President Hank Bounds launches Twitter listening tour

‘Nebraska Talks’ invites conversations with President Bounds about NU, higher education, culminating in select invitations to Husker football game.

University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds announced today that he is launching a social media-based listening tour that will end with invitations to two Nebraskans to continue their conversations with him in person at the Husker football game against Northwestern. 

The “Nebraska Talks” tour, going on now through Sept. 30, invites Nebraskans to engage in a dialogue with Bounds – NU’s president since April 13 – via Twitter about his goals and priorities, his thoughts on higher education in Nebraska and nationally, and other topics of interest to key NU stakeholders. All Nebraskans – taxpayers, current and prospective students, parents, faculty and staff, educators, leaders in agriculture and business, civic leaders, policymakers, alumni and donors, and others – are invited to participate by submitting questions and ideas using the hashtag #PrezUnplugged. Bounds will provide responses and suggest topics on his personal Twitter account, @hankbounds.

Bounds said the “Nebraska Talks” tour is a continuation of the listening tour he began at the outset of his presidency. Bounds, a Mississippi native, spent his first week on the job on a 1,500-mile statewide tour that included stops in 20 communities and allowed him to get to know Nebraska and its people. He has since visited additional Nebraska communities and continued to meet with a diverse range of university constituents as he forms his leadership agenda.

“I’ve spent my first five months on the job listening to and learning from Nebraskans about their hopes and dreams for the University of Nebraska,” Bounds said. “While I still have much to learn, I’ve been struck by how deeply people in the state care about the future of their public university. Nebraskans share my belief that the University of Nebraska can become one of America’s great universities. This Twitter listening tour is an opportunity for me to continue my conversations with Nebraskans about how we can work together to make the University of Nebraska a giant in higher education.”

Potential discussion topics for social media discussion include NU’s efforts to ensure access and affordability, the university’s work in growing Nebraska’s economy, education and research programs across the university, the unique strengths of the four NU campuses and opportunities for cross-campus collaboration, the university’s partnerships with Nebraska’s business and agricultural communities, and the future of higher education.

At the culmination of the digital listening tour, Bounds will select two Nebraskans to continue their conversations with him in person at the Oct. 24 Husker football game against Northwestern. Those Nebraskans, each with a guest of their choice, will be invited to join Bounds in his Memorial Stadium skybox for the duration of the game. They will be selected following three rounds of evaluation: the first based on depth of their question or topic idea, the second based on thoughtfulness, creativity and relevance, and the third based on opportunity for continued, meaningful discussion in-person.

To participate in “Nebraska Talks,” Nebraskans should tweet questions and topics of conversation to @hankbounds using #PrezUnplugged. Official contest rules are available here.

For more information about President Bounds, visit www.nebraska.edu/president.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA

The University of Nebraska is the state’s only public university and has served Nebraskans through teaching, research and outreach and engagement for nearly 150 years. The university’s four campuses—including a leading Big Ten institution in Lincoln, a metropolitan university in Omaha, an undergraduate-focused campus in Kearney, and a world-renowned academic health science center with branches around the state—are home to 51,000 students and 13,000 faculty and staff. Through them, the University of Nebraska is working to be a catalyst for change—in the lives of people it serves and as a giant in higher education, nationally and around the world. 

ABOUT PRESIDENT HANK BOUNDS

On April 13, 2015, Dr. Hank M. Bounds became the seventh president of the University of Nebraska. Dr. Bounds has spent his career working to change students’ lives in the same way education transformed his own life. He began as a high school teacher, then rose to principal, superintendent and state superintendent before becoming Mississippi’s commissioner of higher education, where he oversaw a complex system of eight public universities enrolling about 85,000 students. Dr. Bounds earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi and a doctorate from the University of Mississippi. He and his wife, Susie, are the parents of a son, Will, and daughter, Caroline.