The tagline “Big Orange. Big Ideas.” will be used as the framework for marketing the university and reminding people of UT’s impact on the state and the nation. UT also unveiled the look in its re-designed website at www.utk.edu.

The Office of Communications and Marketing has received several great questions about the effort. We will start with a few.

What is branding?

Branding is not a logo, a tagline, or a color—although all of these are crucial elements. Branding is simply about reputation. Whether we are talking about soft drinks or universities, people form opinions about and have emotional connections with those items. It is those feelings and opinions that define a brand.

UT’s Office of Communications and Marketing didn’t create a new “brand” for the university; we worked with our stakeholders to create a strategy for helping to manage the university’s reputation.

The typical elements that we often associate with a brand (a logo, a particular color, a tagline) are really just shortcuts used to help evoke positive associations.

Why is it so focused on orange?

The brand celebrates the distinctive and vibrant color of the university: Big Orange. Big Orange is unique. It belongs to us, and when you see it, you can’t help but think of UT.

Our tagline, “Big Orange. Big Ideas.”, is intended to remind people of what they have already been saying about our university. All of the other elements that make up a branding campaign, from typography to messaging to T-shirts, are all designed to remind people—sometimes subtly—about the positive elements of our reputation.

Chancellor Cheek explains it well.

“Orange is central to our visual identity, but we aren’t just any orange,” Cheek said. “We are Big Orange. And we inspire Big Ideas. It’s an exclamation of pride, a reminder of who we are, a challenge to what we strive to be, and a promise to ourselves and to the world.”

I’m not a marketer or a public relations employee; what does managing the university’s brand have to do with me?

Everyone at the university is an ambassador for UT and plays a role in representing our brand. We are all responsible for helping to manage the university’s reputation because a reputation is a lot more than just a tagline or a commercial.

What do our students say about UT? How are we serving our students and shaping their experiences here?

Other examples include:

• The broad impact of a faculty member and his/her next research publication.
• The advisor who is helping our students stay on track to graduate.
• The Facilities Services staff members who keep our landscape looking beautiful.

Our graduates who succeed in their professions and take time to tell people about their alma mater.

For more information about the brand, visit big.utk.edu.

Learn more about The Ghost Houses on Stuth and Shelton’s website.

The website—a primary communication vehicle for the university—has been reworked to better serve its many users and to convey the new look and feel of the university. Over the past year, the site has had 14.7 million visits for an average of 40,000 visits per day.

The Office of Communications and Marketing’s web team last redesigned the site in 2007. The website is the primary gateway to departments within, information about, and services offered by the university. Many web users are prospective students and their parents who are gathering information for their college and university search.

Overhauling the new site took nearly a year of research and analysis, usability testing, re-architecting, and design. The project focused on not only making the site more user-friendly and accessible, but also communicating the energy and vibrant nature of the campus and our faculty, staff, and students.

Leigh Shoemaker, assistant director of Web and electronic media in the Office of Communications and Marketing, oversees the university’s five-person web team. The team designs, develops, and maintains the university’s main web presence, utk.edu, as well as websites for the chancellor, provost, the Office of Research, Undergraduate Admissions, and other academic units and programs.

“Our primary navigational elements include categories of things we want to emphasize as a university—our academics, our culture, our global and community reach, our diversity, and our Volunteer spirit both on and off the field,” said Shoemaker.

“The visual design of the site is reflective of our new branding standards. Our photography powerfully communicates the brand through up-close, single-focus images of our students and our faculty interacting on our campus,” Shoemaker added.

By researching how visitors use the site, the team developed a new top-level toolbar to give internal users what they look for every day. There is also a new “Quick Links” section to reflect the top searches as recorded by the university’s Google search appliance.

The team also is conscious of the tools visitors are using to access information online in 2012—like digital tablets and smartphones. Rather than building and maintaining a separate mobile site, the site has been coded responsively. Depending on the size of the screen of the device used to access utk.edu, visitors will see the same information—but oriented differently and simpler to navigate.

For all requests related to the new design or other questions, please email webteam@utk.edu.

Templates Coming Soon

Many people are already wondering about how or when the new design can become part of their department or unit’s site.

In the coming months, the team will develop and disseminate templates for use on campus websites and for HTML emails. The team will also create a WordPress theme for departments, who will benefit from an easier way to manage their online content.

“Along with both templates and themes, we will be offering a full array of resources—from recommended color combinations, to advice on best practices for electronic media, to videos demonstrating how to update your WordPress site,” said Shoemaker.

Faculty author names and the titles of their books should be sent to Patty Boling (boling00@utk.edu) in the Office of the Dean of Libraries no later than Wednesday, February 29.

