Student Affairs Communications Group Minutes
February 11, 2015
Attendance: Kami Hammerschmith, Brianna McNall, Kent Sumner, Majeed
Badizadegan, Wendy Little, Colleen Schlonga, Lisa Hoogesteger, Carolyn Boyd, Sophie
Wilson, Katie Figoni, Michele Ribeiro, Vanessa Johnson, Jennifer Viña, Sarah Norek,
Nancy Raskauskas, Michael McDonald, Linda Howard, Natalie Schell, Ruth Sterner,
Raphelle Rhoads
Next meeting of the Student Affairs Communications Group will be Wednesday,
February 25, 2015, 9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m., MU Council Room. Topic: First-Year
Experience communications planning with Carolyn Boyd, Student Affairs
Communications and Marketing Director.
Today
Carolyn reminded attendees that the IMC Network meeting is this morning from
10:30-Noon in the MU Joyce Powell Leadership Center. She also mentioned that Rob
and Carl are working on a matrix relating to marijuana legislation. It is not done yet,
but she will distribute it with talking points when completed.
Susie Brubaker-Cole will be visiting us at 10 this morning. Carolyn plans to share the
Student Affairs Communications Group video that Kent and Wendy created for their
fall conference. Susie would like to hear ways we are collaborating on marketing. She
will discuss her communications and marketing priorities and barriers.
Michael McDonald with the Career Development Center presented on Marketing Best
Practices. He shared a Powerpoint presentation.
We started with introductions including each person’s marketing responsibilities.
Michael passed around some books to share:
• Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton
• Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
• Layout Essentials by Beth Tondreau
• Information Design Handbook by Jenn & Ken Visocky O’Grady (good for annual
report design)
• The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier
• Brand Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming by Ellen Lupton
• Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara
• How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy
He recommended not thinking like a marketer, but to think like a designer. Use
human-centered design instead of marketing thinking.
What is Good Design? (10 principles)
1. Innovative
2. Makes a product useful
3. Aesthetic
4. Makes something understandable
5. Unobtrusive
6. Honest
7. Long-lasting
8. Thorough down to the last detail
9. Environmentally friendly
10. Is as little design as possible
Less is More. Less (but better) is More.
He showed a poster design example quickly and then asked us what it was about.
Then he showed the same poster redesigned and asked us what it was about. The
redesign highlighted the hierarchy of visual items and text. The more important
something is, the bigger it should be. Also, use white space.
Michael passed around a notebook of Career Services Design work for the last 10
years.
He showed a video on Helvetica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDLPAE9wLEU
The video talks about clean design and advertising practices in the 60’s. Michael
Bierut is a graphic designer and his point is that simple is important.
Michael discussed the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Simplicity should be a
key goal in design. Avoid unnecessary complexity. Try to stand out from the chaos.
Michael then presented a marketing update on Career Services.
Part I – A new name. They are now known as the Career Development Center.
Part II – A new look. Career development should inform our new look (form should
follow function). Career development is complicated. It’s a puzzle, a map, a to-do list,
fine, it’s circular then, well what about a trail?
Their goals – flexible, scalable, form follows function.
Michael looked at the University Relations and Marketing icons to tie to the University
brand. He created a visual for the department.
Career Development is Connections.
The Career Development Center.
Beaver Nation Connected.
Now he will begin working on measuring the effectiveness of the new look in
marketing. He wants to unify the visuals.
He involved the entire staff in different points of the process of redesign. It took about
2.5 months.
Michael has a team of three student interns – graphic design intern, marketing intern
and social media intern.
Michael said the essential pieces of a poster include a call to action, the brand and, if
you use a photo, give it the appropriate space. He pointed out that the IMC website
has photos we can use.
Michael handed out new Career Development Center branded materials to share with
Communications Group members.
Kent said the group that hires graphic designers together will be hiring soon for 201516. If you would like to be a part of the hiring group, email Kent.
Lisa asked what the difference is between new media and social media? A few
responded stating that titles are changing. New media usually includes
multimedia/digital content creation. New media is used a little more on our campus,
because of the New Media Communications academic department.
