You're looking to add a podcast to your institution's suite of channels. You've secured a host and have a few introductory topics in mind. But there are other considerations: What is your objective? Who is your target audience? How long should each episode be? Who can you count on, inside and outside your organization, to participate? What about recording equipment and facilities? What's a realistic production schedule? How will you promote it? This session will explore these questions and more, drawing on the success of "Being the Change," the official podcast of James Madison University, brought to you by Madison magazine. Although a number of JMU departments, centers and institutes have launched their own podcasts, University Marketing & Branding had never attempted one until Being the Change debuted this past fall. Now, with more than a dozen published episodes under our belt, a second season in production, and the full push of UM&B's creative teams behind it, Being the Change has become a platform for engaging alumni, advancing the university's brand and even helping with student recruitment.

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Crisis communications are an essential part of everyday operation in higher education, and regardless of how frequently they employ these strategies, institutions always need to be prepared for the worst. Due to budgetary constraints and other factors, resources are sometimes not available to fully support these efforts. This breakout session will cover cost-effective tools and strategies necessary to prepare for emergency situations. Attendees will walk away with practical tasks at zero cost to make themselves and their teams confident and prepared for an emergency.

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I would like to share how we/I in VCU Human Resources implemented / continue to implement new branding standards following the launch of VCU's "Uncommon" brand platform from 2022-2024. I am hoping that it would benefit attendees to see how a university-wide brand was implemented at the department level, and the ongoing process of getting buy-in from a variety of stakeholders - about 60 staff in the department with differing perspectives, professional needs, levels of familiarity, and willingness to collaborate. The presentation would include a brief activity where participants identify a department-level communication or marketing challenge problem they believe enhanced branding could alleviate, then collaborate with others in small groups to strategize on how to get folks on board.

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Materials Table
Did your institution create exciting materials that you want to show your CCA colleagues? Bring them for the material table to showcase during lunch!

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In early 2024, we unveiled a revamped alumni newsletter, transforming its format, frequency, and appearance. This redesign has boosted engagement and readership in our alumni audience. In this case study, I'll walk attendees through the process, from initial testing and A/B testing strategies to pitching the concept to leadership, and finally, the outcomes of our redesign.

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The Honors College at George Mason University has integrated student teams into many dimensions of our communications functions. These students learn to work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary pre-professional context, developing skills useful to both future professional communicators and to those pursuing other career paths. The Honors College Communication Team is comprised of 8-10 paid interns who assist with the whole range of communications: crafting internal newsletters, managing social media, designing print leave-behinds, promoting events, writing press releases, videography, photography, creating original music for our media and events, animation, and assessment/analytics. The Honors College Recruitment Team is comprised of 20-30 volunteers who assist with prospective student and yield-related communications, including one-to-one interactions and management of social media groups for admitted students. Paid student leaders for Honors College Connects engage in the communications necessary to maintain relationships with valued partners as part of their coordination of a classroom experiential learning experience. Students in our Honors College Professional Development Fellows gain professional skills while receiving training that enables us to rely upon them as spokespeople for the college in media, live events, interviews, and more.

Using interviews with faculty, current student participants, and alumni who have careers in range of communications industries and beyond, this presentation will highlight the broader philosophy of experiential learning that undergirds these efforts, showing how we have brought it into alignment with the needs of our communicators. It will trace out the basic structures and processes work to support these initiatives and share concrete suggestions about how to begin and grow such programs. It also will highlight some of the challenges that our efforts have faced. As time allows, we would like to invite attendees who have had interns or other similar help to discuss some of the challenges they have faced supporting interns, student workers, and/or teams.

Our model is of value to attendees who are managing limited budgets, who wish to be more visible to instructional and research faculty, for whom providing adequate training and support to student interns is a challenge, and who wish to better integrated themselves with other parts of their home institutions. Our model of integrating the pedagogical function and the communication function enables us to achieve reach and impact that otherwise would be impossible, given limited staffing and budgeting. It also ensures that the communication function is valued across the College, including by people who may otherwise not immediately see its value. Because these students are majors in a range of different College and Schools, it gives us an opportunity to stay better connected with what is going on across the University, helping us better align messaging across the institution.

