Campus Communicators is a group of communication, marketing, design, and development professionals from various UH System colleges, departments, and business units. Meetings are held the third Wednesday of each month to spread information, discuss university and system initiatives, and contribute to policy making. If you would like to be involved in the group and attend meetings, please contact Brandy Holmes.

Attended the 08/21/13 Meeting:

Minutes from August's Meeting

08/21/13

Brandy: Welcome everyone. We have a couple of new faces, so please introduce yourself and where you work. (Introductions)

Brandy:  We have a presentation from Kristina Michel on Merit.  It is an online tool to help students brag about what they are doing.

Kristina: I want to show you all a short video on Merit (www.vimeo.com/66591963).  Our webpage is UH.Meritpages.com.  These pages are created using stories about students.  When students participate in an event, an article is written about them.  Additional information is collected on the student and a Merit page is created.  These pages have the ability to send press releases directly to the student’s hometown (or town of the students preference, such as their parent’s hometown) newspaper.  The types of stories that work best for the UH Merit pages are those that have already occurred (evergreen).  Stories highlighting an event that is projected to occur do not work well with this program as it dates the information.  I am also giving you a handout showing the types of Merit badges currently recognized within the UH Merit pages website.  The Merit pages have similar function to Foursquare and Facebook in terms of student engagement, however in Merit pages, the student’s activity is endorsed by the university.  The student can request for a story to be removed and can change the layout of a page, but they do not have the ability to modify the story.

Question: Who looks at Merit?

Kristina: I am the site manager.

Question: I mean, generally.

Kristina:  Students, student’s parents… they have a ‘following’ ability similar to social media sites.

Question: Do students have to sign up for it? 

Kristina: No, you don’t have to sign up for it.

Question: Do students have control over it?

Kristina:  They do not have control of the data, only the way the page looks.

Question: How do people know this site exists?

Kristina: People will ask you for stories, media relations reps have a lot of media success stories, and I am working with Jessica Brand on promoting this to the students.

Question: What is the incentive for the students to use this site?

Kristina: This is a way for students to show (family and friends) what they are doing via a complete story publicized on social media.

Question: So it’s like the university promoting them?

Kristina: Yes, people can post what they want on Facebook and it could or could not be true.  These stories, however, have university backing as the students are unable to modify the content.

Question: Can students provide stories, if so, how?

Kristina:  We can pull releases or use their stories.  Each person will acquire their own badge from the story.  The most time-consuming thing is obtaining information on each student.  All student information is pulled from our system.  So, it doesn’t violate FERPA.  If a student requests for a story to be deleted, we will delete it.  We started this program in summer 2012.  We were receiving many requests from parents wanting to know how their students were doing on campus.

Question: Is there a link on the UH Main website?

Kristina: Not currently.  My ultimate goal is to have one story per month.  I believe in having these stories, we will improve student engagement.

Question: Can we have a link to the story when you write it so we can promote it?

Kristina: Yes.

Question:  Is there any reporting or tracking on the stories?

Kristina: I run the media monitoring on VOCUS, which tracks the information.  Within Merit, there is a set of real-time monitoring that shows who shares the stores on Facebook and Twitter.

Question: Can you sort the report information?

Kristina:  Yes, but only by majors and classes.

Question:  When a story shows several students such as a graduation story, will each student mentioned have a Merit page?

Kristina: Yes.

Question: Can the stories be sent to ethnic media /minority newspapers?

Kristina: I don’t know but I could send in a request and we could see.  If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me at: kmmichel@uh.edu or 713-743-4162.

Question: Does this program have to do with getting more stories out?

Brandy: Yes, I mentioned at the last meeting we are creating a story database to house student success stories, faculty stories, research breakthrough stories and donor stories.  All of these are tagged (related college, student, demographics, tone).  We want to gather all of these stories to be able to tailor messaging to donors and for other marketing and development projects.  Our development communications team will manage this database.  Please send your stories to dct@uh.edu.  We can use email stories, copies of stories, links to videos, photos, any and all are welcome.  Development communications comes at it from an ‘audience need’ perspective.  We would tailor the story based upon that need and send you a copy of what was saved.

