Jacksonville State University among newest institutions to adopt Merit to market achievements of students

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ALBANY, NY (12/21/2016)(readMedia)-- Colleges in Alabama and beyond are increasingly challenged to demonstrate their value and the unique opportunities they provide to students. Publicizing achievements of successful students externally has become a critical focus for institutional marketing offices. Today, Jacksonville State University announced that through a partnership with Merit, the university will be recognizing and sharing personalized stories of every student's on-campus success with each one's hometown communities and other stakeholders.

Jacksonville State joins Troy University, Samford University, the University of Alabama, and 250+ other colleges in the country already using Merit's software platform to scale efforts to tell more personalized stories about student achievement and connect those stories to key audiences like high schools, community newspapers, state legislators, and friends and family. JSU plans to publicize student achievements such as academic honors, co-curriculars, and athletics.

"Merit will make it easy for our university to tell more stories about more students, said Buffy Lockette, director of public relations, who will be leading the use of Merit on JSU's campus. "We can engage our faculty and staff in identifying positive student milestones, and then make sure thousands of community news outlets are hearing about the accomplishments of specific JSU students from that area," she said.

Each time JSU uses Merit to promote student success, those stories will be published online to a personalized Merit page for each student that cataloges their accomplishments and can be shared with potential employers or friends and family through social media.

Merit's rapid growth comes at a time when many colleges and universities are finding it vital to connect with stakeholders about the value that their institution provides, and who seek to demonstrate this impact with personal, meaningful examples of student success that are targeted to specific audiences.

"Effective marketing in higher ed today requires lots of content and lots of personalization, and then ensuring that all that content is reaching the right audiences," said Amy Mengel, Merit's vice president of marketing. "Merit makes it possible for Institutions like Jacksonville State University to scale their storytelling efforts and repeatedly connect with audiences that they just couldn't otherwise afford to," Mengel said.

Jacksonville State plans to roll out Merit in the spring semester.

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About Jacksonville State University: Located in the Appalachian foothills midway between Birmingham and Atlanta, Jacksonville State University has grown from humble beginnings as a state teachers college founded in 1883 into the Alabama regional university with the highest percentage of accredited programs. In addition to traditional programs, JSU currently offers 35 programs online, with more in the works. Choose from bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, graduate certificates and two doctoral programs. To learn more about JSU, visit www.jsu.edu, call 1-800-231-JAX1 or e-mail jaxfacts@jsu.edu.

About Merit: Merit connects every student's story to the people and organizations that care deeply about their success, thus making the big picture of what it means to move along the path from high school to college to career clearer for millions of people. More than 250 colleges and universities currently use Merit to document and share student success with a network of families, high schools, legislators, communities, and employers. These institutions publish an average of 100,000 updates about students each month to more than 1.4 million student Merit pages that are connected to Merit's network of stakeholders. Additional information is available at www.meritpages.com