This graphic is part of an email from a US Department of Education official who was recently fired without good cause. Our experiences with this dedicated public servant were always excellent, something we cannot say about others in the DC crowd. The graphic displays a number of important measures that have been enacted by ED-FSA (Federal Student Aid) over the last six years–and one giant failure, general debt relief for more than 30 million citizens. We wish the best for those Department of Education workers who remain, and who may see their jobs made more difficult, privatized, or moved to other agencies. The work cannot be easy for anyone–especially those who care about the folks they serve–the consumers and their families who are less likely to receive justice in the coming months and years.
After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, some faculty canceled classes to allow themselves and students time to process a result that shocked the media and academe.
Campus responses to Trump’s re-election in November seemed more muted. But at Millsaps College, a private Mississippi institution of roughly 600 students, James Bowley said he canceled his Abortion and Religions class meeting the day after the election.
Bowley, a tenured religious studies professor, told Inside Higher Ed the class had only three students, and he knew they were upset about Trump’s re-election. He said he sent them an email with the subject line “no class today” and one line of text: “need time to mourn and process this racist fascist country.”
For what he wrote in that email, Bowley said, the college swiftly barred him from campus and, on Tuesday, fired him—ending his more than 22 years of employment. He’s now fighting to get his job back and said he remains on the payroll while he appeals to the institution’s Board of Trustees.
“This seems to me like the very definition of censorship, and of course it will make every single faculty member fearful of the administration, fearful of sharing their own opinions,” Bowley said. “There are hundreds of historians who would say that the election was a victory for fascism and racism,” he added.
The college didn’t provide interviews Thursday and didn’t answer written questions. The situation appears to be another example of faculty members being punished for commenting on current events—but this time involving communication to a small group of students, according to Bowley. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech and academic freedom advocacy group, is pushing for Bowley’s reinstatement.
“This is absolutely absurd,” said Haley Gluhanich, a senior program officer in FIRE’s campus rights department. She said that when Bowley was initially suspended, “he was charged with an offense that does not exist in any of the handbooks, so they completely just made up a violation of policy.”
The Email Gets Out
Bowley said one of the students who received the email shared it on Instagram, approvingly, but another student whom he doesn’t know reported it to administrators. Bowley said he got a call from interim provost Stephanie Rolph on Nov. 7, the day after he sent the email, saying he was being placed on leave for it and banned from campus.
“I was shocked, I was dumbfounded, I just could not believe it,” Bowley said.
A copy of a letter from Rolph to Bowley, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, says this leave was “pending a review of the use of your Millsaps email account to share personal opinions with your students.” In the letter, Rolph told Bowley his email account access was cut off and further told him not to “engage with students.”
The suspension dragged on, Bowley said, and three weeks in he filed a grievance against Rolph—which led to a hearing. Then, on Dec. 27, a grievance panel composed of three faculty members ruled that Bowley should be reinstated, according to a copy of the ruling that FIRE provided.
“We recognize that Dr. Bowley has, on multiple occasions, shown poor judgment in his use of campus email,” the committee wrote. But during the hearing, Rolph couldn’t “identify a specific policy that Dr. Bowley violated,” they said. “No policy prohibiting the use of campus email to share personal opinions with students exists in either the Faculty Handbook or the Staff Handbook.”
The panel further recommended that “Rolph issue a formal apology to Dr. Bowley” and that Bowley “be compensated for the loss of income resulting from his removal from the winter study abroad course he had been scheduled to teach.” Bowley told Inside Higher Ed that was a course in Mexico for which he would’ve been paid more than $6,000 and would have had his travel expenses covered.
The panel also concluded that Bowley wasn’t “afforded due process.” It said Rolph had argued that the both the staff handbook and the faculty handbook applied to faculty. It also mentioned unresolved tension between the interim provost’s confidentiality claims and Bowley’s right to the hearing, saying the “interim provost can refuse to answer substantive questions pertaining to the grievance.” (Michael Pickard, chair of the grievance panel and vice president of the college’s Faculty Council, said he couldn’t comment Thursday. Rolph didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
Millsaps president Frank Neville rejected the grievance panel’s report and then fired Bowley on Tuesday, according to Bowley.
Bowley and FIRE said there was an extra twist at the end: FIRE wrote on its website that Bowley was told in a meeting Tuesday that he was also fired for “not clarifying that his views were not that of the college’s. To be clear: The college fired Bowley for an offense … of which he wasn’t accused.”
