Ed Sirianno, our consultant from Creative Communications Associates, snapped a few photos of our Hit the Ground Running students during one of Thursday's presentations of graphic design concepts.

The HGR students are some of the best and brightest members of our entering freshman class. They gave us a lot of thoughtful ideas about the brand concepts we presented this week. More photos from our session with the Hit the Ground Running students are posted below.

In all, more than 300 students, alumni, faculty and staff attended the sessions on campus and in St. Louis, and hundreds more have viewed the concepts presented here. We've received a lot of input. Don't forget to view the concepts and give us your input by this Sunday, July 29. We'll allow comments on this entry after the survey expires. Note: the survey and images are no longer available.

Also, if you're looking for something to read this weekend, and while you're thinking about the future image of your university, here's an article that might provide food for thought: What Makes a Great Logo.

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since posting last Thursday's media advisory about the proposed name change, this blog has received 80-plus comments. Most of them have come from alumni and current students, and most of them have expressed opposition to either a.) changing the university's name at all, for any reason, or b.) the choice of Missouri University of Science and Technology, or Missouri S&T (or MUST, as some doggedly insist on calling it). This is not surprising, as public forums like this one typically draw their share of opponents and dissenters. That's the beauty of this type of communications medium: it gives people an outlet through which to express their views.

A few commenters have also veered off into discussing the issues related to marketing a new name. More about that in a future post.

Overlooked in this wave of comments opposed to the proposed name or the concept of changing the name are some posts from those who actually agree with the direction the university and Chancellor John F. Carney III are headed. Here are some of those comments, and excerpts from some others:

Continue reading "Comments about the comments" »

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

The long-awaited results of UMR's various surveys of alumni, students, faculty and staff are now available. Read on for the blog version (minus the tables, pie charts and lone footnote), or download the full report (MS Word file) for a more graphical presentation.

Continue reading "UMR name change surveys: summary and analysis" »

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBacks (0)

The results of the alumni name change survey have generated quite a bit of discussion, but that isn't the only constituent group UMR has surveyed on this issue. In January and this month, we've surveyed students, faculty and staff to gauge their opinions about the proposal. In the coming weeks, a higher ed marketing consultant will survey prospective students, corporate recruiters, high school counselors and teachers, and local and state opinion leaders. Our hope is that from all these surveys -- as well as all the input from letters, emails, phone calls, etc. -- a mosaic of opinion will emerge to help us better determine what course of action to take.

Here's a summary of all survey results (from alumni, students, faculty and staff) thus far:

A majority of alumni, faculty, staff and graduate students believe a name other than UMR would best describe the university.

• As we've already noted, this holds true for 70.1 percent of alumni responding to the survey in the Winter 2006 issue of the alumni magazine, UMR Magazine.

• 57 percent of graduate students surveyed say the same.

• So do 65 percent of faculty and 62 percent of staff (although the staff numbers are incomplete, as we have not yet tallied mail-in survey results from about 100 staff members who do not have computer access).

In all of the surveys, of those who said a name other than UMR would best describe the university, there is no consensus on what the best name should be.

We'll share more detail as we go along, but thought that might give you folks something to mull over during the weekend.

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)