Here's your SCUP Link to "The 'Black Art' of Campus Branding"

What's a good brand? Why? How about an example or two? This interview by Jeff Wendt, of Today's Campus, with Rob Moore, managing partner of Lipman & Hearne, is brief, but it does answer some of those questions. We think that Northern Arizona University's slogan is excellent: 

Q: Is there a noteworthy example at Northern Arizona University?

A. Alumni there felt strongly that they received a great education. But their employers and peers did not share their high regard. An alternate narrative was necessary. The brand campaign led with the message "Mountain Air Makes You Smarter." Each alum now had a new and effective response to the question 'Why did you go to Northern Arizona?' Enrollment has soared.

[T]he Getty program was not intended to be prescriptive -- that it was formulated on the understanding that different campus constituencies have different takes on design issues, a key theme of the Chicago roundtable.

As a result, what is most striking about the Campus Heritage Initiative is the range of settings it has covered. These include older, moneyed academies like Brown, Bryn Mawr and Middlebury with stylistically variegated campuses; architecturally distinguished state institutions from coast to coast; and several historically black institutions in the South where simple Georgian architecture has traditionally predominated. New York University, Boston's Emerson College and the Savannah, Ga., College of Art and Design have received grants largely or exclusively targeting originally nonacademic buildings they have acquired in historic districts. The initiative also has funded historical research on and the development of conservation strategies for noted landscapes at numerous schools besides Berkeley -- from Pittsburgh's Chatham College, a small women's institution, to the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

By changing our own attitudes and behaviors, administrators and faculty members can begin to alter the perception that two-year colleges are less rigorous and intellectually stimulating than four-year institutions. We can help students appreciate more fully the value of a community-college education, whether they plan to enter the work force or transfer. Most important, we can develop a sense of pride in ourselves and our institutions that will carry over to the communities we serve.

Because the fact is, we're not the 13th grade. Community colleges open the doors of higher education to students for whom those doors would otherwise be closed. And that's something no high school, and very few universities, can say.