“The FIRE article is riddled with inaccuracies,” wrote college spokesperson Joey Lee in an email to Inside Higher Ed. He did not specify what those inaccuracies were.
“Because Millsaps does not disclose information about individual employment matters for privacy and confidentiality reasons, the article is based on incomplete information,” he wrote.
‘A Bit Reckless’
Was Bowley fired for more than the email? The college won’t specify, and Bowley didn’t provide a copy of his termination letter.
David Wood, the Faculty Council president, told Inside Higher Ed he doesn’t exactly know why Bowley was fired, but he doesn’t think he should have been. Wood said he’s disappointed in the college administration and “the extreme nature of the punishment.” But he also said he’s disappointed in Bowley.
“This is partly on him as well,” Wood said.
Wood doesn’t believe academic freedom is under threat at Millsaps and thinks “everything was done legally and by our own rules at the college,” he said.
(After this article was initially published Friday, Wood added in an email that he believes the “initial suspension was unfair and unsubstantiated” and that Rolph “exercised very poor judgment in banning James without a hearing.” Wood wrote that he believes “the review continued and shifted because” Rolph “realized she was wrong and had to go fishing for other reasons to fire James. The rest of her investigation I believe was done according to the rules of the Faculty Handbook.”)
Asked whether college leaders were upset with Bowley for previous alleged transgressions, Wood said, “There’s a history there, I’ll just put it that way.”
“James has been a bit reckless in the past, but I do not believe that being terminated was the appropriate punishment,” Wood said. “James likes to push the envelope, let me just put it that way … he’s not going to steer away from controversial issues.”
Bowley, for his part, said that Rolph had verbally reprimanded him before for sharing with students and employees—through email—a brochure for a prayer vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza that used the term “genocide.”
But Bowley said the postelection email was the primary reason for his firing. Regarding any other accusations, he said, “The administration spent two months trying to find other things, and they allege that there were problems in my other class.”
One accusation leveled at him was “lack of awareness of the status of assignments and grades for a course,” he said. But he wasn’t allowed to appear before a committee to answer such charges, he said, or access his emails and other documents to defend himself.
He also said he’s protested the death penalty and celebrated the legalization of gay marriage and has ended up on the news for such demonstrations.
“The idea of me pushing the envelope is me being an activist,” Bowley said. “I am an activist and people know that.”
When tenured Millsaps College professor James Bowley sent an email sharing his opinion on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, he didn’t anticipate it would result in his termination. But in a perfect storm of overreach and red tape, that’s exactly what happened.
On Nov. 6, 2024 — the day after the election — Bowley emailed the students in his “Abortion and Religions” class, canceling that day’s session to “mourn and process this racist fascist country.” With only three students in the class, Bowley got to know them quite well, including their political feelings, and knew canceling class would be best for those students. As Bowley told FIRE, “I just want to be caring and kind to my students, whom I knew would be troubled by the election.” Bowley wasn’t just trying to get out of work; he did not cancel the much larger first-year writing class session he taught that same day because he had no reason to know how those students felt about the election.
Two days later, Millsaps Provost Stephanie Rolph informed Bowley that he had been placed on temporary administrative leave pending review, for the bizarre offense of using his “Millsaps email account to share personal opinions with [his] students.”
That’s right: Millsaps didn’t take issue with Bowley canceling class (likely because they’d have to punish lots of people; professors cancel class for all sorts of reasons). The only cited reason was the use of his email to share personal opinions with students, which unsurprisingly is not an actual policy violation. That’s right: The college simply fabricated a policy violation so it could punish a professor for his speech. Frank Neville, president of the private college, has ignored hundreds of calls to reinstate Bowley, who was unable to do his job for over three months until yesterday, when he was eventually fired.
Welcome to Millsaps, a labyrinth of academic bureaucracy where personal opinions may not be shared.
Millsaps College president Frank Neville denied a committee recommendation and doubled down on Bowley’s leave being both justified and necessary, without explanation. (Barbara Gauntt / Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK)
Professor punished without due process
Everything about Bowley’s treatment goes directly against Millsaps’ own fundamental principles of “freedom of speech and expression.” While Millsaps is a private institution not bound by the First Amendment, its commitment to free speech leads any reasonable student or faculty member to believe they are being promised expressive rights that align with the First Amendment.
