University Leaders Face a Unique Media Landscape. Are Yours Ready?

Media training for higher education is specialized coaching that prepares presidents, provosts, and faculty experts for campus crises, tuition questions, and national coverage. Higher education leaders navigate competing pressures: managing campus crises, explaining tuition increases, defending academic freedom, responding to student activism, and positioning their institutions in a rapidly changing higher ed market. Media narratives shape enrollment, donor confidence, and university reputation. Success in Media has coached presidents, provosts, and communications leaders through the most challenging moments in higher education today.

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What We Know About Higher Education Communication

Campus Crises & Student Safety

When crimes, health crises, or safety incidents occur on campus, media response is immediate and intense. Executives must communicate decisively while protecting student privacy and the university's reputation.

Tuition & Affordability Controversy

Higher education costs are politically charged. Leaders must explain tuition increases and affordability measures credibly without fueling negative coverage about rising costs.

Academic Freedom & Controversial Speakers

Balancing academic freedom with campus safety and student concerns requires nuanced messaging that satisfies faculty, students, donors, and the public.

Diversity, Equity & Student Activism

Universities navigate intense scrutiny around DEI initiatives, student protests, and social justice issues. Leaders must communicate values clearly and authentically.

What Success Looks Like

Navigate Campus Crises Effectively

Respond to safety incidents, health crises, and misconduct allegations with clear, compassionate communication that protects the community and the institution's reputation.

Explain University Decisions Credibly

Build understanding around difficult decisions, tuition increases, program changes, campus development, through messaging that demonstrates institutional values and fiscal responsibility.

Articulate Academic Mission & Values

Establish thought leadership on academic freedom, diversity, and the purpose of higher education while navigating politicized conversations.

Build Enrollment & Donor Confidence

Develop media presence that attracts prospective students and donors while strengthening the institution's reputation in a competitive higher ed market.

We've Worked With

University of Chicago
Miami University
East Carolina University

"The High Stakes Presenter training gave me exact techniques to navigate some challenging situations. These skills helped get me my new Dean position."

— Nicole F. Bromfield, PhD, Dean and Professor, College of Health and Human Performance

Scenarios We've Coached

Campus Crisis Response

Managing media and community communications during student safety incidents, crimes, health emergencies, or other crises affecting the campus community.

Tuition & Affordability Communications

Explaining tuition increases, scholarship programs, and financial aid initiatives to media, prospective students, families, and donors.

Controversial Speaker Events & Academic Freedom

Navigating media coverage around controversial speakers, balancing safety concerns with academic freedom principles.

Enrollment & Recruitment Strategy Communications

Positioning the university in media, crafting messaging for recruitment, and building brand reputation in the higher ed market.

Presentation Training for Higher Education Leaders

A university leader's calendar is mostly presentations. Trustee meetings, donor conversations, faculty lectures, convocation, accreditation visits, and the campus address after a difficult week are all rooms where delivery decides whether the message lands.

Presentation training is a separate program from media training and it is built for exactly those rooms: structuring a talk around the decision or the gift you need, presenting to an audience that spans first-year students and emeritus faculty, and speaking to a campus that is anxious. Sessions are recorded, and the playback does most of the teaching.

The Board of Trustees Presentation

Trustees approve budgets, campaigns, and strategy in the room. Presidents and provosts practice opening with the decision, compressing the background, and leaving space for the discussion that produces the vote.

The Donor and Advancement Meeting

A major gift conversation is a presentation with one listener. Advancement leaders and deans rehearse telling the institution's story with specificity, connecting a donor's interest to a named outcome, and making the ask without flinching.

The Faculty Lecture and Academic Conference

Expertise does not transfer on its own. Faculty practice structuring a talk for the audience actually in front of them, cutting slide density, and turning a research finding into something a room still remembers a week later.

Commencement, Convocation, and the Campus Address

Ceremonial and crisis addresses are the speeches a campus remembers for years. Leaders practice writing for the ear rather than the page, and delivering without hiding behind a lectern.

Go deeper: presentation training for higher education leaders, the high stakes presentation training methodology, the full presentation training program list, or presentation training questions answered.

Higher Education Media Training Questions

Can you prepare university presidents for campus crisis coverage?

Yes. Crisis preparation for presidents, provosts, and chancellors is a core part of higher education media training. Leaders run recorded practice exercises built around campus safety incidents, protests, and enrollment controversies, learning to respond decisively while protecting student privacy and institutional reputation under intense coverage.

Do you train deans, faculty experts, and communications staff as well?

Yes. Many engagements pair an executive session for the president with group workshops for deans, faculty media ambassadors, and the communications office. Faculty experts learn to give quotable commentary in their fields, which builds the institution's visibility between crises, not just during them.

How much does higher education media training cost?

Media training typically ranges from $1,000 to $15,000 per engagement depending on group size and scope. A focused session for one spokesperson sits at the lower end, while multi-day team workshops with recorded practice sit higher. See our media training questions page for a full breakdown of what drives pricing.

Who leads the training?

Every session is led by Jess Todtfeld, founder of Success in Media. Jess spent 13 years as a television producer at NBC, ABC, and Fox, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most media interviews given in 24 hours: 112 completed, 96 officially certified. He has coached university presidents, provosts, and communications teams through high-profile moments.

Higher Education Presentation Training Questions

Do you offer presentation training for university leaders as well as media training?

Yes. They are two different programs and institutions often book both. Media training prepares presidents, provosts, and communications staff for reporters and campus crisis coverage. Presentation training prepares them for trustee meetings, donor presentations, faculty lectures, and commencement. Programs run as a one-day or two-day intensive, or in a custom format.

Can you coach faculty and deans on lectures and academic conference presentations?

Yes. Faculty presentation coaching is a common request, especially before a major conference talk or a promotion presentation. Faculty practice structuring a talk around what the audience needs to decide or remember, reducing slide density, and handling questions from peers. Every run is recorded so the presenter can review the playback.

Can you help prepare a commencement address or a major campus speech?

Yes. Ceremonial addresses are prepared as performances: writing for the ear, building to a single idea the audience carries out of the room, and rehearsing until the text stops sounding read. Jess also coaches the campus address that follows a difficult event, where tone matters more than content.

Case Study

The webinar team that watched itself, then rebuilt everything

A national member organization's webinar team opened their training by watching ten minutes of their own webinar. They saw the problem immediately: cameras off, static graphics, a script read aloud. They rebuilt their delivery audience-first, the same shift that turns online lectures and virtual programs from endured to engaging.

Read the full case study

Proof you can verify

Jess holds a 5.0 Google rating and dozens of public LinkedIn recommendations, backed by 90+ named client results across industries.

Read our 5.0 Google reviews LinkedIn recommendations 90+ client results