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Communication efforts focus of Faculty Senate meeting
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“We’re here to support the academic mission of teaching, service and research by stimulating and producing effective and credible communications.”
UB’s efforts to communicate its accomplishments to the outside world, as well as within the university community, were in the spotlight during yesterday’s meeting of the Faculty Senate.
Joseph Brennan, associate vice president for university communications (UC), and Peter Killian, assistant vice president for marketing, gave senators an update on University Communications, including the “Reaching Others” initiative, designed to create a strong identity for UB by focusing on the ways in which the work of its faculty, staff and students benefits people locally, nationally and globally,
“Is this a campaign?” asked Killian. “The answer is, absolutely not. A campaign has a start and an end date. This is starting to create a consistent message.”
The initiative’s message is expected to integrate into all aspects of UB’s external, as well as internal, communications over the course of the next year, said Brennan, beginning with UB’s undergraduate admissions materials.
Other ways in which UC has begun to launch “Reaching Others” include the purchase of local television and radio spots in November for $34,000, added Killian, noting that these advertisements were broadcast on such outlets as CNN, “Meet the Press,” and other Sunday-morning news shows in order to target major “influencers” in the region.
But UC’s main focus remains on “low-cost or no-cost” methods to spread the word about UB, especially in light of recent budget cuts, said Brennan. Among them are “earned media coverage” resulting from press releases on major projects and research happening at UB—major outlets to report on UB last year include The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education and National Public Radio—as well as viral marketing methods, including making materials available online via YouTube. UC also plans to take full advantage of the free national air time available to UB as part of the UB Bull’s participation in their first-ever bowl game, he said.
In addition, Brennan said that UC has begun offering consulting services to its partners in UB’s various schools, departments and decanal units in order to help them create a strategic communication plan, noting that UB’s five health sciences schools are taking part in an audit of their communication activities.
“We’re here to support the academic mission of teaching, service and research by stimulating and producing effective and credible communications,” he said. “This helps us as a community of scholars to recruit the right kinds of faculty and students, to build the support and resources we need to get our agenda done, and to boost our alumni pride, which we hope leads to greater amounts of private giving.”
In other business, Maria Wallace, director of Parking and Transportation Services, provided the senate a status update on her unit, including a budget synopsis and rundown of its future challenges and goals, many relating to UB’s efforts to “Go Green.”
Parking and Transportation Services is responsible for approximately 16,000 parking spaces on the North and South campuses, she said, and shuttles more than 3.5 million riders between these two sites each year. At $6.5 million, student fees remain the unit’s greatest source of revenue, she added, although nearly $500,000 comes from parking violations, with the remainder a combination of fees from paid parking and hangtags. Major expenses for the unit include bus driver wages and maintaining parking spaces, including snow plow services, which account for $3.6 and $1.3 million, respectively. Rising fuel costs also are a serious challenge for the unit, she said.
Among Parking and Transportation Services’ “unfunded initiatives,” Wallace listed parking ramps, a hybrid bus fleet, heated bus shelters, onboard WiFi service, a “zip car” rental program and “bicycle infrastructure,” including bicycle lanes both on and between the North and South campuses. Challenges include the fact that a single parking spot in a basic parking ramp costs approximately $27,000, she said, and that a hybrid bus fleet costs about $80 per hour to operate, versus about $50 per hour for traditional vehicles.
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