Clarity Is a Retention Strategy. When Everyone Owns Communication, No One Does.

By Andrew M. Vasquez, M.P.A., PMP
Founder & Principal Consultant, AMV Consulting
Leadership. Enrollment. Student Success.

Communication failures in higher education are rarely caused by a lack of effort.

People send emails.
Leaders want to be helpful.
Information moves quickly.

And yet students still receive conflicting messages, incomplete guidance, or no response at all.

When that happens, the problem is not volume. It is ownership.

When everyone owns communication, no one does.

A lesson from a moment of urgency

Years ago, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked in a large public university environment navigating emergency student relief funding.

The intent was good. Federal relief money was coming, and leaders across multiple departments wanted to make sure students knew help was on the way.

What followed was not coordination — it was simultaneity.

Several department heads sent messages to students within a short window. Each communication described the relief funding slightly differently. The dollar amounts varied. Eligibility criteria were interpreted inconsistently. Timelines were framed with different levels of certainty.

No single message was reckless. But together, they created confusion.

Students compared emails side by side and noticed the discrepancies. Panic followed. Phones lit up. Inboxes flooded. Staff across units scrambled to answer questions they were not prepared to resolve.

The issue was not misinformation. It was unowned communication.

Good intentions do not create clarity

In moments of urgency, institutions often default to action over alignment.

Leaders want to be responsive.
Departments want to protect their students.
No one wants to be the bottleneck.

But when communication ownership is diffused, speed amplifies confusion.

Each sender assumes their message will be contextualized by others. Students, however, experience messages sequentially and literally. They do not see coordination. They see contradiction.

In the COVID relief example, students were not confused because they were inattentive. They were confused because the system spoke with multiple voices and no clear narrator.

Students are not confused — they are triangulating

When students receive conflicting information, they adapt.

They forward emails between offices.
They ask multiple staff members the same question.
They try to determine which message carries authority.

This behavior is often interpreted as persistence. In reality, it is compensatory labor.

Students are doing integration work the institution did not design for.

During the relief funding rollout, students were not trying to game the system. They were trying to make sense of it. The burden of reconciliation fell on them — and on frontline staff caught in the middle.

More communication made the problem worse

The institutional response to the confusion was predictable.

Clarification emails were sent.
FAQs were updated.
Additional messages followed.

But without clear ownership, each correction introduced new variables. Communication volume increased, but coherence did not.

This is a common pattern. When communication fails, institutions add more communication instead of addressing structure.

Noise increases. Trust erodes.

Ownership is what creates coherence

Clear communication requires answering a single question before anything is sent:

Who is responsible for the student-facing story?

Not who knows the policy best.
Not who controls the funds.
Who ensures that what students receive is accurate, consistent, and complete.

In the relief funding case, once communication ownership was centralized, the panic subsided. Messaging stabilized. Staff had a reference point. Students regained confidence.

The fix was not better wording. It was clear ownership.

The downstream cost of unowned communication

Communication failures rarely appear in reports as communication issues.

They show up as:

• Missed deadlines

• Emergency overrides

• Escalations

• Burnout among frontline staff

In the COVID relief scenario, staff absorbed enormous emotional labor calming students, correcting misinformation, and enforcing rules they had not designed or communicated.

This is how unclear communication ownership contributes to both student attrition and staff exhaustion.

Communication is a design problem

It is tempting to attribute communication breakdowns to individuals.

Someone sent an email too soon.
Someone interpreted policy differently.
Someone failed to loop others in.

But when the same breakdown occurs across units and leaders, the problem is not behavior. It is design.

Communication systems need:

• Explicit ownership

• Clear approval pathways

• Agreed-upon language

• Defined timing

Without these, even highly competent leaders will produce inconsistent outcomes — especially under pressure.

What students remember

Students may forget policy details. They do not forget how uncertainty made them feel.

In moments of crisis, clarity is not a luxury. It is reassurance.

When everyone communicates, students hear chaos.
When someone owns communication, students hear confidence.

Leadership is not about speaking the loudest or the fastest. It is about ensuring the system speaks coherently.

When everyone owns communication, no one does.

Let’s build momentum togethor.