From January through April of 2019, a small team of Kenyon students will work with marketing and communications firm Fahlgren Mortine to advertise for the Philander Chase Conservancy.

These students will spend about five hours per week collaborating on the “project-based learning opportunity,” according to the job description on Symplicity. Aside from two mandatory visits to the Fahlgren Mortine office in Columbus, Ohio, the group will meet independently at Kenyon to write advertisements and create digital marketing tools.

Lisa Schott, the managing director of the Conservancy, says that she received a handful of applications before the Nov. 11 deadline, all of which look strong. She anticipates selecting three or four students for the job.

The position does not count for academic credit and is unpaid. Schott says that she discussed this aspect of the job at length with the Career Development Office and Neil Mortine, the president and CEO of Fahlgren Mortine. “I think the benefits probably pretty much speak for themselves,” Schott said.

“The mentoring, the exposure to a top marketing agency, the experience [the students] will receive and the strength it will give their resumes are the values of the experience. We [the Conservancy] operate on a shoestring budget and do not have the resources currently to fund internships,” Schott elaborated in a later email.

Since its founding in 2000, the Philander Chase Conservancy has preserved over 5,300 acres of land within a five-mile radius of Gambier. The Conservancy, which is a nonprofit organization, also oversees the Kokosing Nature Preserve, a natural burial ground on Quarry Chapel Road.

Mortine’s agency worked with the Kenyon Institute before its merger with the Kenyon Review in 2017. He serves on the Conservancy’s board of directors. His client history includes a wide range of organizations across the United States, such as McDonald’s, Pelotonia, the West Virginia Lottery and the Ohio Attorney General.

Schott hopes that this collaborative opportunity will mark the beginning of a new stage in the Philander Chase Conservancy’s development. “We’ve been so busy protecting land,” she said. “We need to start getting the word out about what we do.”