Welcome to CLA's resources for campus communications at UAF! Here, you will find a comprehensive suite of tools and guidelines designed to enhance your communication strategies, including branding resources, media relations support, and social media best practices. Whether you're crafting an email, designing a poster, or managing a social media account, our resources will help you convey your message effectively and professionally.

Please note that all mass communications must be coordinated with your PIO team. UAF has clear guidelines on how these communications should be handled, so whenever we reach out to the public under the University's name, it requires a group effort involving strategy and planning.

e-Newsletters

An e-newsletter at a university is a valuable tool for efficient communication and community building. It disseminates important updates, promotes events, and highlights achievements while engaging students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Cost-effective and sustainable, e-newsletters provide measurable impact through metrics like open and click-through rates. They can be tailored to different segments, ensuring relevant content reaches specific groups. Ultimately, they enhance the university’s ability to share timely information, foster connections, and support institutional goals. 

The UAF College of Liberal Arts has several e-newsletters that regularly come out of our college through MailChimp.

College Level e-Newsletters

-CLA's weekly internal e-newsletter is sent to faculty, adjuncts, staff, and TAs, providing a comprehensive update on upcoming events, new policies, important information, and job openings within CLA. It also includes CLA Gems and shoutouts to highlight the outstanding work of our community. With 17 departments and hundreds of employees, the newsletter aims to consolidate all relevant information, keeping everyone informed and connected with what's happening across the college.
-CLA's monthly external e-newsletter (Coming Fall 2024): CLA will launch a monthly external e-newsletter starting this fall 2024. This newsletter will highlight upcoming events, revisit the previous month’s activities, and showcase the accomplishments and research of our students, faculty, adjuncts, staff, and alumni. Designed to provide a glimpse into life at CLA, the newsletter will serve as a showpiece for our vibrant college community.

Department Level e-Newsletters

Several of our departments have chosen to send out monthly e-newsletters to their subscribers, including donors, alumni, community members, current students, parents, faculty, staff, adjuncts, and UAF leadership. These monthly communications enable departments to stay connected with their audience and share updates on alumni achievements, student and faculty research, upcoming events, giving opportunities, and other relevant news. This regular outreach helps keep the community informed and engaged with the latest developments and accomplishments within the departments.

-Department of Art's monthly external e-newsletter
-Department of Music's monthly external e-newsletter
-Department of Theatre and Film's monthly external e-newsletter
-Department of English's monthly external e-newsletter (Coming Fall 2024)

If you would like to subscribe to any or all of these e-newsletters, sign up here: http://eepurl.com/ic-o0j

If you would like to discuss starting an e-newsletter for your department, please email us at cla-pio@alaska.edu.

Mass Emails

Email is a powerful tool but must be used wisely, as it can easily be overused. Our general rule of thumb is to send one well-crafted mass email to all majors, minors, and currently enrolled students for each event. This email should include all necessary information, such as event details, social media links, Zoom links, and attached posters. Students, like faculty, adjuncts, and staff, receive a high volume of emails, making it easy for important messages to get lost, especially if they are poorly executed.

Every aspect of your email matters: the subject line, the design, the content, and the sender. These elements are crucial for ensuring your message stands out and is effective. Although we can't track data from these mass emails like we can with e-newsletters, they are still valuable when used appropriately. However, they should be used sparingly to avoid overwhelming the audience.

Cornerstone

The Cornerstone is UAF’s official email newsletter for employees and students and is the primary way the university will communicate with you. It covers university news and announcements, which are also posted on UAF's news and information site. Students receive Cornerstone weekly on Wednesdays. Employees receive it Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Cornerstone can help university departments and student clubs get the word out about things like:

-events (please see the events page for details on planning your event)
-training opportunities
-changes in administration
-minor procedural changes
-requests for volunteers for UAF
-related activities

If your unit has a public information officer (for CLA, this is Sarah Manriquez), please work with them to submit items to Cornerstone. If your unit does not have a PIO, you can submit your announcement directly here. All submissions must be received by noon at least three business days before you want your item to appear in the newsletter. University Relations strives to accommodate requests, but submissions must go through the proper channels. If you bypass your PIO, your submission will be rejected.

Not all items are suitable for the Cornerstone email newsletter and may not be accepted. For instance, we cannot write a separate article about an upcoming event as it is already included in the "Upcoming Events" section. Let's discuss your potential submission beforehand to determine if Cornerstone is the best platform for it. This will ensure we prepare the most appropriate and effective content.

Internal UAF Calendars

There are several relevant internal UAF calendars available in Nanook Nation that we utilize to help share and spread information about our upcoming events. The top three we recommend include 1) UAF Events Calendar, 2) CLA Google Calendar, and 3) Nanook Engage Calendar. 

To view the CLA Google Calendar visit the public URL here.

If you would like to add and subscribe to the CLA Google Calendar, you will do this through your personal Google calendar settings. Adding the CLA Google Calendar to your personal Google Calendar workspace can significantly streamline your schedule management and keep you in the know with what's happening across the college. The two calendars (your personal google calendar and the CLA Google Calendar) can be overlayed on top of one another and the color-coding facilitates better coordination. 

Follow these instructions to add the CLA Google Calendar to your personal Google Calendar workspace.

In the most recent survey conducted about communications at UAF students said they get the majority of their information about what's happening on campus through their professors. Staying in the know about events, speakers, and activities happening in the college will help your students connect with events they might be interested in or excited about.

External Community Calendars

For our public-facing events, we aim to reach not only UAF students, faculty, adjuncts, and staff but also the broader Fairbanks community. One effective way to achieve this is by submitting our events to external community calendars. We utilize a variety of these calendars to maximize visibility. This task is handled by your department admin in collaboration with the CLA PIO Team. Once all necessary graphics and event details are prepared, we coordinate with your department admin to ensure your event is posted on the most widely used community calendars in Fairbanks, increasing awareness and attendance.

Digital signage

Digital signage at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) involves using digital displays across the campus to advertise departmental activities, projects, and campus events. Each digital sign is owned and managed by a specific department or entity, giving them control over the content displayed on their sign. Digital Sign Holders are not obligated to post all content sent to them by other digital sign holders.

However, UAF maintains a universal playlist that appears on every digital screen on campus. If your digital sign content meets the required size and design specifications, University Relations will include it in this UAF playlist.

The College of Liberal Arts (CLA) owns and operates one digital sign on campus. This sign is located on the 4th floor of the Gruening Building, just outside the CLA Dean's Suite (Gruening 404). Your CLA PIO Team is responsible for managing the content displayed on this sign.

Radio

KSUA (how to do a PSA)

Flyers

Printing flyers to hang around campus is an effective way to reach students where they spend their time, ensuring your message is seen by a wide audience. This method is ideal for promoting events, announcements, or initiatives that benefit from high visibility and repeated exposure. It works best for time-sensitive information and when you want to engage the campus community directly and personally.