Amanda Van Benschoten

The Enquirer

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS – "Hidden gem."

"Best-kept secret."

Those are the phrases most often used to describe Northern Kentucky University, but university leaders want to change that.

"It's great to be a gem – but it's not good to be hidden," President Geoff Mearns said in his annual Fall Convocation address a week ago.

Take a drive through campus, and you can't miss the signs of NKU's growth and progress: new buildings to house cutting-edge academic programs, new dorms to accommodate the ever-growing student body, and sleek athletic facilities for the newly-minted Division I program.

Now, Mearns wants all of Kentucky to find out what our community already knows.

This fall, he and other campus leaders will hit the road to tell NKU's story in virtually every corner of the Commonwealth: from Ashland to Paducah, and from Pikeville to Louisville.

The tour is equal parts marketing campaign, recruiting visit and lobbying effort. (It's also got a catchy name and Twitter hashtag, #RoadtoNKU.)

NKU officials will essentially saturate each community for a few days: they'll meet with local superintendents and high school students, community colleges, business and political leaders, media and alumni.

They'll tell each community how a NKU degree can help them succeed in life: it has a bigger return on investment than any of Kentucky's 114 other colleges and universities, according to Affordable Colleges Online.

They'll tell how enrollment, graduation rates and campus diversity have all grown in recent years. (Along with the average ACT score of incoming freshman, which has jumped from 20.7 in 2005 to more than 23 points today.)

Academic deans will describe their programs. Athletics officials will talk up the D-1 sports teams. Admissions and financial aid staff will describe how to apply. And student leaders will tell their experiences at NKU.

The tour will run from Sept. 29 through the end of the year, with visits planned to seven regions of the state. Each visit will last several days.

When it's over, Mearns hopes to see more students from across Kentucky applying to NKU, more transfer agreements with community colleges, and increased engagement by alumni across the state.

And, of course, he hopes that state lawmakers and members of the Council on Postsecondary Education remember NKU's message the next time he visits Frankfort to ask for changes in the state funding formula; NKU ranks at the bottom of the list with just $4,000 from the state per full-time student.

"Many of our peer institutions have been around for 100 years or more, so people are aware of their history and their impact. As a relatively new university, we need to be proactive in getting our message out," Mearns said. ■