Laurie Kelly (The Beacon)
By Laurie Kelley, Guest Commentary
In the October 11 issue of the Beacon there was an article addressing recent videos and advertisements with the Rise/Heroes theme in which we focus on four of our student-athletes. This summer, members of the marketing and communications team created a series of four spots to promote our fall sports, raise the profile of the university in general, and to create a bit of a tie-in to the Olympics as several of our former student-athletes competed in the 2012 summer games. We conducted email and Facebook promotions to introduce this next phase of the Rise/Heroes promotional campaign and we purchased limited TV time before and after Olympic broadcasts. For this series, we chose to tell the stories of a few of our athletes who make us proud on and off their fields of play.
The author of this guest commentary on October 11 was concerned that we only profiled student- athletes as heroes. She noted that heroes are not limited to athletes and we couldn't agree more.
We've been using the Rise and Heroes theme for the past two years. This was the first time we focused on specific students. University of Portland students and alumni stand out because they truly want to make a difference. At UP, there are so many people of whom we are proud. Over the next few years, we will be telling the stories of numerous UP affiliated folks who are heroes in ways large and small.
This month, we are publishing a 30 page magazine that will be sent to all alumni, parents and friends of the university and inserted into the Portland Business Journal and the Puget Sound Business Journal where we feature thirteen "Uncommon Heroes" - students and alumni who are making a difference in the world. We will also be devoting the spring issue of Portland Magazine to the topic of Heroes and, again, this will contain numerous stories of a diverse group of people with various interests, careers and backgrounds. Additionally, we will be launching a website at up.edu/heroes where we will also be sharing these types of stories about members of the UP community.
We will continue to profile current students and outstanding alumni in our promotional campaigns. If you know of someone who is really making a difference for the university or for others, please let me know. It is our job to communicate the amazing stories of those who make the University of Portland the special place it is. Please know that our athletes are a part of that picture but these campaigns will go far beyond athletics. Thank you!
Laurie Kelley is Associate Vice President of University Relations & Chief Marketing Officer. She can be reached at kelleyl@up.edu
