While connecting students to resources and content at the right point in their journey drives success, robust communities ensure they make it to the finish line. Campus communities engage students in-person with events and clubs, but institutions often struggle to foster digital communities. Social media platforms don’t offer enough oversight, and other tools lack the modern, engaging interface today’s students expect.
Matt Hammond, Pathify’s Chief Revenue Officer, spoke with trailblazers from Ferris State University, Lassen College, Utah State University, and DIS Study Abroad in Scandinavia about the importance of building strong communities, and how they use Pathify to connect students and staff in an ever-changing higher ed landscape.
Calissa Beach Chandler, MyUSU Manager at Utah State University, Eric Hazen, Executive Director of Digital Experience and Marketing at Ferris State University, Tara Bias, TRiO Student Development Specialist at Lassen Community College, and Izzy Schamberger, Student Activities Coordinator at DIS Study Abroad shared the power of community and connection, and how they build thriving digital spaces for students, staff and faculty to engage.
The Power of Connection
Before Pathify, Lassen lacked a digital platform to bring its campus together. While they hosted meaningful in-person events, getting the word out to connect students with those opportunities remained challenging. With Pathify, they unified the experience into a centralized hub for students and campus groups. Bias, who works in the TRiO program at Lassen, emphasized the role students played in their decision to launch MyLassen. Students wanted a digital app and a way to get to know each other within a truly interactive community, not just a landing page with information.
Hazen also shared that disparate tools made the myriad of Ferris State communities disjointed and difficult to find. “On campus, when there isn’t a great tool to address a need, faculty or staff start trying to fill the gap on their own. You end up with a smattering of Facebook groups, Canvas shells, and all sorts of things. People are trying to build community, but the digital fatigue starts to set in for students, and they don’t know where to look,” Hazen shared. Facebook groups brought administrative challenges and lacked accessibility for students who chose not to use social media, while Canvas’ limited features missed the mark. Ferris State turned to Pathify as its centralized solution. “One home base, one login, one Ferris State bulldog community. More than our colors, more than our logo, student experience is our brand. Increasingly, that experience is digital, and people want to be in community,” Hazen emphasized.
Utah State University also heard student feedback loud and clear — when students approached administration and expressed a need for digital avenues to connect with one another, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, Utah State listened. Student populations want opportunities for connection and engagement, and they need the institution’s buy-in to create those.
Additionally, the need extends past current students — Lassen looks forward to leveraging the Alumni module within the MyLassen platform to include graduates. In the past, they struggled to keep in touch with alumni. Moving forward, students will roll right into the Alumni module when they graduate, enabling them to stay connected with the campus community.
Giving Students Ownership
Driving adoption is key to building rich communities, and each panelist agreed giving students ownership over Groups led to increased engagement. “[Students] want to build that organic community, and we give them the space to do it,” noted Hazen. From the backend, administrators set up keyword monitoring to ensure a safe and healthy environment, but for the most part, student organizations manage Groups themselves.Clark recommended using popular topics with college students as engagement “hooks.” “We see the highest viewership and engagement on announcements around free food and merch,” she said, pointing to the power of appealing, targeted alerts to cut through clutter.
Beach Chandler recommended using the organization and governance already in place at the institution to simplify setup. USU requires clubs to start a Group within the platform, and they must secure two full-time employees as admins — balancing appropriate vetting mechanisms while ensuring Groups maintain the peer-to-peer voice and feel. With some structure and guidance, Groups took flight, and the built-in tools continue to enable safe, healthy and productive engagement.
Driving Adoption
DIS Study Abroad only interacts with student cohorts for a single semester, so they made a critical shift to engage them earlier — giving students access to the app before they touch down in Copenhagen. Prior to the start of the semester, students introduce themselves and connect with each other, paving the way for a more meaningful experience when they arrive in Denmark. “If you offer students a platform to talk to each other, they’ll jump in and use it,” said Schamberger. Additionally, Schamberger emphasized the importance of designating superusers — one or two people in each department who gain advanced knowledge of the app to act as a resource for the rest of the team. “People feel a lot more comfortable using the app because of that,” Schamberger said.
In addition to students, gaining traction with staff and faculty propels a strong community-building strategy. USU coordinated with Human Resources to design a staff and faculty-specific platform, personalized to their roles on campus. Ferris State implemented their platform, Ferris360, with staff and faculty first, knowing that if they drove engagement with this group, those individuals would, in turn, drive engagement with students. Necessary tools drive students and staff to log in, and once they enter the platform, they see opportunities to connect and collaborate too.
Hazen advised other institutions looking to build solid digital communities to involve student life teams from the beginning. Because of the balance between structure and personalization, his team found the platform resonated with folks who work closely with students. “Students won’t feel lost and won’t feel forced into a structure they don’t want to deal with. It works like the social media groups they’re already familiar with. I didn’t have to convince them much,” Hazen highlighted.
Overcoming Challenges
While Lassen College experienced a seamless integration process, Bias recognized the challenge of creating buy-in with each new group that comes to campus. “Every year and every semester we need to launch again,” Bias explained. Each cohort of new students needs to learn to use the portal and app in order to be successful, which means ongoing marketing and commitment to community-building.
Schamberger shared another important discovery — crafting a thoughtful cadence of notifications to ensure students stay plugged in. “Students struggled with notification fatigue. Many of them turned off notifications completely,” said Schamberger. This caused issues when DIS needed to reach students about important visa updates, so they created an engagement plan which spaced out notifications and surfaced relevant information at the right time. After implementing these changes, students remained engaged with announcements throughout their journey, instead of shutting them off.
Evolving Technology
Hammond posed one final question to the group: How will technology continue to drive engagement and community in higher ed moving forward? The panelists agreed more digital platforms will utilize AI, and personalization will remain the north star. “Platforms will cater more and more to individual student needs, rather than one broad formula that applies to everyone,” said Schamberger, who also imagined a future where the DIS Navigate app uses student profiles to suggest Groups they might want to join. Bias encouraged others to build with a user-first perspective, because students understand good technology and see it as a cornerstone of their college experience.
Digital communities provide a space for students to dip their toes in before fully engaging — viewing maps of campus, club information and groups allows them to gain confidence with the options and resources available to them before arriving on campus. “We’re excited about custom dashboards. We want to home in on that, particularly for new students, designing the platform specifically for them so they can find the information they need quickly and easily,” Beach Chandler added.
“We’ve always thought of Pathify and Ferris360 as the bridge between our digital and physical campuses,” Hazen noted. “Our students are not just comparing us to other universities. They’re comparing us to Netflix, TikTok, Amazon, all the other brands in their lives. We need to start moving at the speed of our students and the other brands they interact with.” Higher ed continues evolving — the power of community and feedback help institutions maintain strong, healthy engagement alongside the changes.
Want to catch the full conversation? Watch the recording with DIS – Study Abroad, Ferris State University, Lassen Community College and Utah State University here!
