Colleges push professors into media spotlight

For Robert Thompson, being a professor at Syracuse University means teaching, researching. and averaging 30 interviews per week with reporters.

For John Allen Williams, the scholar's life means keeping a jacket and tie in his Loyola University Chicago office at all times, just in case television news crews need a quick quote.

Such is the life for scholars in today's competitive environment among colleges and universities. As schools vie to attract top students, top faculty, and top-dollar gifts, they count on their bookish professors to leave the library and enter the studio, where their insights on the day's news might help put their institutions on the map.

"It lends a certain credibility when they see you on television," says Mr. Williams, an expert in military affairs. "It may boost student enrollment in my courses."

For schools aspiring to enhance their reputations, the task of positioning faculty for a "media hit" has become big business. To get their professors into reporters' Palm Pilots, 624 colleges and universities pay between $500 and $900 each per year to be listed with ProfNet, a private database. Some go further by paying thousands to private firms whose sole mission is to get professors quoted in the press.

Spokespeople in higher education tend to agree that the time, effort, and money they invest to get professors quoted in news stories are priceless.

Readers and viewers "must be thinking, 'Those folks at SLU must know their stuff, otherwise those folks at major media outlets wouldn't be calling them,' " says Clayton Berry, spokesman for St. Louis University, which has doubled its number of citations in the media over the past two years. "It places us among those other elite institutions to be quoted in an article along with the Brookings Institution and others with international reputations."

Not everyone is convinced that the costs, in terms of dollars and professors' time, are worth it. Too many schools wantonly pursue wide media exposure when they'd be better off targeting a particular regional audience, says John Ross, a Virginia media- strategy consultant for institutions of higher education.

"More and more schools are seeing that the national coverage is not really a panacea," says Mr. Ross. "We get these national clips and send them to the board of trustees and they say, 'That's great.' But so what? Where does it get you? Money is tight, so you really need a measurable payoff.... Is it worth spending $20,000 or $40,000 for those occasional mentions in The New York Times? In most cases, I doubt it."

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