blog posts

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  Branding Leadership Award: College of Education

  Nov 25, 2013 11:00 am64 views

  The College of Education’s communication team set out to re-brand in 2012 to position the college as a leader in education research, teacher preparation and community outreach. Undertaking a six-month branding project that included interviews with administrators and stakeholders, student surveys, and faculty/staff open houses, the team identified a positioning statement, brand essence, and brand attributes for the college.

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  Crisis Communications Award: Katherine Galvin

  Nov 25, 2013 10:45 am323 views

  This year's Crisis Communications Award goes to Associate Provost Katherine Galvin. Katherine’s full title involves something about “administrative affairs,” but it should say something about cleaning up other people’s messes…or ensuring that we can all be proud to say we work here. If something bad has happened to or involving the integrity of our people and programs, you can bet that we’ve consulted Katherine on how to handle it.

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  Innovation in Marketing Award: Jennifer Shike

  Nov 25, 2013 10:45 am61 views

  When Jennifer Shike began working as assistant director of communications and marketing for ACES in 2012, many departments had no materials to promote themselves to prospective students, and ACES lacked a visual identity and core messages. Jennifer held branding exercises, coordinated and consulted with Public Affairs, identified a primary branding message and met with administrators to create a process for units to tell their stories using ACES’ personality, which is innovative, reputable, community oriented, collaborative and visionary.

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  Media Relations Award: Sheldon Jacobson

  Nov 25, 2013 10:45 am38 views

  Professor Sheldon Jacobson is the winner of the 2013 Media Relations Award. Sheldon and his graduate students have taken on numerous projects showcasing how computer science and data analysis can be put to practical use in a way that the news media and general public understand. His work spans topics from forecasting election results and March Madness brackets to assessing airport security, cell phone bans and driving, vaccine distribution and more.

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  Team Player Award: Brian Mertz

  Nov 25, 2013 10:45 am537 views

  From leading the way in branding efforts for CITES, furthering efforts to partner CITES with other campus units, or in helping to identify and connect Public Affairs with key technical experts at CITES to make the Augmented Alma Mater a reality, Brian Mertz embodies the spirit of a team player on campus.

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  Communicator of the Year: The Web Services Team

  Nov 25, 2013 10:30 am314 views

  Communications professionals across campus and throughout the University of Illinois system have nominated this small team for an ACME award every year since 2008, when we started giving them. We have an unwritten rule that we never give these awards to Public Affairs employees, since we are the ones who select the winners. Year after year, we politely explain that to the various people who continue to nominate them, but the next year it invariably happens again.