Institutional Advancement Concurrent Session: Oh Sh*t Moments

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Session Type: Subsessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel

Room: Washington 5

Floor: Exhibition Level

One of the joys of working in higher education, and law schools in particular, is the opportunity to work with diverse, highly intelligent, and passionate constituencies. Working in alumni relations means that we have the privilege to develop relationships with highly invested alumni who honed their zealous advocacy skills with their legal education in our institutions. This means, however, that when a crisis hits in a law school, the relevant constituencies include both internal and external stakeholders. This panel will discuss strategies for communicating bad news to those stakeholders, while balancing the needs and interests of the institution - those within the building, and the wishes of committed alumni with strong views about how a law school should and should not respond to a particular crisis. These issues are particularly difficult to navigate now, when the current demographics of schools often are very different than in the past.