CAMRY DEAN
Staff Writer
Just six weeks before students were due to campus for the semester on July 6, Jeffrey Woodard sat down at his desk for his first day of being Fredonia’s new Director of Marketing and Communications.
Woodard, an alumni of SUNY Fredonia, graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science in communications. Since 2008, Woodard had been working as the Director of News and the Information Center at WGRZ-TV in Buffalo.
“He described it to us as his dream job,” Virginia Horvath, president of Fredonia recalls. “He always wanted to come back to Fredonia and work here.”
It’s always special when an alumni student returns to dedicate their work to the university where everything started.
“The atmosphere here is as friendly and welcoming as it was when I was here as a student,” Woodard said. “I had a long, successful career in television. My long-run was in Buffalo. I’ve spoken a couple of times on campus, and I’ve loved coming back. This was a place where, if an opportunity ever came up, I’d take a shot at it. And it did, and I did.”
After working in the fast-paced region of Buffalo, Woodard believes he can bring his experience from both knowing the area as a student and as director of news at WGRZ-TV to Fredonia to help get our stories across New York and beyond. While hoping to reach out to a larger demographic of prospective Fredonia students, Woodard plans to use the same audiences that were utilized at his time in Buffalo.
“The speed of the job is different, but there are a lot of similarities with what we did there to what we need to do here,” he said. “And that is to market and brand the University to a larger audience using digital platforms and being much more focused on video and digital content versus just the traditional publications.
“People love it here, but for people who aren’t from the area and don’t know Fredonia and don’t plan on making the trip out here, we need to bring the campus to them. Bring it to life on all of our platforms,” he said.
In terms of campus life, Horvath and Woodard both explained that Fredonia and its residents all have unique perspectives to offer.
“He and I are in agreement that we have a wonderful story to tell here about the students that we have, about the faculty that we have, [and] the staff we have and what they do every day,” Horvath said. “That is our story.”
Having worked in a bigger media outlet, Horvath is also very confident in Woodard being the spokesperson for Fredonia if a crisis ever struck. If something were to ever happen that called for a large media presence on campus, Woodard is more than qualified to handle any pressing situations.
“I really have confidence in his ability to manage that because he’s been on the other side. He knows what the reporters need. He knows if [the press] comes and they’re looking for something, he knows how to give them what they need and still protect the interests of the institution,” Horvath explained. “That’s the person who is in front of the camera first, and I have a lot of confidence in him.”
Woodard also plans to utilize social media platforms and digital media to keep the campus connected if ever there were a crisis in order to protect and aid the students.
Over the next few months, Woodard will be working on ways to tell Fredonia’s story, and urges anyone with a special story to tell to reach out.
“I want to tell all of your stories so if anyone has one, send me an email,” he said. “Find me on Facebook or any of our social media accounts.”