The College of Arts and Sciences Communications Department provides a range of strategic and creative services to strengthen the college’s reputation, support recruitment and retention and align with CU Boulder’s institutional priorities and brand. We work with all divisions, departments and programs in the college. Connect with us by email at: asmag@colorado.edu.
Working with Communications
To ensure transparency about what we do and how we prioritize, our work is organized into three types:
- Core – Essential communications supporting college and campus priorities. Typically accepted and given precedence.
- Premium – Projects across the college with high strategic value. Approved based on alignment, impact, scope and capacity.
- Advisory – Requests that fall outside core and premium work. Supported through consulting, templates or training to empower units to succeed independently.
Requesting a project
- Consult the service offerings below to determine if your project is in scope.
- Submit a request. We review requests weekly. Email a member of the team if your request is urgent.
- The team will review the request against core and premium criteria, complexity of project and current capacity. We will get back to you within one week to discuss.
- The timeline for core work is typically 2-4 weeks. The timeline for premium work is typically 4-8 weeks, depending on scope.
- We maintain connections with unit communicators and partner with them on premium and advisory work.
Service Offerings
Explore examples of the communications work we do to understand how best to collaborate with us.
| Core | Premium | Advisory |
|---|
- Develop and implement collegewide recruitment, retention and reputation campaigns
- Research and analytics
| - Consult on division or unit-level communication or marketing plans
- Conduct brand or message workshops using design-thinking methods
- Project plans for the design phase of complex campaigns
| - Unit marketing requests without alignment to college or university priorities. We can advise your team on an approach.
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| Core | Premium | Advisory |
|---|
- Original stories for the College of Arts and Sciences magazine about research (health, space, quantum and sustainability are university priority topics), student success, and interdisciplinary work
- Partner with university communications to amplify stories on CUBT and other publications, pitch to media and promote faculty experts
- Meet with college colleagues to source stories
| - Support for writing and pitching to The Conversation or developing and placing thought leadership essays
- Media preparation, including the development of message maps
| - Departmental news or event recaps not aligned to college or university priorities
- Copyediting services. We can refer you to freelancers.
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| Core | Premium | Advisory |
|---|
- Draft and distribute dean messages to collegewide or divisionwide audiences
- Edit and distribute collegewide emails and newsletters
- Coach leaders on issues management and media engagement
| - Internal messaging campaigns (belonging, wellness, change management)
- Produce speeches, presentations, social posts, podcast interviews, op-eds and video messages
- Tailored message maps for change initiatives
| - Unit-specific emails and newsletters. We can consult on sensitive messaging or alignment with university messaging.
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| Core | Premium | Advisory |
|---|
- Maintain and update A&S websites, social channels and podcast
- Consult on the creation of new websites, redesigns or microsites
- Collaborate on or repost content aligned with university priorities. We may edit for A&S style.
| - New websites, redesigns or microsites
- Strategic website launches aligned with college or university priorities. We typically provide three web pages and coordinate updates to campus websites if required.
- Strategic video content aligned with college or university priorities
- Paid social boosts
| - Unit websites. We can consult on approach and where to get training.
- Unit social media creation or event coverage. We can advise on strategy.
- Social content unrelated to A&S. We would typically pass on promoting.
- Last minute requests. We require collaboration and lead time for strategic cross promotions.
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| Core | Premium | Advisory |
|---|
- Promote A&S identity and ANDing messaging
- Ensure A&S visual identity consistency across channels
- Create templates, logos, merch designs and other and brand-compliant assets
- Review and approve creative for brand alignment
- Maintain relationships with printers and design vendors
| - Concept and produce visual campaigns and experiences for strategic initiatives; requires a design brief
- Develop design elements for visual fun and program differentiation
- Custom event or promotional collateral, infographics, posters and banners or merchandise design
- Manage vendor relationships and production for signature projects
| - Independent brand or logo development for divisions or units. We can consult on alignment with college and university brand and provide brand-compliant assets.
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Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine
Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine is an online publication that regularly covers news and features related to research, creative work, teaching, alumni and students. It also covers internal news of the college to keep the A&S community connected and inspired.
The magazine distributes a weekly newsletter, called Have Ya Herd, to faculty, staff and students, and quarterly editions that we send to students, faculty, staff and alumni.
The Ampersand podcast
On The Ampersand, we interview guests who think of and as a verb—who imagine and create by colliding their interests. Hosted by Erika Randall, a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer, we will explore stories of people who lean into ANDing as a full sensory verb about experiencing and possibility. Join us and discover the alchemy of ANDing. Written and produced by Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
Listen here.
Email List for A&S Communicators
There is an email list for all communicators. Please send us an email if you would like to be subscribed to this email list: asmag@colorado.edu.
View the list of all the communicators in the College of Arts and Sciences.