Question: Should the stories that are going out show the student’s current information?  For instance, if the story came out and represented a student by stating “Jos Smith, a student with UH…”, however maybe Joe Smith is now an alumni, perhaps we should make sure the information is being presented in a correct manner. 

Brandy:  Yes, we do have a few processes that pick up this type of information to label it for us as a current or non-current story.

Okay, the next agenda item is an Outlook calendar we have created that shows communication activity on a broad scale.  It is a transparent and open tool.  You can subscribe to this calendar (it’s on a central IT server) and see all planned advertising, email schedules, magazine schedules, event communications, social media activity and annual giving activity.  Please feel free to add your communications to alumni, donors, and external audiences to this calendar.  I’ll send instructions on how to subscribe to the Communications Calendar in September. 

Now it’s time to go over the 160over90 brand camps and town halls.  Right now, the dates and times are set.  An email will go out this week with an invitation. Town Halls will last 1.5 hours.  Brand Camps are going to last 2.5 hours.  They will be held Tuesday 09/17 (10:30 – 12:00 - Town Halls, 1:30-4:00 - Brand Camps) and Wednesday 09/18 (9:30-12:00 - Brand Camps, 1:30-3:00 - Town Halls).  We are filming one session to use as archives (as a reference), these will not be filmed as brand videos.  You will not need to RSVP and a calendar invite will not be sent.

Question:  Will we have more than a red/white color pallet?

Brandy: Yes, we will always have red/white colors, but will have so much more to work with.  Leadership, including the Deans and President Khator, have already been exposed to this so there shouldn’t be any surprises about the information presented during the brand camps and town halls.

I have one final announcement, Liz Stephens has resigned.  She will be taking an AVP position at Temple University.  We will have an interim in place.  Internally there will be some slight project management shifting, but you shouldn’t see any changes externally.  Everything remains the same, all policies, ad approval, and obviously the brand rollout will continue as planned.  Email me if you have any questions.

Brandy: Are there events or announcements anyone would like to share?

Statement: On September 12 the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts will launch a landmark public program, the Mitchell Artist Lecture, which will annually feature a major figure in the world of artistic collaboration.  The Center’s inaugural speaker is Bill T. Jones. A legendary choreographer, Macarthur “Genius”, and Kennedy Center Honors award winner, Jones’s innovative career has led to a reputation of enthralling, provoking, challenging, and deeply engaged work. He has choreographed more than forty-five works for his own company, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and was granted Tony Awards for his recent ventures into Broadway Theater as co-creator of FELA! and choreographer of Spring Awakening. For more information, visit http://mitchellcenterforarts.org.

Statement: Energy initiative information – if anyone has any energy related events coming up, please contact Taylor Nussbaum (tnussbaum@uh.edu and 713-743-6100) so she can put them on the calendar. 

Statement: Former NASA astronaut and engineer Bonnie Dunbar will address these challenges as she speaks to future teachers from the University of Houston’s College of Education. The College’s 2013 “First Lecture” is planned for 1:30 p.m., Friday, Aug. 23 in the UH Cullen Performance Hall.  The series is entitled “To the Classroom and Beyond”.

Statement:  Hilton College will be holding the 11th Annual Caesar Salad Event at the Hilton on campus.  $50 at the door, $45 in advance.  Contact Debbie Maurer for more info.

Question:  Who updates the mobile website?

Brandy: It is automatically generated from the main UH website.  If there needs to be an update, the main site will need to be updated. If you have any issues, please contact webteam@uh.edu.

Question: What is the status of the AVP search?

Brandy: There are four finalists.  The next step is key-group interviews the first and second week of September.  The goal is to hire by October.

Question:  Will the new person change the brand campaign?

Brandy:  No, it is not personality driven, it is strategy driven.

Question: Will candidates do public presentation?

Brandy: I don’t know yet.  They will meet with Marketing and Communication.

Brandy: Any other questions?  Okay, because of the brand camps, we will not meet in September.  Our next meeting will be held October 16.   Thank you!

Meeting adjourned.