About this Blog

The HiceSchool blog is produced and managed by Joe Hice, APR, CPRC, MA, MBA.  That would be me, Senior Associate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the University of South Florida System.  APR means I am Accredited in Public Relations.  CPRC means I am a Certified Public Relations Counselor.  Those serious about the public relations profession earn these designations after working in the industry for a while.  You’ve got to pass a competency test to receive them and demonstrate a continued effort towards professional development to maintain.  MA and MBA are the degrees I hold from  institutes of higher education (UF and Wisconsin respectively.)  And yes, you’ve got to pass a lot of tests to use them too.

While faculty, staff, students and family  are invited to contribute to www.hiceschool.com, others may contribute as well.  Really, anybody who feels like commenting is welcome.  You’ll probably see comments from my wife and kids, my brother and sister, friends and lots of other totally unbiased observers.  You’ll also see photographs of the circus dogs who are part of the family.  A cat may appear from time to time as well, though the cats are much more elusive.

I arrived at USF in September 2017, after a 23 1/2-month stint at Enterprise Florida, the state’s lead economic development organization.  At EFI we created the Florida, The Future is Here campaign, but I’ve got to be honest, it was one of the most stressful experiences in my life.  Political infighting is all I can say about that.  The work we did earned national and international acclaim from organizations dedicated to economic development and we were involved in projects that attracted more than 50,000 high paid jobs to Florida.

Prior to Enterprise Florida, I worked at Moffitt Cancer Center, NC State University and  with my Alma mater, the University of Florida in Gainesville.  My real claim to fame at Florida is the UF branding campaign, better known as The Gator Nation.  I was also well known by the Dean of Students when I attended UF, but that was so long ago no one remembers.  I served as a writer for the Independent Florida Alligator student newspaper and was also a student senator way back when.  When friends from my MBA program found out I was pledge trainer for my fraternity (SAE), I earned the nickname Blutarsky.  Only people from Wisconsin use that though.

I also worked for Harley-Davidson, Segway and Sea-Doo.  I’ll incorporate some of those experiences from time to time in my posts.

The main objective of  HiceSchool is to provide comments on life in Tampa, as well as to provide information about the ins and outs of higher education marketing and communications.  You’ll also hear about my philosophies on marketing and communications, motorcycles, cities, states and more.  Also, since there are about 300 million blog sites on the web, the name is a transparent attempt to be memorable.

I welcome your fawning comments and suggestions about HiceSchool and hope you’ll share your thoughts, or at least the funny, original, non-slanderous ones, on the blog itself as well as on the individual posts on the site.

While I will attempt to update the blog on a regular basis, no promises about their frequency will be made.  I hope you find the commentary at HiceSchool somewhat interesting and of redeeming social value. If not, the post that follows will probably be more interesting.

Next time you’re in Tampa look for me. I’ll be the guy walking the little dogs (Hominy, Grits and Jackson) around Temple Terrace. with the really cute wife!