Figure 1: Houghton College in New York

Figure 2: Warner Pacific College in Portland, OR

Remember the city mouse and the country mouse? These cousins planned a visit to one another’s homes. When the city mouse visited the country, he found the deafening quietness and the presence of an army of farm cats far too unsettling. Likewise, the country mouse’s visit to his city cousin’s house was a disaster marked by noise, traffic and dangers he’d never encountered before. Each determined, like Dorothy of Kansas, that there was “no place like home.” Perhaps we all are inclined to feel like that. What we are accustomed to, what is familiar, is what is good.

Yet in a technologically advanced world, how is home—or place—relevant anymore? And when it comes to education that now can be readily delivered in living rooms and offices, with students in suits or pajamas, how does place fit into the marketing mix?

Those who argue that place is meaningless may be limiting the understanding of how place can significantly influence the educational experience. Certainly if we think of education as a lecture hall or classroom filled with desks that are occupied for 50 to 90 minutes each session, perhaps location has no bearing. Maybe that same lecture can be delivered via a monitor just as effectively, and certainly more cost-efficiently.

But if we are doing the real work of education—of mind-stretching experiences, of horizon-broadening encounters—shouldn’t place be a factor of paramount importance? Perhaps our assumption that encounters in the “real world” are outside the constraints of the university, or at least not part of academe’s responsibility, are misguided. Certainly anxiety-driven parents, government and corporations don’t hold to that thinking. They want graduates prepared to engage in civic vitality. They want a smart workforce. Contributing citizens. And kids that don’t return home after college. And even students seek the confidence to stand alone once they leave the protection of hallowed halls. Place can make the difference if we allow engagement with our surroundings to happen.

Practical experience, internships, service learning and the like are de rigueur offerings, but as we visit campuses across the country, we still sense resistance. “Oh those things are fine for the kids, but that’s not where the real learning happens” isn’t that uncommon a confessed sentiment. Professional activity is still seen as an invasion of sacred space.

Even if it is an invasion, and your institution wants nothing to do with professional development, engagement at the place of your school can be part of the transformative power of learning. The campus environment you deliver, the town-gown relations you create and the opportunities you provide students to interact as responsible citizens with your neighbors all validate the position that place can matter.

For most institutions, in fact, place is the differentiating factor of marketing opportunity. Whether it’s the surrounding opportunities, the culture or the scenery—or only the convenience—your place will commonly be the deciding factor for a donor or prospective student.

Last year, Bill Gates prophesied that within five years place would be irrelevant in regard to educating children. Computers are miracles of accessibility, and certainly technology opens the door to the insignificance of locale—but only if we’re sufficiently unimaginative to seize the opportunities directly under our feet.

Let’s be more open than those mousey cousins and at least get outside and enjoy the neighborhood.

Here’s an exercise for your team: Name at least 10 specific opportunities that your distinctive location affords the learning experience that your institution offers. Which three of these are most distinctive to your college or university? In what ways is placesignificant for your brand and marketing?

-Rick Bailey is the principal and founder of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and author of Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World). Follow him on Twitter @RichardHBailey.