flagship programming series
- Grew the Duquesne Student Life Instagram community, now home to more than 1,600 followers and 25,000+ engagements since it was started in January 2026
- Completed a communications scorecard to benchmark Student Life’s web and social media presence, giving content owners concrete feedback on what was working, where improvements were needed, and how each channel could better serve its audience
- Launched, alongside institutional Marketing & Communications, a Student Life brand extension that stayed true to university standards while feeling more student-facing
Why It Worked
As Leanna will tell you: none of these outcomes happened because of one person. They happened because talented people brought different expertise to the table, challenged one another, offered ideas and feedback, and stayed focused on a shared vision.
That kind of partnership isn’t always comfortable. It asks a team to be honest about what isn’t working, to let someone from outside ask the questions that are easy to avoid internally, and to build something in-house staff will eventually run without training wheels. That’s harder than it sounds, but it sets a strong foundation for success.
Part of what made this initiative sustainable was the intent behind it from the start. The goal was never to outsource Student Life’s voice. It was to build a system the division could run on its own, well beyond the engagement with our team. It was to build a defined role, repeatable workflows, and a working relationship with the university’s central marketing and communications team baked in from day one.
That’s the difference between a partnership that produces a few good posts and one that leaves a division more capable than it was before.
“My coaching experience gave me the confidence to build a communications department and strategic plan from the ground up. Josie and Danielle provided excellent feedback and insights and suggestions for improvement. They provided valuable tools to make communications more effective, but also more human.”
– Kayla Gagnon, Student Life Communications Manager (Duquesne University)
Where the Work Goes From Here
A year of work built the foundation, but this isn’t a finished project, and that’s by design.
The next phase is widening the lens. The team is taking a closer look at how communication carries across the student journey, from acceptance through matriculation, and where greater continuity can create a more seamless experience.
That includes a refreshed approach to web copywriting that puts the student experience at the center of every page, closer alignment on parent and family communication, and a more comprehensive content calendar and strategy connecting messages across students, families, faculty, and staff..
That’s the real marker of a meaningful partnership. It doesn’t end when the first wins land; it evolves alongside the team it helped build.
The Takeaway for Other Institutions
Leanna’s reflection on the year lands on a simple point:
“Leadership isn’t about having every answer. Sometimes it’s about knowing who to invite into the conversation.”
For institutions facing a similar moment — a new role to build, a communications strategy that needs sharper focus, a desire for systems that outlast any one hire — this is what that kind of partnership can look like in practice. Not a vendor relationship, but a thought partnership that builds capacity your team keeps after the consultants leave.
And a year in, it’s worth marking the milestone alongside the metrics: happy one-year work anniversary to Kayla Gagnon, whose first year building this role from scratch made all of it possible!
Interested in what a strategic communications partnership could look like for your institution? Let’s connect to talk about how we work with higher ed teams to build sustainable systems, train staff, and strengthen student-facing strategy.
