Highlights

Fiscal Year 2001 saw great strides in all areas of University Advancement. Overall the division supported the university’s broad goals by increasing the public awareness and understanding of the university, by broadening the donor base and developing an outline for future fund-raising with a rationale for timing and size of a possible major campaign.

Development activities were very successful this past year. The university increased private support, which exceeded $30.8 million this past year, marking the fourth consecutive year that UH has topped $24 million. The average amount of new gifts also increased by 12 percent. Presidents Club membership went from 411 to 624 and The 1927 Society has now grown to 187 members who have made irrevocable deferred gifts or notified UH that it has been included as a beneficiary in their will.

Working with the Office of the Treasurer, Development established an Electronic Funds Transfer program, which supported the launch of the University’s first faculty/staff campaign in spring 2002. The university also now has the ability to accept gifts through the Development Web site.

Stewardship activities also increased, establishing a new Professor Emeritus program and hosting the first annual endowed scholarship luncheon to steward donors of University endowments.

The Division played a significant role in the university’s recovery from Tropical Storm Allison, coordinating all internal and external communications during the shut down and as the campus recovered, and organizing the Cougars Helping Cougars program for UH employees who experienced losses from the storm. The fact that Internal Communication had already helped to create employee and student e-mail distribution systems greatly facilitated the distribution of information during the crisis. Internal Communications also redesigned the campus newspaper, UHCN, and created a viable on-line newspaper and e-mail news and events lists to increase the information flow to our internal audiences.

The University’s 75th Anniversary celebration was coordinated through University Relations, including the writing and publishing of the university’s photo history, the very successful Cougar Pride Week campus celebration bringing 5000 UH faculty, staff, students and alumni to campus, a special insert in the Houston Chronicle, and the President’s first luncheon Report to Community, which drew 650 people to his address.

This year also saw the rebirth of the Farfel Distinguished Lecture Series, with two lectures drawing over 2,000 guests.

We also continued our partnership with Facilities Planning to implement a major signage program on campus with over 400 signs installed.

The second year of the “Learning. Leading.” campaign brought in fifteen awards, including two national Tellies, as well as the top PR program in Houston and Houston Marketer of the Year. To support the campaign on campus, Publications created and implemented the “Shasta Loves” campaign, with over 500 posters supplied free to all colleges and more than 30 departments.

Our Internet presence also improved with the hiring of our web content administrator of the university and the division. An additional forty-one offices’ Web sites have come into compliance with graphic standards since the new administrator came on board.

We also began to standardize more of the graphics across campus, creating a stationery system for alternative program marks that still emphasizes the university’s marks. Publications provided graphics and editorial support for both the central administration and the college and unit marketing needs. The University’s magazine, Collegium, continued to receive accolades and awards.

External communications increased our outreach to news media, as well as our national presence. By utilizing new technologies, including the Internet, the university was able to reach far more people and far more media outlets than ever before, more than 2,400 over the past year, up from 1,600 the previous year. Since June 2001, the UH “On-line Newsroom” has turned into a cornerstone of the university’s external communications efforts, more than tripling the number of “hits” to more than 10,000 a week on the award-winning Web site (TPRA and Houston Press Club 2002). Webcasts of major events are routed through the Newsroom’s Broadcast Archives link.

Another new delivery system, campus channel 8, went from nothing but a blue screen twenty-four hours a day to providing round-the-clock programming from some of the country’s most prestigious research universities, including events from UH through ResearchChannel.

UHOnCALL responded to almost 192,000 inquires about UH this past year and established a customer service training program to help frontline employees across campus provide much higher quality service. Marketing also helped establish permanent marketing and communication positions to support distance education and the off-campus institutes and teaching centers.

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