Courts have recognized protection for a great deal of faculty speech on matters of public concern (say, apresidentialelection) because higher education depends on the wide exposure to robust exchanges of thoughts and ideas. But Millsaps’ actions here signal that it doesn’t take its own principles seriously and is making up its own standards for free speech and expression. That’s not okay with us — and it’s unfair to the students and faculty of Millsaps.
Not only did FIRE request that Millsaps drop the investigation and reinstate Bowley, but so did more than 100 students, reportedly, (pretty impressive for a college of only about 600) and over 500 alumni. And when Bowley contested the provost’s decision to place him on leave, a grievance committee made up of faculty members determined that Millsaps couldn’t identify a single policy that Bowley had violated. The committee recommended that Bowley be reinstated immediately.
FIRE remains by Bowley’s side, fighting for his return to teaching — and his right to share his opinions with students.
The grievance committee, like FIRE, also found that Bowley was not afforded proper dueprocess. Bowley was placed on leave before receiving a hearing and final determination. By doing so, the provost created an intermediary step in the process of dismissing a professor that exists nowhere in the handbooks — all without Bowley having any prior violations or disciplinary actions taken against him.
But Neville seemed unfazed by the calls from the Millsaps community and unconvinced by the facts presented to him. On Jan. 10, Neville denied the grievance committee’s recommendation and doubled down on Bowley’s leave being both justified and necessary, without explanation.
Calls to reinstate Bowley continued, this time reaching tens of thousands of people. But that still wasn’t enough. On Jan. 14, Bowley was told in a meeting that he was fired for not exercising restraint and not clarifying that his views were not that of the college’s. To be clear: The college fired Bowley for an offense – not clarifying that his views were not that of the college’s – of which he wasn’t accused. It’s no surprise that Bowley could not extricate himself from what Millsaps made into an impossible situation.
Ferris State cannot punish professor for comedic — and now viral — video jokingly referring to students as ‘cocksuckers’ and ‘vectors of disease’
News
It’s a joke, people. But violating faculty rights is not.
Even if the college had originally charged Bowley with not clarifying that his views were not that of the college’s, his email to his class still wouldn’t qualify. Whatever interest Millsaps may have in preventing faculty from purporting to speak on its behalf does not justify automatic punishment for simply not asserting that one isn’t speaking for the college. In fact, the Supreme Court has held that a teacher could not be punished for a letter to the editor he wrote in which he identified himself as a teacher at a certain school. Just because Bowley is identified as working at Millsaps (via his faculty email), doesn’t mean his speech is transformed into speech on behalf of the college.
Millsaps cannot overcome this principle just because it wants faculty to indicate whether views expressed “are individual or those of the institution.” Nothing in Bowley’s email can reasonably be interpreted as speaking on behalf of Millsaps, as it is commonly understood that when using their college email, faculty members are speaking for themselves rather than conveying that they speak for their employer. And here, Bowley was very clearly sharing an opinion – a criticism of an election outcome – that any reasonable person would understand as being his own opinion.
Bowley told FIRE yesterday: “I love Millsaps College and even more I love my students, but censorship by an administration by definition means that it is not education anymore; it is not a legitimate college.”
FIRE remains by Bowley’s side, fighting for his return to teaching — and his right to share his opinions with students.
Staying connected with parents and the wider school community has become more important than ever. For K-12 school administrators and marketers, email marketing offers an efficient, cost-effective, and personalized approach to keeping parents informed, engaged, and connected with the school.
In this blog, we’ll explore various effective school email marketing strategies designed to help you increase parent and community engagement. When you follow the essential tips, you’ll be better equipped to build trust, maintain transparency, and foster an active school community. Let’s explore!
Our targeted email marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students.
Discover how we can enhance your recruitment strategy today!
Understanding the Importance of Email Marketing for Schools
Email marketing for schools is powerful as it allows for direct communication with the people who matter most—parents, guardians, and the wider community. In an environment where parents expect real time information, personalized content, and streamlined communication, email is the go-to method that allows you to achieve all three effectively. Parents are eager to be involved in their child’s education.
By ensuring that parents are well-informed about upcoming events, school policies, and student progress, administrators can build stronger connections between the school and the families they serve.
