Analysis: Tuition decision shows how President Susan Martin is rebranding Eastern Michigan University

EMU President Susan Martin, driven by a vision for revitalizing the university's image, is championing the university’s hallmark asset: its affordability and the role it plays in boosting southeast Michigan’s distressed economy.

And the EMU Board of Regents is endorsing the university’s rebranding. Regents opted to keep tuition and fees flat for 2010-11 -- an exceptional move on Tuesday in light of continuous higher education funding cuts from Lansing.

This is a classic example of a moment in which a business - or in this case, a university - recognizes that by cutting prices, its product will get enough additional buyers to make up for it.

Emphasizing EMU's affordability -- and how the education it provides students will play a part in revitalizing Michigan -- was part of Martin's vision for the university from the day she took office. 

"Our graduates stay in Michigan, particularly in this region," Martin told me in an interview when she took the job in 2008. "And if there's anything the state needs right now, it's a more educated workforce, getting jobs and staying in Michigan. Eastern is a critical player in that."

It's already paying off: Enrollment was up 4 percent for the fall semester.

Martin is systematically expunging the legacies of former EMU Presidents John Fallon III and Samuel Kirkpatrick - whose dreadful tenures came to define Eastern’s last decade.

Rebranding an organization pelted by scandal starts with honesty. Martin has gradually restored integrity to the EMU presidential office, which, for a time, almost seemed cursed.

But integrity is only one piece of the engine required to revitalize and rebrand a 22,000-student university. There has to be a defined mission that leverages existing assets that no one otherwise seems to notice.

Martin, hired in spring 2008, has swiftly and efficiently rescued the university’s image. Her predecessors had a reputation for barely recognizing that students still pay the bills.

As a 2006 EMU graduate, I covered several EMU scandals as a student reporter and editor of the Eastern Echo. Kirkpatrick spent two years of my educational career ignoring the controversial $6 million president’s house construction project, which ultimately prompted his resignation. Fallon, of course, was fired after his administration’s failure to adequately communicate details about the December 2006 murder of EMU student Laura Dickinson.
 

But those incidents were simply reflective of a dysfunctional culture. Martin has uprooted that culture and replaced it with a focus on transparency and hard work.

Now, visit an EMU basketball game or football game in Ypsilanti and you’ll see Martin hanging out with students in the front row

And why not? This is the people’s university.

Transparency and honesty had to come first. Rebranding comes second.

Eastern’s affordability has long been its greatest asset. And affordability is fashionable these days. Conserving cash is cool - and getting a college degree is the first step to ensuring your survival as the complexion of the Michigan economy shifts.

Refusing to raise tuition is not a gimmick. It’s a sign that EMU understands that it must still play a role in jump-starting Michigan’s economy - and that its route to accomplishing that can benefit students, too.

Contact AnnArbor.com’s Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com or follow him on Twitter. You can also subscribe to AnnArbor.com Business Review's weekly e-newsletter and breaking business news e-newsletter.