Over the past decade, deliberate efforts to "market" colleges and universities to specific audiences have gone from being a marginal--and somewhat suspect--activity in higher education to becoming a strategic imperative. Heightened competition for top students, increasing bottom-line pressures due to tuition discounting and comparative "shopping"…

Professors, department chairs, and deans no longer are the sole sources of the learning experiences that undergraduate students benefit from on our campuses. Recent years have seen the growth or expansion of a wide variety of out-of-the classroom supplements to classroom education, including learning communities, "theme" housing beyond the…