University communications plan enters construction phase

A draft of a strategic communications plan for UVic is beginning to take shape. The plan is based on the thoughts of faculty, students and staff about the university’s major communication challenges and opportunities which were provided to the campus strategic communications task force over the fall term.

The 17-member task force was appointed by President David Turpin last summer. Led by Faye Wightman, vice president external relations, the task force was asked to guide a process to put university members in a position to achieve their goals for recruitment, profile and reputation, and financial support for teaching and research programs.

According to Wightman, that positioning would help university community members to “give prospective students, faculty, staff, donors and funders a consistent, compelling and sharply focused set of reasons why they should invest their time or support in UVic.”

The task force has been assisted in its work by Educational Marketing Group (EMG), a marketing agency specializing in higher education. EMG was selected from more than 70 firms.

As the Ring went to press, the task force was working on an integrated institutional strategic communications plan that will provide measurable goals for 2005-06, identify the resources that would be required to accomplish these, and assign administrative responsibility for each. In addition, it was reviewing a first draft of a positioning statement and associated components. Once finalized, these will go out to the campus community for comment.

The task force is also reviewing a report from EMG that contains recommendations on image-building, integrated communications planning and organizational structure, and examining whether quantitative research with external audiences might be helpful.

More than 1,500 faculty, students, staff and alumni responded to a web-based questionnaire about UVic’s perceived strengths, weaknesses, competitive advantages, and core values last October and November. Student focus groups and mixed discussion groups with faculty, staff, students and alumni then helped to deepen understanding of the questionnaire feedback.

EMG collected data from many areas on campus on institutional characteristics, funding sources, application patterns, and marketing and communications structures and expenditures for UVic and its competitors.

EMG principals Bob and Marlene Brock conducted 35 small-group or one-on-one sessions with campus leaders, administrators and faculty about the university’s goals and challenges. They also participated in an open meeting to outline the strategic communications planning process and answer any questions.

The task force has met monthly to receive and discuss the input, the resulting reports and the draft integrated strategic communications plan.
More information on the strategic communications planning process at UVic is available at www.uvic.ca/stratcommplan/.