The benefits of email marketing don’t stop there as pictured below, an effective school email marketing strategy can offer increased brand awareness, an avenue for promoting programs and content, a great way to generate new leads, a platform for guiding new prospects down the enrollment funnel, and build relationships. The key lies in using email marketing correctly, focusing on strategies that boost engagement and build lasting relationships.
Source: Higher Education Marketing
Defining Engagement-Based Email Marketing
For schools, engagement is arguably the most crucial metric of email marketing. The success of your campaign depends on your emails being opened, read, and prompting the desired action outlined in your message.
With this in mind, What is engagement-based email marketing? Engagement-based email marketing focuses on creating emails that grab attention and encourage people to interact with them, standing out from the many emails they receive daily.
Consistency is key in engagement-based email marketing. The more frequently you send relevant messages to the right people that encourage action, the more likely you are to turn them into loyal subscribers and active members of your school community over time.
Join us as we outline ten essential tactics for cultivating the engagement that your school needs to build a stronger relationship with parents, prospects, and your community.
1. Segment Your Email List for Personalized Communication
The first step in effective email marketing is creating segmented email lists. Not all parents and community members need the same information, and delivering relevant content to each group is critical for engagement.
Segmenting your email list allows you to target the right group of parents with messages specifically designed for them. This personalization ensures that the content you send out resonates more with the audience, resulting in better engagement rates.
Segmentation is central to the email marketing function of our open-source marketing automation platform, Mautic CRM. You can segment your contacts based on a multitude of criteria including admissions stage, program, and location, ensuring that each prospect receives the right message at the right time, inciting them to take the next desired action and move down the admissions funnel.
Example: Here, you can see how Mautic’s contact segmentation function allows you to track leads based on the language they speak, whether they’ve completed a registration form for any event you’re promoting, the nature of their relationship with your school, which of your school programs interests them, and more.
Source: Higher Education Marketing | Mautic
2. Craft Clear and Engaging Subject Lines
The subject line is the first thing parents see when they receive your email, and it plays a significant role in determining whether or not they open it. When crafting subject lines, keep them concise, informative, and engaging.
Highlight the key point of the email so parents immediately know what to expect. Personalization also works wonders in subject lines—try including the recipient’s name or their child’s class to make the email feel more personal and targeted.
Example: Here, Randolph-Macon Academy writes a clear, direct subject line in one of their emails. Long, meandering subject lines with no clear indication of what your email is about are more likely to be ignored so, always aim for short and snappy. Using a humorous tone when possible is also quite effective for catching readers’ attention through subject lines.
Source: Randolph-Macon Academy
3. Use a Mobile-Friendly Email Design
In today’s busy world where many parents lead an ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle, many parents will likely read your emails on their smartphones. Therefore, optimizing your email for mobile devices is crucial.
This means using a responsive email template that automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and keeping the content concise so parents don’t have to scroll endlessly. By making your email accessible on mobile, you’re ensuring busy parents can stay informed wherever they are.
Example: Pictured below are Mautic email templates. They are compatible with desktop and mobile devices allowing you to reach parents and community members wherever they are.
Source: Higher Education Marketing | Mautic
4. Include a Call to Action (CTA) That Encourages Engagement
Every email you send should have a clear purpose, and that’s where a strong CTA comes into play. Whether it’s asking parents to RSVP for an event, complete a survey, or check out the school’s latest blog post, the CTA should be easily identifiable and action-oriented.
Effective CTAs include:
“Sign Up for the PTA Meeting Here”
“Take Our School Climate Survey”
“Download Your Child’s Homework Schedule”
The CTA should also stand out visually—consider using a button with a contrasting color or a bold link to draw attention as pictured in the example below.
Source: Randolph-Macon Academy
5. Focus on Storytelling to Build Community
Emails that tell a story are much more likely to resonate with parents than those that only provide logistical information. Consider using email marketing as an opportunity to share stories about what’s happening at your school. Highlight student achievements, community events, and teacher spotlights. You can even share testimonials from parents or alumni to build trust and show the impact your school is making.
Storytelling humanizes your school, makes the content more engaging, and fosters a deeper connection between parents and the school community.
6. Set up an Automated Welcome Series for New Parents
New parents often feel overwhelmed when joining the school community and email can be a great way to make them feel welcome and informed. Create an automated welcome email series that introduces them to the school, provides helpful resources, and invites them to important upcoming events.
