Working to woo students

AAU's recruitment effort producing results

By Jarka Halková
Staff Writer

With this year's fall enrollment figures up over last year's, AAU's promotional efforts are starting to pay off.

According to Helena Markusova, who became director of the newly created public affairs and recruitment effort last fall, most students find out about AAU via the internet or from contacts with former students.

Media advertisements play an important role, she said. Ads have run in a number of Czech newspapers, including Mlada Fronta Dnes, Respekt, Lidove noviny, and Metro, as well as in magazines such as Trips and Sirius.

The university also advertises in newspapers in Russian, German and English, Markusova said. She said she would like to promote the school on radio and television in foreign countries but can't do that because the "budget is not big enough."

Particularly effective local promotional efforts include two 60-minute radio programs aired in May and September on radio Bonton. "There was an immediate response," Markusova said. A 25-second video spot that appeared on Prague's Metro screens in September also got results, she said.

Markusova's office made presentations at three high schools in Prague and at six elsewhere in the Czech Republic without appreciable results. Also an exhibition at the educational fair, Schuola Nuova, in Prague, didn't pay off, as the event was geared mostly toward language schools, she said.

Markusova said she expects more from the forthcoming educational fair Gaudeamus in Brno, as the event is more university-oriented.

Newly designed leaflets have been distributed to 4,000 high schools in the Czech Republic, and promotional material also is on the covers of books prepared as mementos for future graduates, Markusova said. "The books are already sold out," she added.

Eighteen Czech centers in foreign cities, including Moscow and New York, provide information about programs offered at AAU, Markusova said.

During a Czech National Festival in New York in October, 200 advertising folders were handed out.

Markusova said she especially hopes to attract descendants of Czechs who emigrated to the United States.


Jaroslava Halkova can be reached at jaroslavahalkova@hotmail.com.

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