For more information, contact Dean of Libraries Steven Escar Smith (974-6600 or stevensmith@utk.edu) or Interim Vice Chancellor for Research Lee Riedinger (974-8701 or lrieding@utk.edu).

Invitations to faculty, department heads, and administrators will follow later.

The two-day event features educational sessions, dietary discussions, and workout demonstrations focusing on the needs of women, men, and seniors. Highlights will include the Food City Eat Right Stage and Sampling Pavilion, ZUMBA fitness on the Dancemoves Get Active Stage, and free health checks and screenings from dozens of exhibitors.

The expo is open from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday and 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. For more information on the event, visit the Healthy Living Expo website.

The results have now been tallied and the winner is…the Apartment Residence Hall.

Apartment Residence Hall residents celebrated their victory with the grand prize: the POWER (Programs of Water, Energy, and Recycling) Challenge cup and a catered food party, co-sponsored by the United Resident Hall Council and the Office of Sustainability.

Students in Morrill Hall ask their neighbors to help save water by pledging to take shorter showers.

Overall efforts by student residents to use less energy and resources during the POWER Challenge resulted in energy savings in excess of $36,000.

“The challenge was an amazing achievement with many green successes in the residence halls,” said Courtney Washburn, AmeriCorps member and sustainability outreach coordinator.

Notable challenge achievements included volunteers collecting eight tons of recyclables, more than $21,000 in wastewater savings, and almost $7,500 in water savings. The amount of water saved could fill Neyland Stadium to a depth of six feet.

These figures are based on a comparison of energy and resource use from this past October and October 2008.

On October 13, a light bulb exchange in all residence halls resulted in students swapping 460 incandescent light bulbs for new CFL bulbs. This particular event is expected to save the campus approximately $7,300 in energy consumption, or 77,000 kWh, for the next nine months. CFL bulbs use one-fifth the energy of incandescent bulbs and last six to ten times longer on average.

In addition to measuring savings, students in the residence halls were encouraged to create and participate in fun, interactive events.

“Eco-Vols, RAs, and hall directors did a fantastic job. There were more hall and floor programs this year than in the past, which is an important component of the challenge. I was very impressed with everyone’s creativity and enthusiasm,” said Washburn.

Sustainability ideas included a lights-out event at Laurel Hall, a short-shower pledge campaign at Morrill Hall, and a green trivia game at the Apartment Residence Hall.

To mark National Sustainability Day on October 26, fifty residents attended the Black Out Bash. Attendees turned off their dorm room lights for an hour and carved pumpkins by moonlight in Presidential Courtyard.

For information on other Make Orange Green programs and initiatives, including sustainable living tips, visit http://environment.utk.edu.

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CONTACT:

Courtney Washburn (865.974.7780, cjwash@utk.edu)

The course will be offered many times between January and March. Supervisors only need to attend one session. The course will be offered the following dates:

• 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, January 24, in the University Center Shiloh Room
• 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. Thursday, January 26, in the University Center Shiloh Room
• 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. Tuesday, February 14, in the University Center Shiloh Room
• 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. Friday, February 17, in University Center room 221
• 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 7, in University Center room 223
• 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 13, in the University Center Shiloh Room

The performance review course is free to UT employees, though registration is required. Registration is available online. For more information call 974-6657.

Pia Wood from the Center for International Education and Alan Rutenberg from the Office of Research are UT Knoxville’s representatives to the Fulbright Program. They will discuss types of awards, how to international contacts, best practices, and advice on the application process.

R.S.V.P. to Bea Misch at bmisch@utk.edu or 974-3177.

The Passport is a calendar and guide to many of the international and intercultural events taking place on campus and in the community through the end of the academic year.

If you would like free Passports to distribute to your classes, please contact Amy Blakely at amy.blakely@tennessee.edu or 974-5034. Please indicate the number of Passports you’d like and where they can be sent via campus mail.

Safe Zone training explores LGBT issues in an honest and open way and provides an opportunity for participants to become an LGBT allies. Training sessions will take place on the following dates:

• Friday, February 17, 9:00 a.m. to noon in the University Center Crest Room
• Friday, April 13, 9:00 a.m. to noon in the Multicultural Student Life Center

Safe Zone awareness-building is part of the Chancellor’s Civility and Community initiative and is administered through the Office of the Dean of Students. UT’s Employee and Organizational Development provides the training through small group activities, information-sharing, and large group discussions that explore commonly held myths and beliefs of the LGBT community.

Those interested in the training should register through UT Human Resources Employee and Organizational Development or the Safe Zone training link on the Commission for LGBT People’s website.

Special departmental training can also be arranged. For more information call 974-6657 or e-mail safezone@utk.edu.