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Twenty-four-hour giving blitzes, meant to inspire donors and drum up excitement for an institution, have been sweeping universities across the country for the past several years.
They are the ultimate tests of donor participation, philanthropy, and stamina for institution’s communications teams.
The Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences has been upping the ante each year to produce videos that offer key storytelling nuggets and visual appeal, as a way to inspire alumni and friends of the university to participate in giving.
From friendly competitions between schools, complete with burn books, to the college’s dean dunking basketballs in Cassell Coliseum, the communicators in the college have used strategy, wit, and physical resources to make video production a strategic part of its Giving Day plans.
Two members of the team will share strategies and tips for what has worked and what they have learned. They will discuss the benefits of using friendly competition, recruiting notable unit representatives (such as college deans), and tailoring content to specific audiences in an effort to boost donor numbers. They’ll share examples of the social media content and strategy they used to cut through the noise and gamify the Giving Day experience in an appeal to specific audiences.

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The AI Toolkit: Essential Skills for the AI-Powered Professional

Unleash the potential of Generative AI in this training session, designed to provide a solid foundation in this transformative technology. This session will demystify GenAI, explaining its core concepts, capabilities, and practical applications in recruitment, marketing and beyond.

In this workshop, we’ll explore the essentials of generative AI and how you can leverage it to enhance your recruitment and marketing strategies. We’ll explore the underlying principles and the most exciting AI tools available.

Next, we’ll move into The Foundations of Prompt Design, where you’ll learn how to craft effective prompts that drive AI-generated content and optimize your outputs.

Finally, we’ll tackle Ethics in the Age of AI, discussing the challenges and responsibilities that come with integrating AI into your workflows, ensuring you use this powerful tool ethically and inclusively.

The session will conclude with an open Q&A, allowing participants to ask specific questions and brainstorm applications of AI in their own work.

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Learn how student-centered storytelling can transform an institution’s social media presence, as well as recruitment and retention efforts, while providing meaningful internship experiences that align with Virginia’s internship requirements. This session will explore the University of Mary Washington’s (UMW) approach to engaging students as storytellers through internships in University Communications.

The presentation will cover:
- Designing internship programs that provide students with practical experience and align with institutional goals.
- Supporting students in content creation that aligns with their interests and campus experiences.
- Maximizing the use of student-driven content across social media, admissions materials, and other platforms.

Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to implement or refine their own student communications internships to create authentic storytelling that resonates with prospective and current students alike.

This session benefits college communicators by addressing how student-driven internships can meet current and future Virginia internship requirements while advancing institutional storytelling goals. You’ll gain:
- Insights into structuring internships to maximize student learning and institutional value.
- Practical tips for supporting students as content creators.
- Strategies to leverage student-generated content across platforms to enhance recruitment and retention efforts.

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Licensing your brand for use on consumables can be a powerful tool for building brand awareness, reaching new audiences, and driving revenue growth. Over the past five years, the licensed consumables category has exploded, offering a great opportunity for universities to promote brands in a fun and effective way outside of the typical apparel channel. Also, because consumers already trust the quality of the products carrying your brand, they are more likely to trust your brand as well.

The overall goal for this session would be to show how a strategic integrated marketing strategy can help promote these types of products with a consistent message throughout all channels. Within a year at Old Dominion University, our team launched a beer, a barbecue sauce, and an ice cream.

The objectives would be to show examples of how our team worked with our partners from start to finish including product development, launch and promotion, and how the University has integrated these products within events and activities on campus. We will show how we worked with different partner groups on campus such as alumni, athletics, admissions, and food services. Examples would illustrate the launch of each product, special events, and how we incorporated these products for special hot market opportunities.

The key takeaways would be for universities to think outside of the traditional licensing model to explore whether licensed consumables could help build brand awareness. We want universities to think of licensing as a multifaceted tool in the institutional marketing arsenal. It’s more than just a revenue stream; it’s a way to enhance brand visibility, engage with audiences, and create lasting emotional connections. When approached strategically and creatively, licensing can elevate an institution’s brand to new heights.

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