I’m both sad and happy to announce that Will Hoagland, our advertising adviser and sales manager, is leaving WKU Student Publications after five years to work for Fruit of the Loom at the corporate headquarters doing data analytics for Fruit’s online operation.
We truly hate to lose Will, but it’s a terrific opportunity for him. He’s done a fantastic job building and rebuilding the advertising staff and keeping pace as we reorganized to launch Cherry Creative, our branded content studio, and to keep track of an ever-growing menu of advertising and sponsorship opportunities we can offer clients wanting to reach the WKU market.
Will has been advertising adviser during one of the most challenging times for all media, professional or college. The pandemic destroyed a number of advertisers and also kicked evolution into high gear for college media. At the same time, WKU has been going through major, annual budget cuts that have dramatically affected university advertising.
Those challenges helped stoke our creative juices. During his tenure, Will worked with Sam Oldenburg and Carrie Pratt to successfully launch the WKU Housing Fair, the Best of the Hill Festival and a wide variety of specialty publications that replaced our old special sections that the College Heights Herald used to produce, and to help the Herald adapt to a new world where its main distribution vehicle has become a daily email newsletter with the print edition moving toward a monthly newsmagazine.
But the best things Will brought to our professional staff were a great attitude, a sense of teamwork and a genuinely friendly spirit of collaboration. We will miss him, and wish him the best as he starts his new role Jan. 3. Will’s last day at Student Pubs will be Dec. 17.
Meantime, we have a job to fill. If you’re interested, or know someone who’d be great as our advertising adviser and sales manager, here’s the job posting: https://wku.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdetails.jsp?JOBID=140160