MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Auburn University basketball great, Olympic gold medal winner and former NBA MVP Charles Barkley has partnered with the Alabama Community College System for a new marketing campaign, ACCS staff touted this week.
Details of the new partnership were shared with members of the ACCS Board of Trustees during their monthly meeting in Montgomery. Ebony Horton, director of communications and marketing, said Barkley will help lead a marketing campaign centered around the system’s new slogan “make life better.”
“Everything we do truly does make life better for our communities, and our communications team isn’t the only one that believes this,” Horton said. “We’ve been able to secure the confidence of Olympic star and internationally known analyst Charles Barkley to share our story.”
Barkley will act as an ACCS spokesperson and appear in ACCS advertisements and commercials.
Board members were then shown a video of Barkley promoting the new ACCS marketing campaign, during which the 11-time NBA All-Star stressed the importance of education to securing quality employment.
“The first step to making your life better is education, so being part of the community college system is going to be a big deal for me,” Barkley said in the video. “They’ve got the education, and this system is out here really trying to inspire young kids, and that’s all I want to do. We can all learn; make life better.”
Details on to what extent Barkley will participate in the marketing campaign are still being finalized, Horton told Alabama Daily News.
“What we have right now is a yes, that he is able and excited to be a team member to support the message that Alabama’s community colleges serve residents all over the state from all walks of life,” she told ADN.
“Now, how that partnership evolves, we’re still setting in stone some of the foundational pieces, and (are) excited and willing to work however he believes that message can get across.”
Horton said Barkley pledged to provide “over a million dollars’ worth of service,” to the system, on top of a separate $1 million donation pledge to the ACCS.
“He has offered publicly to donate a million dollars to the community college system,” she told ADN. “His support in other capacities, he’s not charged a dime for, so we are so grateful for his support.”
Barkley’s partnership with ACCS was first made public late last month, however, Wednesday was the first meeting of the ACCS Board of Trustees in which members were briefed on the partnership.
Alabama’s 24 community and technical colleges across 130 locations currently have the largest enrollment in the last decade, with more than 170,000 students enrolled in for-credit, workforce development and basic education courses as of August. According to the ACCS, Alabama’s community colleges have an annual economic impact of about $6.6 billion.
Alabama lawmakers allocated the ACCS nearly $587 million in the Education Trust Fund budget for the current fiscal year, a $35.6 million increase over the previous fiscal year.