UM School of Education Engages Alumni, Students in 60 Seconds

Kelvin Willingham and Andrew Abernathy

The University of Mississippi School of Education has found a new way to engage students and alumni in just one minute.

Once a month, staff at the UM School of Education highlight three major milestones and/or successes by students and alumni in a 60-second video called “The Education Minute,” which is hosted by UM academic counselor Kelvin Willingham and produced by UM communications specialist Andrew Abernathy.

“I try to find new ways to engage our alumni and students,” Abernathy said. “I started looking at survey data that we had collected and identified the types of stories that alumni wanted to hear. They wanted to hear about students, they wanted to hear about alumni, and they really wanted to hear about upcoming events.”

Through the survey data and secondary research, Abernathy discovered that Facebook is the No. 1 social media among the School of Education’s alumni and that he only had a short amount of time to keep the audiences’ attention.

“I discovered that nobody can concentrate on anything for more than a minute,” Abernathy said. “I said ‘I’ll get our message on Facebook, I’ll put it in video, and I’ll give the audience the top three things you need to know about the SOE this month.’”

The School of Education has a relationship with the Northeast Mississippi Education Consortium that gives them access to a video studio at Insight Park. Abernathy, a graduate of the UM Meek School of Journalism and New Media, a former magazine editor and current adjunct instructor of integrated marking communications, took advantage of this access. He toyed around in the studio with a few ideas before he finally shot a pilot of The Education Minute to take to the Dean.

The Education Minute began in January of 2015 with trial funding for one year from Dean David Rock. The videos have been well-received by students and alumni, reaching roughly 40,000 people every month, and is now in its third school year of production.

The Education Minute can be found on the School of Education’s Facebook and a shorter fifteen second version can be found on the School of Education’s Twitter.

Abernathy works diligently to keep The Education Minute relevant and interesting. He creates focus groups to discover how it is being received, updates the graphics, and chooses content in the video each month.

“We love to tell alumni stories in a way that is fun and engaging,” Abernathy said. “The ultimate compliment for me would be to have people to pitch a story for next month because we are all about feedback and engagement.”

The School of Education has shown tremendous growth and had many successes over the past few years. “The Education Minute” has a chance to showcase these achievements.

“The School of Education continues to be a growing unit,” Abernathy said. “Our graduate applications are up by more than 6 percent this year. Having our message out there reinforces the idea that the School of Education is a professional school at a Flagship University. That means something.”

The Education Minute Host Profile

Kelvin Willingham, host of “The Education Minute,” is a 2006 graduate of the University of Mississippi with a degree in business administration. Since then, he has worked on campus in different departments as a senior secretary, administrative coordinator, project coordinator and independent consultant.

“The one thing I found with all of those jobs is that I was most happy when I had the chance to interact with students,” Willingham said. “When one of my grant positions was coming to an end I said I’m going to see if I can become an advisor because if I could talk to students all day that would just be awesome.”

Willingham is currently an academic counselor for the School of Education and is enrolled as a graduate student studying integrated marketing communications due to his work with The Education Minute.

“I would have never even had the idea of doing IMC otherwise,” Willingham said. “IMC has been perfect because it integrates all of what we’re doing. If I could do this everyday of my life, it would be perfect.”

Willingham’s passion for the School of Education, for The Education Minute, and for the alumni, students and faculty and staff are evident throughout the videos. His natural charisma draws the audience in and his enthusiasm for the topics inspires excitement.

“Kelvin is a great ambassador for our school,” Abernathy said. “Our students know him because his day job is an academic counselor.”

Willingham has been the host of The Education Minute since the pilot episode, only taking one episode off during which Abernathy was the host.

To see previously released Education Minute segments go to the Ole Miss School of Education’s YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/olemissguyton

Amy Goodin is a writer for HottyToddy.com. She can be reached at argoodin12@gmail.com.

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