If you work in higher ed marketing, you’ve felt it: the vocabulary of inclusion is shifting under our feet. The old shorthand — three-letter acronyms and boilerplate values — no longer signals what audiences want to hear or what institutions need to say. Advocating inclusion is a necessity; the focus now is doing it with care, clarity, credibility, and measurable impact. 

At AMA Higher Ed 2025, we’re leading a conversation about how several institutions and leaders are tackling this challenge. Our panel, Beyond the Acronyms: Evolving Inclusion in Higher Ed Marketing, brings together communicators who are rewriting their playbooks for access, belonging, and inclusive excellence.  

Instead of euphemisms, you can expect practical ideas, ethical guardrails, and a lively examination of where the field is headed next. 

Here are a few topics we’ll explore: 

1) Policy headwinds are real and uneven. State-level restrictions on DEI activities are creating a patchwork of rules that marketers must navigate without losing the plot on access and belonging. We’ll compare strategies for staying mission-true while adapting to local realities, and how to keep language human when the landscape gets legalistic.  

2) Access is increasingly difficult and confusing. The recent FAFSA overhaul introduced delays and confusion that rippled into enrollment, especially for first-generation and lower-income students. Marketers can’t fix federal forms, but we can shore up trust with nudges, plain language, and timely support that meets families where they are.  

3) AI is rewriting search and decision-making. AI has already changed how prospective students (and their parents) encounter institutional stories. That means rethinking SEO as “generative engine optimization” (GEO): clear answers, credible citations, and content designed to be summarized accurately by machines and shared by humans.  

And because inclusion is experienced, not just expressed, we’ll look at the stories and images we put into the world: whose voices get heard, what “belonging” looks like in creative, and how to pressure-test language for unintended signals.  

It’s the kind of work we live for at Yes&: human first, joyfully rigorous, and built to “unstick the stuck.”  

The panelists: 

• Andrew Teie [Moderator], SVP Strategic Planning, Yes& 

• Jeri Bingham, VP External Affairs, Prairie State College 

• Lauren Finch, Senior Director, Integrated Marketing & Communications, Chicago State University 

• Gregory Smith, Chancellor, San Diego Community College District 

• Nicole Bouknight Johnson, VP for Advancement and Communications & Executive Director, Hudson County Community College Foundation 

If you’re juggling polarized environments and enrollment pressures, this one’s for you.  

Come see the panel at AMA Higher Ed. 
Bring your questions. Leave with language, frameworks, and a few scrappy tactics you can use on Monday.