Comment Sought on StudyPortals Proposal

Sent on behalf of Charles Bankart, Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to solicit your feedback on a new international recruitment marketing initiative that we are considering at KU. StudyPortals is an online college search engine that helps students across the globe learn about their higher education options and begin identifying institutions that would be a strong fit for them.  

We would like to engage StudyPortals to help the University of Kansas further develop, refine, and operationalize our digital recruitment efforts abroad with prospective international students. This would be a direct recruitment effort for the university, enabling us to enhance awareness of KU abroad and providing us with an opportunity to engage prospective students in highly tailored ways based on their interests and qualifications.

By investing in the development of online tools that help get KU in front of students, our on-campus team would be in a much better position to engage with students, follow up with them as they consider KU and move through the application process, and to share more about our community through building connections with our faculty and currently enrolled students. StudyPortals helps KU develop its online presence directly and at no costs to the students or their families. We cannot travel the world and maintain a physical presence in every country, but we can approximate that presence virtually and build some momentum at a time of great need and increased competition for mobile international students.

I have attached a brief summary of what we are considering for your review and comment. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. You may also want to explore the StudyPortals site for students. The attached summary provides a succinct version of the contract and highlights the key features of this marketing tool. If you would like more detail, please contact me and we can set up a time to review the contract together. Based on the feedback we receive, we will make a decision on this contract by mid-March to enable us to have a site up and running for the next recruitment cycle (spring 2020). To that end, please submit feedback or concerns to me (cbankart@ku.edu) by Wednesday, February 27.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter. I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm Regards,

Charles A. S. Bankart, Ph.D.
Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs
Courtesy Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies
University of Kansas
1450 Jayhawk Boulevard, Strong Hall 300
Lawrence, Kansas 66045
Tel: 785-864-6161 Fax: 785-864-4555