Creativity and Public Relations

Tom Wilson, actually a University of Maryland alumnus, is the head of admissions and director of public relations at Washington Christian Academy in Olney, Maryland. Washington Christian Academy is a school that is Kindergarten through senior high school, and it has been around for over fifty years. However, the school just relocated to a new building in Olney, and need more students to fill the building and also pay for the new facilities through tuition. This is where Mr. Wilson comes in. It is his job to draw people to Washington Christian Academy, and turn prospective student into actual students. I graduated from Washington Christian Academy last year, and got to know Mr. Wilson well during my two years at the school. He is very good at what he does, and has found very creative ways to get people interested in the school.
One thing that Mr. Wilson says that he loves about his job is the free reign that he has been given by his superiors. One very effective way that he has gotten a lot of people interested in Washington Christian Academy are open houses that prospective students and their parents attend, which are held twice a month. Mr. Wilson got the okay from staff and faculty to take several students from different grades out of class during these open houses, to greet people at doors, show them around, or just answer questions. This personal approach has been incredibly effective, and enrollment has more than doubled at the school since Mr. Wilson became the head of admissions two and a half years ago. This is just one example of how Mr. Wilson has changed up the admissions and public relations departments at Washington Christian Academy.
However, Mr. Wilson says that there are times when he feels limited creatively. He says that while he has changed a lot of things at WCA or has updated them, the school has been around for such a long time that sometimes his ideas are shot down when they contradict the tradition of the school. He also says that sometimes when his department overlaps with another department, he has to conform his ideas in some ways in order to come to a consensus- especially when he is dealing with accounting and budgeting. Mr. Wilson says that when issues or problems come up in his department, sometimes he can have trouble getting in touch with his superior. While he does like the free reign that his superior gives him, sometimes it can be frustrating as well, because he bears much of the responsibility. This can be a good thing if an idea that comes to fruition is successful, but if it is not very successful, this can be hard. His superior is the headmaster of the school, who also teaches a few classes and so he is very busy, and it takes Mr. Wilson a long time to get a meeting set up with him. However, Mr. Wilson says that his ways with dealing with issues, when brought to his superior, have been received incredibly well, as his superior sees this as one of Mr. Wilson’s strengths. Mr. Wilson is very good at what he does, and has found new ways to bring people into the Washington Christian Academy community because of this.
I probably could have been a little bit more professional during my interview. I am very comfortable around Mr. Wilson because I helped out a lot at the open houses I mentioned before, and he is a family friend. I did not take many notes during the interview because I thought eye contact would be more important, but this proved to be rather detrimental later, as there were some very good things that he said that I did not write down. I also found it a little bit hard to transition from the usual social niceties to the interview itself, and need to find a way to do this that is not so abrupt.