A Midwest college president was at odds with faculty and students over a long period of time, resulting in a vote of no confidence by the staff. Durosko worked directly with the president to provide coaching, message development, advisement on how to reach various constituencies and damage control. Durosko recommended a series of on campus events and tools to help the president communicate to all audiences with important messages that allowed him to tell his story and overcome personality conflicts with the truth. The end result of this work was that the president formed a good working relationship with key staff, faculty, student leaders and alumni leaders to allow him to finish out his term on a positive note.
For Profit School Group Aftermath of 9/11
Durosko worked directly with a group of more than 30 communications professionals nationwide to advise and consult on various issues related to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001. This included a school in downtown Manhattan, just blocks from the World Trade Center attacks and involved issues as wide ranging as school closings, challenges of international students and how to manage public relations in the aftermath of a national tragedy. Durosko’s coaching and training extended to all four corners of the U.S. and resulted in a stronger communications team.
College Student Death from Meningitis
When a local college student was diagnosed and subsequently died from meningitis, a veritable media frenzy began to take shape, with reporters showing up unannounced on campus to interview random students about their fears, sneaking into a secure campus building to take photos of the deceased student’s dorm room door and other incidents, Durosko managed every aspect of this situation, ultimately stopping fear-mongering stories from appearing by working closely with media to explain the stance of the college and being able to convince editors that this was not in the best interest of keeping people informed – as these incidents would only incite more fear and misinformation. Instead, we worked with the local health department to secure educational information about meningitis and shared that internally with students, faculty and staff and encouraged the news media to do the same. This work resulted in a much less hysterical string of stories than it had appeared would be the case at the beginning of the news cycle.