For the second half of the meeting Susie Brubaker-Cole, Vice Provost of Student
Affairs, joined us. Carolyn shared the Student Affairs Communications Group video
that Kent and Wendy created. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfjbBzjISjY
Carolyn shared with Susie and the group where we are going next. This was from her
earlier Powerpoint presented at the January 14 meeting. The four areas include:
• Communications & Marketing Director will check in each term to get an overview of
major departmental projects.
• Regularly scheduled division-wide meetings with representation from every
department. First one on March 11, time TBA.
• Create bi-annual planning committee to establish learning themes, areas of focus for
division-wide meetings and speaker topics.
• Utilize meetings for broad learning and professional development opportunities, and
to keep communications personnel informed about division priorities and University
Relations & Marketing campaigns.
Susie shared comments in relation to bullet 4 above. As we use meetings for learning
and development, we should identify if we need funding for anything to help this
group with professional development. Is there a resource we would like to bring to
campus that could be a valuable investment in our work?
In regards to bullet 3 above, we might consider the Future Thinking Grants that Susie
sent an email about. They are up to $5,000 for thinking about the future. We might
look at future communication plans. Do we have a grant we could submit?
Susie shared her communications priorities. We live in a complex era of
communications – an ever-changing environment. It is challenging to see how we can
best communicate with students. She recognizes how difficult it is to overcome the
fragmentation of campus. Students say they don’t know where to get information. She
spoke with a group of leadership students and they identified that fragmentation is an
issue on campus. Susie acknowledged how big this challenge is campus-wide. She
said this group helps close the gaps in communication.
She has seen collaboration between departments in her first six months in the Vice
Provost role.
She sees this not as just a marketing/communications issue, but programming and
organizational structure issues, as well.
She has a vision for an increasingly synergistic approach across the Division and
across campus for communication efforts. There are already models for how this can
happen.
She sees the web presence of Student Affairs as the cornerstone for communication. A
primary project that Carolyn will be working on is the creation of a Student Experience
web page. Both the Provost and academic advisors also want to see this created.
Her goals for the website include:
1) Overarching alignment with research on student success. Students are more
successful when engaged on campus. The website should present the student
experience as holistic to increasing student involvement and engagement. It should be a
richer platform for students to create connections from classroom learning to outsideclass experiences.
2) The site should be inspiring for students, compelling them to take action to get
involved.
3) A virtual Beaver Nation. The experience belonging to Beaver Nation through
interaction with the website. It should be dynamic and compelling.
A question is what should the online student experience be at OSU? What is it? We want
to contribute to the positive online environment.
4) The site should be designed for student access – how students experience campus
and experience the institution. You should be able to interact in a way that you need no
advance knowledge of the structures of the university. It should not have a hierarchy in
the navigation structure. It needs to fit for students and be intuitive in allowing them to
find what they want.
5) It should be a central building block representing the philosophy and approach for
reaching out to students. It should create patterns in student minds about how they get
information.
Nancy mentioned that the lack of a solid university calendar is a big obstacle for
departments and students. She also mentioned the OSU website search needs
improvement. It does not make it easy for students to find what they are looking for.
Michael suggested possibly looking at mobile first, so a student doesn’t have to be at a
physical computer to access the information.
Kent suggested thinking about ways we do business. As an example if he wants to buy
tickets to an event, he buys them on his phone, but on campus students must pickup or
purchase tickets to an event in a physical office.
Sophie asked if there is another school that has a website like Susie talked about? Susie
and Carolyn said they had not seen an exact model, as most were tied to an
organizational chart. Carolyn showed a site from Northeastern that she likes.
http://www.northeastern.edu/experiential-learning/co-op/
Carolyn said this site blends information and inspiration. It has info-graphics and short
blurbs. It is engaging.
It was pointed out the website would need to be the top-level student experience
website. Susie said she would work with University Relations and Marketing to make
the new site top-level.
Susie said Arizona State University has a dynamic website that is sort of like a Prezi. It is
a game board type map. http://www.asu.edu/myfuture/index-desktop.html
Nancy shared a preview of the update on the new OSU homepage. It will be mobile first,
audience focused and Beaver Nation is everywhere in the design. The search will autofill as you type a search subject. There will be fewer links on the first page. The site is
currently in testing.
It was mentioned that Texas A&M has a great mobile first strategy.
It was asked how we can take faculty energy and invite them to use our spaces for their
events to help strengthen the ties between the academic side and the Student Affairs
side. Susie mentioned collaboration can take great foresight.