Raegan Snell

African American Student Outreach Proposal

Executive Summary

The undergraduate population at the University of Arkansas accumulates over 20,000 students.

18,956 or 74.1% of those students are made up of Caucasian students. The African American

population only accounts for a little over 1,200 students. With an influx in the African American

population in delta counties such as Lee, Phillips, Chicot and Desha, the enrollment rates at the

University of Arkansas, specifically the School of Journalism and Strategic Media (SJSM) are

significantly low.

We will develop a social media campaign to recruit African American students within

those specific Arkansas counties to enroll at the University of Arkansas and within the School of

Journalism and strategic media. We will diversify the student population by creating a campaign

that will increase the numbers of enrollment within the African American population. In this

proposal, we will discuss the situation analysis and the research behind what we believe is an

important demographic to be reached. We will then cover the objectives that will be involved in

this campaign to increase the African American student enrollment by 30% along with the target

audience. Next, we will discuss the overall plan of how we plan to accomplish our objectives and

the tactics that will be used to make sure that our plan is executed properly. We will establish a

timeframe for when our tactics will be accomplished and last, we will evaluate if our

proposal/campaign was successful and determine if the objectives we set into place were met.

Situation Analysis

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the African American population in Northwest Arkansas in

Lee, Phillips, Chicot and Desha counties accounts for 56,989 people from the Arkansas
population. In each county, more than half of the resident population are African Americans.

African American students only make up 4.2% of the student population at the University of

Arkansas and African American students make up less than 1% of the School of Journalism and

Strategic Media. The school of Journalism and Strategic Media is committed to diversifying the

learning and working environment. We have a goal to outreach and impact the community

through diversity initiatives and faculty research. The SJSM hosts some diversity programs to

better contribute to diversity in media. We strive for academic excellence and inclusion working

toward the highest standards as an elite school of journalism. The main goal of the SJSM is to

create a more inclusive and diverse environment that recognizes the voices in pursuit of accurate

coverage for our pluralistic society.

Objectives

The objectives of this campaign are to increase the African American student population at the

School of Journalism and Strategic Media. The potential students that reside in these counties

come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. These students typically don’t attend an institution

of higher education because of the small number of scholarships available. The overall goal of

this campaign is to recruit students from the four counties of Lee, Phillips, Chicot and Desha.

The overall objective is to increase the African American SJSM enrollment population by 30%

by the end of the 2020 school year (fall 2020).

Target Audience

The target audience for this campaign would be young adults, ages 16-23, African Americans in

the East Delta counties of Arkansas, specifically Lee, Phillips, Chicot and Desha counties. This

demographic is primarily high schoolers seeking a degree at an institution of higher education,

especially families with low household income.

Strategy and Tactics

To increase the amount of African American students specifically from the four counties

previously mentioned, we will need to create a social awareness campaign that highlights the

strengths and opportunities that the School of Journalism and Strategic Media holds within the

University of Arkansas. We will work with the student media to put into place a social media

campaign that shows the diversity of students to reach the target audience. It will be vital to this

campaign to raise awareness through differing online social platforms such as Instagram,

Twitter, and Facebook to highlight the key messages of diversity that we are trying to convey.

With the use of multiple social platforms, we will be able to reach a vast majority of students in

the delta region

Timetable

The proposed social media campaign will begin in November 2019 and continue throughout the

school year until July 2020. The campaign will run for eight months. We strategically picked this

time frame because of the rising awareness for students in high school to start thinking about

their plans after they graduate high school. .

Evaluation

The evaluation from this campaign will be measured by the analytics that are offered to business

accounts to measure the reach and total impressions made with each post. We will measure the

effectiveness of the campaign if there is a percentage increase in likes, shares and comments. We

will look at the enrollment figures since the campaign was created. If the number of students

enrolled is increased by 30% by fall 2020, we will know if the campaign was successful.