By John Ciampa
Students in Gail Bambrick’s Social Marketing class pitch proposals and gain feedback from fellow classmates.
It’s rare that a college course thrusts students directly into the worlds they are learning about. More commonly, classroom-based learning is a passive experience that resides outside the real world: you absorb information, analyze and contextualize it, use it as a basis for research, and then present your findings.
But what Gail Bambrick, a senior marketing communications writer at Tufts who also teaches, discovered long ago in her classes that often intermingle theory and practice, is that the best kind of learning is often found beyond academic buildings, in environments outside the ivory tower that demand students apply their knowledge in practical and tangible ways.
Among Bambrick’s courses is a “Social Marketing” class she teaches each spring. In the past, the class focused on having students develop marketing and communications strategies for local organizations as a means toward improving their scope and outreach—a model largely based in theory and conception that remains. But this past spring, Bambrick elected to take that concept a step further—the course would
no longer exist as a purely theoretical one, but would instead move beyond the development stage and into the realm of implementation, with students pounding the pavement to seek out and work directly with local non-profits beyond the safe confines of campus.
Together with colleagues Steve Atlas, a seasoned public television producer, and Jesse Littlewood, a project manager for the digital campaign firm EchoDitto, Bambrick established a syllabus centered on the notion of combining research and application. Together the three discovered that having students learn successful marketing concepts while assisting small and often-underfunded local enterprises made for a win-win situation, all the while dovetailing the interests of Tufts and its promotion of “active citizenship” with the surrounding community. Bambrick, Atlas, and Littlewood also worked with Shirley Mark, director of the Lincoln Filene Center for Community Partnerships at the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, to identify several local non-profit organizations in the Medford and
Somerville area in need of help with their communications and media outreach.
The course was structured around dividing the class into small groups assigned to different organizations of their choosing. During the semester, each group had to meet with members from its organization at least three times to slowly build a rapport with each group, all the while introducing them to marketing ideas and techniques that could potentially propel the organizations toward realizing their goals.
Lea Ruscio, the interim executive director at the Center for Arts at the Armory, located on Highland Avenue in Somerville, said that her organization’s biggest challenge is publicity and outreach, something that Bambrick’s students were able to buoy by augmenting the center’s social media presence through a targeted campaign strategy based on their research about the center’s work and those who utilize it.
“We received a marketing and social media strategy from the students and also a series of recommendations for moving forward,” she said. “What’s most helpful is that they not only provided ideas, but also outlooks and expectations based on their research—they’re not just saying that we need a membership program, they’re also outlining for us how that would look and who our targeted audience might be.”
“It was a challenging, learning-type process,” said Jane Lee (A14), one of the students who worked directly with Ruscio. “We really had to get to know the organization and its culture before we could make appropriate recommendations.”
Bambrick credits Atlas with putting forth the idea of working with non-profits and getting students to consider their applications outside the classroom. She also admits that prior to his involvement, the scope of the class was much broader in its scope and therefore more nondescript, in that students could simply conceptualize freely because they wouldn’t necessarily be employing their ideas. It was, in a sense, more hypothetical, but also less real.
“This class was different because we had real organizations,” she said. “It became a way for students to actually learn about how to work with clients— a skill they’ll need after graduation.”
The class also brought in guest speakers to fortify what it would take to work successfully with those clients, providing an outline of real-world needs and demands while also feeding students with the insights about how they could pinpoint marketing strategies based on their own knowledge of communication and marketing theory.
Social marketing in action
Former Bruin Tom Songin signs an autograph for a young fan.
One of the student groups joined forces with the Medford Boys and Girls Club to enhance the organization’s scope and outreach. After several site visits, the group established a deep connection with the club and was able to set up an event with former Boston Bruin Tom Songin.
The students joined Songin for the public relations event at the club in late-April, which included a gym hockey game and an autograph session with close to 75 children. It was one of the club’s biggest events of the year.
“The experience of working with an organization in a hands-on way is what makes this class,” said Nikki Bank (A15). “Our only limitation was that they weren’t always able to implement everything we suggested because of time constraints or staffing issues.”
“Those are the challenges we’ve always faced,” said Jacqueline Rudis, the club’s director. “But the students brought us really sound ideas and presented them with lots of energy and enthusiasm. It’s important for non-profits to get that kind of support.”
Kevin Soh (A13) echoed Bank’s and Rudis’ comments, and in doing so presents one of the central challenges of the course. In theory, it sounds like the perfect idea, but these types of organizations often require the kind of long-term and consistent support that doesn’t fit neatly into an academic calendar, or for that matter, a revolving student body.
“What happens when the course ends?” said Atlas. “That’s something that we’re wrangling with.”
Jacqueline Rudis (right), director of the Medford Boys and Girls Club
One idea is to slowly build up relationships with a set number of organizations that students can return to in subsequent semesters. The organizations could then be rotated into the course depending on fit and need.
“It’s an important question to consider,” said Bambrick. “We certainly want to take the long view with this class, and we also believe it’s in the best interest of Tufts to invest in what we’re trying to do.”