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How To

Dear Faculty and Staff:

Throughout the year the Office of College Relations gets hundreds of inquiries from members of the on and off campus community seeking some form of communications assistance. We are looking forward to working with many of you on your projects this coming year. To better help service your needs and prepare you for some new approaches we have compiled a brief how-to guide, which should help you begin your communications projects on the right foot. Please keep these guidelines for your records and refer to them throughout the year.

The Office of College Relations is able to assist you with publicity, print publications, web publications, printing shirts and other apparel, and posting news items.

Get publicity for your event:

Alice Myers is the College’s events editor and publicist, and the primary contact for all event related publicity needs: ads, calendar listings, press releases and posters. Given the high demand for event publicity, it is best to get your event information, publicity requests and associated imagery to Alice at least a month in advance so that she may be sure to provide the most ample publicity treatment at our disposal. What you can expect:

Press releases: Based on feedback from regional journalists, the College only sends comprehensive, monthly event press releases to local and regional journalists. Unless your event is a series, event information will be included a comprehensive monthly event release. This ensures that the College is not sending daily press releases about events. This treatment directly responds to the feedback we have asked reporters to provide.

Calendar listings: All event information should go first to Alice Myers who will then forward it to Russell Miller, to be posted on the College’s well-trafficked events calendar. You must have the date, location, and time of your event before it will be included on the calendar. In addition, Alice maintains a listing of more than 20 free local, cultural calendars in which your event will be included.

Posters: The Office of College Relations is moving forward and steadfast in its efforts to reflect the College’s visual and written style guidelines in all of its publications, especially those reaching external audiences. In order to streamline a highly time consuming process, as well as to consistently reflect the College’s information, logo, name, and colors. All event posters designed through our office will be formatted from one of six given poster templates. These templates can include original imagery but will be framed by specific colors from the College’s logo pallet. If you would like Alice to work on your poster design for you, she can help you chose the best template to convey your event.

Shopper’s Guide Ads: College Relations includes a weekly listing of events in The Shopper’s Guide. All events included will be sourced from the College’s online web calendar. However, this year, to ensure that we’re not duplicating efforts and to minimize extra expenditures, College Relations will omit any events from our weekly event listing that are already being advertised independently in The Shopper’s Guide. 

For more information about event publicity, deadlines, treatment and process email Alice or call x7443.

Print publications:

Regardless of how small a print publication may seem print projects require an enormous amount of time, resource, and planning. No project that will be printed is something that can be done “on the fly.” If you are looking to create or update a brochure, handbook, suite of materials, or anything else that may be printed, College Relations will need at least two months notice.While Chase Simmering, editor and manager of College publications, will be your project manager for print materials, all requests for print projects should first begin with Chris Sink or Karen Anderson.

What to have ready: Before any project is scheduled on our calendar, we will need to know the budget, the deadlines, the account codes for the project, and quantities. No print project can be included on our master calendar without this information first.

*Note: As the College attempts to pare back, green up and streamline, we ask that you consider the strategy behind your printed piece: Can your objectives be met equally or better online? What is provoking you to print a piece, rather than include it on your page? Have you planned enough time to schedule the project with College Relations and review it throughout the process?

Production schedule: All print projects, when submitted in advance to College Relations, will have a designated production schedule. Deadlines outlined in the production schedule are firm.  Before committing to the schedule, please have all members of your staff who need to be involved in the project check their calendars to be sure that you can meet given deadlines for material.

What to expect: To ensure that the College’s print pieces consistently reflect the College’s style guidelines, all projects to be printed are sent to a professional proofreader. Proofreaders are not full proof but they often find errors that are overlooked even by multiple people—this step helps to protect against last minute changes and from having to print pieces a second time. In addition, they have a strong understanding of the College’s style and the Chicago Style. Please expect that College Relations will be most conscious of reflecting the College’s brand and visual style in all print pieces and materials. We work from a suite of several color swatches, hundreds of photos from the Generation suite, and Memphis font.

