Higher Ed Icons

Episode 4 - Our Business Model Is F'd

Ashley Budd saw it before most of the field did. Sitting in admissions at RIT, watching tuition climb and the enrollment cliff inch closer, she made a bet: higher ed was going to have to learn how to fundraise, and the old playbook wasn't going to cut it. She moved to Cornell, joined a brand-new digital innovation team, and got to work. But she didn’t just rewrite the playbook. She changed the game.  In this conversation, Ashley walks Mallory and Volt through the moments that shaped the modern advancement playbook: the Kickstarter-era realization that higher ed's business model was breaking, the first crowdfunding experiments at Cornell, the Black Thursday giving day that raised $7 million the same day the market crashed, and the stubborn, ongoing work of turning Cornell's giving day into a 12-year tradition that still grows while peer institutions plateau. She also takes on the inbox. As co-author of Mailed It, Ashley has spent years arguing that email isn't dead — we just wish it were, because we've made it miserable. She talks about why 85% of higher ed communication is a call to action and why that's a problem. She unpacks the deceptively simple idea that's animated her whole career — alumni have lives, and our job is to insert ourselves into them through games, through kitchen art for new grads, through email people actually want to open. She closes on AI, returning to a trust framework as old as Aristotle to explain where the technology helps and where it will quietly erode the relationships we've spent decades building. It's a conversation about reach versus relationship, the difference between running a playbook and reinventing one, and what it looks like to be the person who keeps moving the whole field forward. 🔑 What You'll Take Away * Why higher ed's business model demanded reinvention, and what crowdfunding got right that traditional fundraising missed * How Cornell built a giving day that keeps growing while peer institutions plateau * What separates institutions running the playbook from the ones still rewriting it * Why "email is dead" really means we've made it miserable, and how to make the inbox a place people want to be * How to stop confusing reach with relationship in alumni communication * Where AI helps, where it erodes trust, and the framework Ashley uses to tell the difference

Episode 3 - The Story Isn't the Problem

This episode starts with a LinkedIn controversy and quickly turns into a much bigger conversation about what higher ed keeps getting wrong about brand. Mallory and Volt sit down with Joe Master, one of the sharpest brand strategists in the industry, to unpack a line that hits harder the longer you sit with it: higher ed doesn’t have a storytelling problem. It has a personality problem. Because the stories are there. The outcomes are there. The impact is real. But when every institution sounds “professional, supportive, and student-centered,” none of it sticks.  Joe takes us inside what it actually looks like to build a brand that people remember from the inside-out work behind Drexel’s Ambition Can’t Wait campaign to the reality of operationalizing brand across enrollment, media, and institutional strategy. 🔑 What You’ll Take Away * Higher ed doesn’t need better stories. It needs a stronger point of view. * Brand is what makes performance marketing work harder. * AI is making “good enough” content easier and memorable brands more important. * You can’t defend brand spend with performance metrics alone. * The strongest brands are built through consistency, trust, and how you show up when it counts.

Episode 2 - Pulling Threads: Bravery, Curiosity, and the Heart of Creativity

This episode starts with a simple idea: what happens when you pull more threads? In a space defined by templates, sameness, and risk-averse decision-making, Tracey Halvorsen makes the case for something different — a culture built on curiosity, bravery, and exploration. Not curiosity as a buzzword, but as a discipline. A way of working that leads to better ideas, stronger teams, and more distinctive work. We get into the origin story that explains everything, from turning down lucrative work as an artist to building teams that refuse to follow formulas. From there, the conversation expands into what it actually takes to foster that kind of environment inside higher ed: hiring for curiosity, creating space for experimentation, and resisting the pressure to be everything to everyone. The work improves when teams explore, but most institutions are structured to prevent it. We also dig into how this mindset shows up in practice from internal R&D projects that keep teams sharp to the uncomfortable shift away from “best practices” toward asking better questions. If you want better ideas, you don’t need more process. You need people willing to pull threads and see where they lead. 🔑 What You’ll Take Away * Why curiosity is a strategic advantage, not a personality trait * How “pulling threads” leads to stronger creative and better outcomes * What it actually takes to build a culture that supports exploration * Where higher ed’s reliance on formulas is holding teams back * How to hire for curiosity and how to spot it in interviews * The difference between staying busy and doing meaningful creative work

Episode 1 - The Fundamentals Are Still The Fundamentals

There are people in higher ed who see what’s coming. And then there’s Michael Stoner — someone who’s been building for it before the rest of us even had language for it. From the earliest days of the web to social media to mobile, Michael didn’t just follow trends. He anticipated them. And more importantly, he made decisions before they were obvious — often when the cost, the risk, and the skepticism were at their highest. In this first episode of Higher Ed Icons, co-hosts Mallory and Volt sit down with one of the architects of modern higher ed marketing to ask a deceptively simple question: How do you know what’s real — and what’s just hype? Because if you listen closely, this isn’t just a retrospective. It’s a mirror. Michael walks us through the early days of digital in higher ed — when presidents questioned whether websites were worth the investment, when “new media” wasn’t a job title, and when every decision felt like a gamble. And the parallels to today’s AI moment are impossible to ignore. You’ll hear how he approached uncertainty by asking better questions than everyone else in the room. This conversation lands on a tension every higher ed leader is feeling right now: We’re moving faster than ever, but we’re not always thinking more clearly. Michael brings it back to fundamentals — goals, strategy, people, and the discipline to separate signal from noise. Because while the tools change, the work doesn’t. And maybe that’s the real takeaway: The leaders who get the future right aren’t the ones who move the fastest. They’re the ones who stay grounded long enough to see it clearly.   🔑 What You’ll Take Away * The hidden cost of chasing tools instead of defining outcomes * How skepticism (done right) becomes a strategic advantage * What hasn’t changed in 25+ years of digital transformation — and why that matters now * The difference between reacting to change and actually preparing for it

Announcing Higher Ed Icons

Higher Ed Icons celebrates the pioneers, thought leaders, trendsetters, and change makers in higher education marketing — the people whose decisions transformed it from a campus afterthought into a strategic function.   Co-hosts Voltaire Santos Miran and Mallory Willsea pull back the curtain on the origin of Higher Ed Icons—from a single text message to a full platform built to document the people and moments that shaped modern higher ed marketing. But this isn’t just a launch story. It’s a recognition of something the industry has missed for too long: the insights that built today’s strategies have been scattered across conference decks, hallway conversations, and people’s memories—with no real record. This show is an attempt to fix that. In this kickoff conversation, they unpack: * Why higher ed marketing finally earned its seat at the table * The moments that changed the trajectory of the industry * And why capturing institutional knowledge now matters more than ever They also tease their first guest—someone they both credit with shaping not just their careers, but how they think, lead, and show up. If you’ve been in this work long enough to remember how it used to be—or you’re trying to understand how we got here—this episode sets the stage. Welcome to Higher Ed Icons. Thank you to our founding sponsor. OnDeck Marketing keeps colleges and universities visible where high school decisions actually start—inside the school day. Their North American in-school network puts branded screens in high schools and runs digital channels that maintain consistent presence in feeder markets, so institutions don't go dark on students before they ever start searching. Learn more at ondeckmktg.com.