PR office wins awards

The college’s new athletics website, www.nwcraiders.com, received a silver award in the Excellence in Multimedia: Web Sub-site or Special Section category. In addition, Northwestern’s efforts to promote its new tuition guarantee resulted in a bronze award for Excellence in Institutional Relations: Best Solution to an Institutional Communications Challenge.

The athletics website was developed by Dan Robinson, Northwestern’s web development manager, and Matt Bos, sports information director. Launched last August, the site seeks to convey the quality of an NCAA Div. I athletics site while working with the staffing and resources available at an NAIA school. The site features frequent changes and interactivity to encourage constituents to come back often, offering fan polls, free webcasts, video clips and photo galleries.

 The public relations office’s award-winning efforts to promote Northwestern’s Tuition Guarantee were multi-pronged, including development of a logo and tagline for the program, a website, a postcard for prospective students, e-mail communications, and news coverage. Contributors included Robinson, Duane Beeson, Anita Cirulis and Tamara Fynaardt of Northwestern’s public relations office and graphic artist John Vander Stelt.

The awards were presented at the district’s conference in Denver. District Six includes colleges, universities and independent schools in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Council for Advancement and Support of Education is the professional organization for advancement professionals who work in alumni relations, communications, fund-raising, marketing and other areas.

This is the fifth consecutive year Northwestern’s public relations office has received recognition in the district competition. Last year, the search piece developed for the admissions office received a silver award and a series of publications produced for the Imagine capital campaign received a bronze award. In 2006, the college’s visual identity system won a gold award. A video developed for the admissions office received a silver award in 2005. In 2004, a group of recruiting publications received a gold award.