The welcome series can include:
A welcome message from the principal
Information about school policies and resources
Links to important documents (e.g., school calendar)
Invitations to join parent groups or sign up for the school newsletter
This helps new parents feel engaged and informed from the start, setting the tone for a positive relationship with the school. Automation isn’t only beneficial for sending welcome messages. Mautic enables you to save time and reach the right contact by automating any type of email interaction depending on various criteria.
Example: Mautic enables you to create emails that cater to specific segments within your contact list, send messages automatically, and time them perfectly depending on the nature of the interaction. See how simple the process is in the image below.
Source: Higher Education Marketing | Mautic
7. Share Important Updates and Reminders Consistently
Consistency is key when it comes to email marketing. Sending regular updates and reminders helps keep parents informed about important dates and events, such as school holidays, parent-teacher conferences, and extracurricular activities.
You don’t need to send emails every day—weekly or bi-weekly updates can suffice. Just make sure the frequency is enough to keep parents in the loop without overwhelming them. You can also create a predictable schedule so parents know when to expect updates (e.g., a weekly newsletter every Monday morning).
8. Use Analytics to Measure Engagement and Improve Content
One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is the ability to measure engagement through analytics. Most email marketing platforms provide metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Use these insights to understand what types of content resonate most with parents.
For example:
If your open rates are low, consider experimenting with different subject lines.
If parents aren’t clicking on your CTA, try adjusting its placement or wording.
Analyzing these metrics allows you to refine your email strategy over time, ensuring that you’re always improving engagement with parents.
Example: Use Mautic Campaign Statistics to track the engagement of each email and predict the behavior of your contacts.
Source: Higher Education Marketing| Mautic
9. Incorporate Visuals and Multimedia for a More Engaging Experience
Visual content— photos, videos, and infographics—tends to capture attention more effectively than text alone. Including multimedia in your emails can make them more engaging and visually appealing. Share pictures from recent school events, videos of students’ performances, or a short introduction from a teacher.
Multimedia doesn’t just make your emails more attractive; it also provides a way to showcase what’s happening at the school, allowing parents to feel more involved even if they can’t physically be there.
10. Foster Two-Way Communication Through Surveys and Feedback Forms
Email marketing shouldn’t just be about sending information to parents—it should also be a way to collect feedback and facilitate two-way communication. The result is a more actively engaged school community that offers a host of benefits to your school brand and the education of your students.
You may be wonderfing specifically how to increase engagement through email marketing. Tryusing your email campaigns to invite parents to share their thoughts and opinions on various aspects of school life. For example, include a link to a survey asking for feedback on recent events or ask parents what topics they’d like covered in future newsletters. This approach makes parents feel that their voice matters and fosters a sense of partnership between the school and the community.
Let’s Review: The Role of Email Marketing in Parent and Community Engagement
Email marketing is a powerful tool that, when used effectively, can drive meaningful engagement between schools, parents, and the wider community. At its core, email marketing is about building trust and fostering relationships.
Schools that use email to maintain transparency with parents—sharing successes and challenges—are more likely to create an environment where parents feel comfortable getting involved. When parents trust the school, they are more likely to attend events, support fundraising efforts, and engage in their child’s education.
Use your email campaigns to provide insight into what’s happening within the school, such as new initiatives, changes in policy, or upcoming projects. By sharing this information openly, you’re helping to build a sense of trust and shared responsibility with the entire community.
The key lies in crafting relevant, personalized, and engaging content that meets parents where they are—whether that’s on their phones, at their computers, or scrolling through their inbox on a busy day.
By following the ten tips we’ve discussed so far, school administrators and marketers can create email campaigns that foster a deeper connection with parents, build trust, and ultimately enhance the overall school experience for students and families alike.
Remember that email marketing is not just about disseminating information. Rather, it’s about telling the story of your school, involving parents in their child’s education, and building a community where everyone feels valued and heard.
As you refine your email marketing strategy, keep these tips in mind and focus on delivering content that adds value, fosters engagement, and builds a lasting connection between your school and the community it serves.
Our targeted email marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students.
Discover how we can enhance your recruitment strategy today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is engagement-based email marketing?
Answer: Engagement-based email marketing focuses on creating emails that grab attention and encourage people to interact with them, standing out from the many emails they receive daily.
Question: How to increase engagement through email marketing?
Answer: Tryusing your email campaigns to invite parents to share their thoughts and opinions on various aspects of school life.
