The Orfalea College of Business (OCOB) is seeking to hire the public relations firm Dan Klores Communications (DKC) to help build its reputation. The business school will join a client list that includes Ashlee Simpson, Microsoft and J. Crew.
“The reality is that most of our students’ jobs they are gonna get, or the jobs they are gonna be seeking are going to be beyond 200 miles from here, and when you start to get beyond 200 miles from here, you start to get into either Southern California or Northern California,” Brian Tietje associate dean of the college said. “First thing is, they are not aware of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.”
OCOB dean Dave Christy said he chose DKC because of its work with other higher education universities.
“There are a lot of PR firms that have a certain scope of work, you want to make sure they understand your industry, and they’ve done work with a number of higher education institutions and I’ve been able to see the results of that work, and it’s pretty impressive,” Christy said.
Tietje said he hopes that this PR firm will bring the big companies to Cal Poly to scout for applicants.
“This lack of awareness is a problem for our students, because they want these big companies and profitable companies and successful companies from Southern California, Silicon Valley and the Bay Area to come here to recruit our students and hire them and give them opportunities with internships,” Tietje said.
The firm will get the college in the media and hopefully will make it more recognizable, Christy said.
“We want to get people’s attention and make sure they are aware of our programs, what they offer, why they are good and why they should want to hire the students that graduate from the Orfalea College of Business,” Christy said.
Both Christy and Tietje said they hope to have professors from the college published in media outlets as a way to further its image.
Economics professor Eric Fisher questions the hiring of a PR firm to gain a better reputation. He said he feels that a better reputation can be accomplished without the help of a PR firm, and if the college was worthy of a reputation it would have one without the help of a firm.
“You don’t go for a PR firm, you go for the reality of a good business school,” he said. “Public relations is not a substitute for a really strong program with strengths in undergraduate instruction and for strengths in graduate instruction.”
The decision to hire a PR firm may not be completely agreed upon throughout the college, but all will agree that the money to pay for the firm is not coming from state funding, Christy said.
“We are not using any state funding for this. This is all proceeds from the Orfalea endowment. We would not use State of California instructional money or student money for this,” the dean said. “It is all gift money or discretionary money.”
Those in charge of the Orfalea endowment agree with the use of the money for a PR firm and are excited about the possible positive effects, Christy said.
“I have met with the Orfalea endowment leadership and they are very excited about us doing this,” Christy said. “It is good to be in sync with the foundation that provides the money.”
Christy said the OCOB would benefit from a PR firm because it is not as prominent as the three big colleges at Cal Poly.
“When most people think about Cal Poly, they think about agriculture, engineering or architecture,” he said.
Christy and Tietje decided against using Cal Poly’s student-run PR firm because they wanted to reach outside of the San Luis Obispo area.
“We want one that has the ability and the connections already with the media across the state and across the country, so we need a PR firm that has the connections, the scale and the scope of what we need,” Tietje said.
In order to get out-of-state students interested in the college, Christy and Tietje said they feel that they need a PR firm to get the college’s name to these different states.
“This isn’t just a regional PR campaign; this is a statewide PR campaign, and now that we are actively recruiting out-of-state students, this is also a national campaign. We need students in Washington and Oregon and Idaho and so on to know about our school as well,” Tietje said.
If DKC is contracted, the college will be looked at as an example for the entire university. If the PR firm has positive effects, Cal Poly may want to look into hiring one for its other colleges, Christy said.
“The Orfalea College of Business is a great test case for Cal Poly, because Cal Poly already has really high name recognition in other disciplines, so it’s harder to show the impact of public relations for them, but I think that in business, liberal arts or sciences, the opportunity is there to enhance the reputation of that school and the whole university and see the impact,” Christy said.