Behind the Conversation: Higher Ed Icons Episode #3 with Joe Master
"We did this and then we did that and it was raining and the river was rising. I was not scared. And then we drank wine."
Joe Master doing his best Hemingway. Or his worst, depending on how you look at it — which is exactly the point.
Joe tried to write like Hemingway Like Faulkner. Like Joan Didion and Flannery O'Connor. He wanted their precision, their economy, their authority. He realized that he was dressing up in the clothes of literary giants. It was a place to start, but not the place to end.
He's not alone in that instinct. Most of us start by reaching for someone else's voice. The problem is that a lot of institutions never get past it. They see a brand that's working — sharp, specific, unmistakable — and they want that. So they study it. Borrow from it. Sand off the edges that might make anyone uncomfortable. And what comes out sounds like everyone else in the sector, because almost everyone else in the sector is saying the same thing:
An institution at which you will not just be a number but an actual person to be seen, heard, and valued.
Professors who are leaders in their field AND who know your name and are committed to your personal success.
Experiential learning that prepares you for a long and successful career.
A campus that lies at the intersection of bucolic safety BUT close to an urban metropolis where futures are made and deals are done.
Opportunities to develop leadership skills outside of the classroom and explore your interests … wherever they may lead.
Friends that you will make for life and experiences that you will continually look back on as “the best days of your life.”
A thriving and proud alumni network that will have your back from “day one.”
Promises that are table stakes, not distinctions.
Joe eventually found his voice. And I've been thinking about how ever since we sat down together on Higher Ed Icons.
His origin story is not what necessarily what you'd expect from one of the sharpest brand strategists in higher education. He studied English and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. His first job out of college was covering nightlife for a New Jersey newspaper — bartending and writing reverent rock-and-roll reviews of cover bands on the Jersey shore. He went on to a medical publisher. Then he found higher ed. I think many of us come to higher ed sideways. We stay because, well, we fall in love with and believe in this community and our work.
But Joe’s real origin story starts earlier. Third grade, to be precise. He wrote a story about the epic battle between potato chips and pretzels. Mrs. Spicer, his teacher, liked it so much she started making popcorn so the class could listen while he read. He thought, “Maybe I should be a writer.”
God bless Mrs. Spicer. She didn't assign a grade as much as she created an audience. She recognized something true in that kid's point of view and made space for it to be heard. That's not a small thing. That's the whole thing. Because what Joe has spent his career doing — for institutions that are willing to do the hard work — is exactly that. Finding the thing that's already true, making space for it, and building an audience to listen and care.
Expressing a brand isn't about invention, finding a clever tagline, or hiring an agency to hand you a strategy. It's about introspection and excavation. It's about getting honest enough, and brave enough, to say the thing your institution actually believes — and then saying it the same way, everywhere, for long enough that people start to believe you mean it.
Joe put it simply on the show: branding is uncovering that institutional voice and becoming a reliable narrator to share your stories with the world.
Some 30 years later, Mrs. Spicer would still recognize that kid who instinctively knew how to make audiences lean in.
And for the record — CLEARLY, the potato chips won.