Web page Revamps and Revisions:

Web page and web site projects are assigned and divided based on whether it’s a webpage revision (minor text edits, updated contact information, corrections) or web site revamp (a visual, organizational, and language rethinking of what’s on the webpage). The editor and project manager that will be assigned to lead your web page changes will largely depend on the depth and type of revision you are looking to institute. All project requests should come through Chris Sink or Briee Della Rocca—they will assign the appropriate team to your project. Web site and web page projects will also be assigned a production schedule. Before you review and sign off on the proposed production schedule, be sure that you can commit to the deadlines for meetings and review.

Social Media Pages:

Many of the college offices are interested, or have already gone forward in developing a social media page. While Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and other media sites are not directly rooted to the simons-rock.edu page, please work with College Relations when developing these outside accounts if you are representing an office of the College or are representing yourself as a professional working with the College. Social media sites that represent an office of the College should always include (at least): The full name of the College [Bard College at Simon’s Rock] and a logo or brand image (which can be found online or by working with College Relations). While these elements are the bare minimum of what is required when beginning a social media site representing an office of the College, we strongly suggest working with College Relations to flesh out strategy, design, and language for your pages. We can help you determine your social media goals and advise you on best practices, measurement, and outlets to reach your goals.

This year, our office has developed two social media pages:

Twitter [SimonsRock]: The Bard College at Simon’s Rock Twitter page is authored by the Office of College Relations and seeks to communicate news that is too brief/meddlesome for an email, yet still interesting. We plan to post campus quotes, news, information, and media mentions. In addition, we will call attention to news items related to the early college movement and media discussion around this topic.

Flickr [Bard College at Simon’s Rock]: Bard College at Simon’s Rock Flickr account is managed by Karen Anderson. We have created a group that allows anyone with photos of campus or people related to the campus to include in the Bard College at Simon’s Rock photo stream. We encourage you to upload your event and campus photos to Flickr and follow these instructions to include them in the stream. If you have questions or need assistance, email Karen or call x7209

Instructions:

  1. Sign in to Flickr (you will need a Flickr or Yahoo! Account – if you do not have one, follow the instructions on the Flickr homepage to create an account).
  2. Click on ‘Groups’  > ‘Search for a Group’, or navigate directly to http://www.flickr.com/groups/bardcollegeatsimonsrock/.
  3. Next to the heading ‘Group Pool,’ you will see: “Only Members can add to the pool. Join?”  Click on “Join?”
  4. Click on ‘Join this Group’.
  5. You will be taken back to the Bard College at Simon’s Rock group page, where you will now see a link labeled “Add photos or video.”  Click on that link to begin uploading your images!

Designing or Printing Apparel with the College’s Name:

Some offices would like to offer tee-shirts, sweatshirts or other apparel to students, faculty, staff or alumni. We ask that if you are planning to design, print or distribute apparel that in some way represents the College, that you contact the Office of College Relations before ordering or submitting a design to the College Bookstore or any other vendor. Our office can assist you in crafting design, language and color in keeping with the College’s visual and language style guidelines. Please refrain from printing apparel independent of College Relations.

Share your news:

Have you published lately? Made a major breakthrough in your field? Has your work been adapted to film? Are you an expert in your field? Have you been generating news and media lately?

College Relations wants to hear from you. Please share news of your accomplishments by writing to us at editors@simons-rock.edu. Your email will reach editorial members of the communications team within College Relations, and will be included in editorial discussions as we conceive new content for weekly, monthly, and annual publications.

Suggest a story:

Are you jumping with excitement about an idea for a story that hasn’t been told? Don’t hold back, pitch your idea. Story suggestions are welcomed and can be made by contacting editors@simons-rock.edu. Your correspondence will reach editorial members of College Relations, and will be included in editorial discussions as we conceive new content for weekly, monthly, and annual publications.

Contacts:

*To initiate a project that is not event related, please send all requests to Christopher Sink or Karen Anderson.

Christopher Sink
Director of College Relations
csink@simons-rock.edu
528-7229

Karen Anderson
Associate Director of College Relations
kanderson@simons-rock.edu
528-7209

Chase Simmering
Editor and Manager of College Publications
csimmering@simons-rock.edu
528-7395

Alice Myers
Events Editor and Publicist
alicem@simons-rock.edu
528-7443