Brainstorming the concept

Last month, the office of Web and new media assisted in creating President Smart’s new year greeting to MarooNation, which contained a video element. 

For this video, we produced a new lead-in to What’s New at MSU, which  gave us a chance to promote awareness of President Smart’s Twitter handle (@ClifSmart) and the Missouri State signature brand hashtag, #FollowYourPassion. Additionally, we wanted to highlight President Smart’s “bigger and bolder” theme and use this opportunity to communicate that Missouri State is thriving and growing on multiple levels– with record enrollment, new investments in facilities, cutting edge research and numerous awards.

Choosing the location

Due to the current focus on building new facilities, we decided to film in the Foster Recreation Center. With its visionary design, focus on students and flexible opportunities for participation, it truly embodies Missouri State’s future. We also felt that filming at Foster Rec would anticipate 2014′s exciting building projects, such as those funded by the 8 million in gifts recently announced by the MSU Foundation and the new recreation facilities that will be financed by the B.E.A.R. fee.

Highlighting our achievements

Given what a high-achieving year 2013 was, selecting just a few accomplishments was quite a challenge! We knew that academics would be a centerpiece and referenced research from four of the University’s colleges. President Smart specifically mentions the following achievements in the video:

• Four professors from the College of Health and Human Services and the College of Natural and Applied Sciences who were awarded nearly $400,000 in grant funding to study skin cancer treatment
• Two professors from the School of Agriculture who have been awarded significant funding to improve grapevines and study a vine disease
• Two faculty members from the College of Humanities and Public Affairs who were awarded over $20,000 in funding to search for buried steamboats

We also wanted to mention the innovation and drive consistently expressed by the artists, performers and designers in the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Business. While the video’s time constraints made it impossible to call out every creative achievement from 2013, here are just a few to be aware of:

• A student fashion designer won first place in the Project OR competition, creating an ensemble that the judges said “made our jaws drop… (by being) so much more than we could have imagined.”
• Student Web series Epilogue won numerous accolades, including second place in the College Television Emmys.
• We welcomed back a number of high-achieving artistic alumni– John Goodman, Jeff Carney and Gloria Cohen Shomo, to name a few.

The video also provided an opportunity to mention our dedicated athletes, particularly the women’s swim team, which became the first program in Missouri Valley Conference history to win a sixth consecutive championship. Many of our athletes’ achievements were captured by alumna Stephanie Anderson during her time as a staff photographer for The Standard, and we used one of her photos in President Smart’s greeting.

And naturally we referenced the unique commitment to the community so often displayed by Missouri State students, alumni, faculty and staff- particularly during engagement events such as 2013’s Stomp Out Hunger shoe drive and the Meals-a-Million pack-a-thon.

Looking ahead on social media

Building on the theme of President Smart’s greeting, we invited recipients to share their aspirations for 2014 on social media. We specifically encouraged the use of the University’s signature brand hashtag, #FollowYourPassion, with the hope of connecting the energy surrounding those individual goals to President Smart’s vision of a bigger, bolder future for Missouri State.