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Meet Your Fellow Higher Ed Social Pros – Let’s Connect!

  • June 16, 2025
  • 31 replies
  • 571 views
Meet Your Fellow Higher Ed Social Pros – Let’s Connect!
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31 replies

C

Hi everyone!

 

I am Courtney Witmer, Assistant Director of Social Media at Penn State, where I manage 7 interns, analytics, paid social efforts (including our new Influencer program), teach a Digital PR class for our school of communications, and am the primary manager of the brand TikTok account.

 

Coming from a background in industry, one of the things I find uniquely challenging about Higher Ed is the conservatism in terms of social. It’s been hard to get buy in for a lot of thing that seem pretty mundane to me from a social perspective, but we’re getting there and the fight has been so worth it!

 

As an alum as well as an employee, I’m proud to say our mascot is the ‘stately Nittany Lion’

 

    caitlin.pierson
    Forum|alt.badge.img+3

    Hey everyone! 👋

    I’m the manager of the Social Media Team at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

    What I love about my job is the opportunity to take really complex, and sometimes life changing research and turn it into understandable, engaging and educational content for our audience - without taking ourselves too seriously!!

    Our mascot is Hunter the Hippocampus (who recently went viral for crashing the library during study time: https://www.tiktok.com/@uni_newcastle/video/7503806855597149456). 

    Hunter the Hippocampus walking across a rainbow pedestrian crossing.

     

    Caity
      C
      • campiona
      • Level 1
      • July 7, 2025

      Hey there 👋 My name is Al Campion, Assistant Director of Social Media for Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I think higher ed is unique in that those around you (both coworkers and ‘customers’) are continually willing to learn new things. I don’t think that’s true of very many other professions, so in a field like social where continued learning and adaptability are required, the buy-in become a lot easier to get than other industries--at least in my experience.

      Contrary to popular belief (Google included, sometimes), UofI does not have a mascot! We haven’t been the Chiefs in nearly 20 years, and no, we have not adopted the Kingfisher as a mascot 🫠

        C
        • campiona
        • Level 1
        • July 7, 2025

        Hey there!

        • I work at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC) in Green Bay, Wisconsin (Go Pack Go!). We also have a campus in Marinette, WI and in Sturgeon Bay, WI along with other learning centers in rural communities in our area. We are a two-year public technical college and we were recently a Top 10 Aspen Prize Finalist for Community College Excellence! I work in marketing as a Digital Content Specialist. In my role, I run our main NWTC social media accounts and give guidance to those who run our other accounts. I also gather student/alumni stories and develop content to tell their stories and assist with other blog content. I also run our social media ads.

        • I came from healthcare marketing into higher ed, and without a doubt, social in higher ed is more fun and enjoyable. I like hearing our student and alumni stories, and how NWTC has impacted their lives. We have an alum who even got a tattoo of our eagle logo!

        • Our mascot is an eagle named Newton! 

           

        I used to work at UWGB with Cindy Bailey! Love everything y’all are doing up there!

          T
          Forum|alt.badge.img+3

          I had no idea this hub existed! I’m Matt, Head of Digital Media at Newcastle University in the UK (are there any non-North Americans here?)
          I’ve been working in social at the university for nearly 12 years now. Helped create the internal team then wiggled my way up a bit and now look after the social team and paid media team.

          One thing that I find hilarious about working in social higher ed is pretty much social “best practice” isn’t “higher ed social” best practice. We got to make our own tips for success due our weird and wonderful world as public institutions that also have a hefty sized audience between 16-21

          We don’t really do mascots like you do in North America but we have Percy the Lion. The suit is the same suit they had when I joined here though 🤢 (it has been cleaned since then)

           

            binetou.fall
            • binetou.fall
            • Sprout Team
            • February 23, 2026

            Hi Everyone — I’m Binetou, an Account Consultant on the Higher Ed team here at Sprout Social. I partner with universities across the country to help them strengthen their social strategy, uncover meaningful insights, and build digital experiences that truly resonate with students and campus communities.

            I wanted to share an upcoming session I think many of you will find valuable, especially if you're focused on enrollment storytelling, campus reputation, or understanding what your audience truly cares about in real time.

            📘 The Digital Doorstep: Notre Dame’s Social Intelligence Guide to Authentic Storytelling
            📅 March 18 at 10 a.m. CT
            🎙️ Featuring Liz Harter, Senior Social Media Manager, University of Notre Dame
            🔗 Register: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/webinars/digital-doorstep-notre-dame/

            Liz will be walking through how Notre Dame shifted from siloed dashboards to a real-time social intelligence strategy that helps them stay audience-led, human, and authentically connected to prospective and current students.

            If you're looking to sharpen your insights, elevate your content strategy, or simply learn how another Higher Ed leader is approaching the ever-changing social landscape, this session will be worthwhile.

            Hope to see some of you there. Always happy to help or be a resource.

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