A practical guide to scaling family engagement with campus partners, AI, and CampusESP
The challenge student success teams are facing isn’t figuring out what information families need. It’s gathering that information, turning it into communication that is accurate and personalized, and making sure it reaches families so they can help their student find opportunities, use resources, meet deadlines, and complete important next steps
Keeping all of that moving year-round can strain a small team, especially a team of one. And there is one more ball to keep in the air: frequency. 77% of families want to hear from their student’s college weekly or more.
The strategies in this best practices guide come from our conversation with Morgan Chavez-Brannon, Program Director at Texas Tech University, and Billy Ratz, Director of First-Year Experience and Family Programs at Webster University.
Both found repeatable ways to scale family engagement with CampusESP, reducing manual work while building strategies that fit the way their teams already operate. (Prefer to tune into the conversation? Jump to the recording below!)
How campus partners help scale family engagement
Campus partnerships may have crossed your mind before, then felt too daunting to pull off. At Texas Tech, they became essential when the university’s family audience grew to nearly 40,000 people. The team could not keep scaling by pulling updates from department websites, chasing campus contacts, and double-checking every message before it went out.
Texas Tech started with the offices already hearing from families about billing, financial aid, housing, academics, and health. The pitch was simple: Help us educate families proactively so your team can spend less time answering the same questions.
Morgan offered options so that these campus partners can contribute in whatever way works best for them. Some post directly in CampusESP using a permissions-based content contributor log in. Others email her an update or complete a simple form, and Morgan’s team turns it into family-facing communication.
“Not everybody wants to be logging into another account,” Morgan explained. “They don’t want to have to be thinking about those things.”
Over time, partners started to see the impact. After a communication to families about summer staff positions at the university, 20% of applicants said a parent or family member told them about the opportunity. Countdown to Midterms, an event that brings tutoring, writing support, and coaching together for first-year and transfer students, also saw higher attendance after families were added to the outreach.
With CampusESP, Morgan’s team can bring reliable updates from across campus into one central experience and share them through the family portal, email, and newsletters.
Use ready-to-send content to reduce manual work
Campus partners can provide institution-specific updates, but families still need guidance through move-in, midterms, financial aid deadlines, registration, breaks, and finals.
At Webster University, that responsibility falls largely to Billy as a team of one. The CampusESP Content Network helps him keep communication moving while supporting nearly 7,000 current families and sending more than 444,000 emails in one year.
The AI-powered CampusESP Content Network brings together content from Webster’s website and expert resources, giving Billy a steady stream of foundational content he can review, personalize, and approve.
“CampusESP has really allowed us to focus more on the messaging we want to because CampusESP takes care of everything else,” Billy explained. “I really see CampusESP as an extension of my team.”
CampusESP created 69% of Webster’s family content, while Billy spent about two hours per week managing the portal. That gave him more time to create the communication only he could write.
Four of Webster’s ten most-viewed posts came from “Billy’s Blog,” his monthly series combining campus-specific reminders, practical advice, and his own personality.
Use AI to scale family communication
Billy admitted he was not immediately sold on AI. “I was one of those people who was like, ‘I hate AI,’ until I started working with the AI system in the CampusESP platform.”
You may still feel the same way, but it’s easier to embrace when it’s built into the tools your team already uses and applied to work you are already doing.
ESP Sense™ AI-powered workflows are integrated directly into CampusESP. At Webster, Billy can create a first draft, adjust the tone or length, rewrite student-facing content for families, translate messages, and turn emails into text messages without recreating the content for every channel.
Then there is Big Ed, Webster’s Family AI Assistant. Big Ed answers family questions around the clock, including the late-night questions that might otherwise sit in Billy’s inbox until the following morning. Billy called it his “new BFF” and “a huge lifesaver,” especially as a team of one balancing family programs with support for first-year, transfer, and international students.
Learn more about CampusESP’s Family AI Assistant
Build family connection without creating another inbox
Scaling family engagement is not only about sending more information. It also means creating trusted spaces where families can ask questions, exchange advice, and hear directly from people who know the answer.
CampusESP’s Discussion Boards give families a place to connect and get trusted information without every question falling to your team. Morgan and Billy were both concerned that the boards might recreate the chaos of a parent Facebook group. Their experience has been the opposite.
“It’s super easy to manage,” Morgan shared. “Most of our families are really just asking for advice from each other.”
At Texas Tech, verified profiles also gave campus partners confidence to join the conversation. Housing and Student Health Services now use the boards to introduce their teams, answer questions, and share accurate information directly with families.
At Webster, Billy often gives upperclass families the chance to respond first.
“Families become an extension of our team,” he explained. AI moderation flags anything that needs his attention, allowing him to stay mostly hands-off. His verdict? “It’s a non-stress version of what we all used to deal with on Facebook.”
