UNDERSTANDING THE MILLIKIN "BRAND"
Michael Pettus (Management), Mounia Lamaiti and Charles Bradshaw (2003 Tabor School of Business Graduates)

Start Date: April 2003 • Completed: December 2003
This project was undertaken to give Millikin University administrators a better sense of its constituents' perception of the institution—its "brand" identity. Team members collected information by interviewing administrators, staff and faculty; by surveying a group of current Millikin students; and by distributing a questionnaire to seniors at 38 high schools throughout Illinois and in St. Louis, Missouri. The high school student sample was broken into categories of students planning to attend Millikin, another private institution, a state university, or a community college. Current Millikin students were categorized by year of enrollment. Results were tabulated for each of the four colleges and aggregated for the entire university.

The project's conclusions are summarized as follows:

1. Based upon the high school seniors' views, Millikin’s brand is a university that prepares students for careers by integrating theory and practice.
2. First-semester freshmen perceive Millikin as a friendly and supportive environment that integrates theory and practice.
3. These perspectives differentiate Millikin from state universities (where the primary attraction is availability of majors), other private institutions (where the primary attractions are academic reputation and availability of majors), and community colleges (where the primary attraction is availability of majors and cost).
4. Further study is needed to better understand Millikin's internal brand.
5. Millikin's academic reputation is important to all students and needs to be maintained.

For more information contact the project leader listed above.