Both Pitzer College and Scripps College took center stage at the most recent Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VII Awards in San Francisco March 2, with Pitzer earning two Awards of Excellence in Video Production and Scripps earning four for outstanding work in Communications and Marketing.
CASE, which defines itself as an organization of “alumni relations, communications, development, and marketing professionals at educational institutions worldwide,” annually recognizes superior work in the communications field, including print and online publications alongside video productions. The 5Cs fall under the jurisdiction of CASE District VII, which covers institutions in most of the Southwest United States and Guam.
Scripps won its two Gold Awards for publications promoting the 10th anniversary of the Scripps College Academy, a year-round program that pairs less fortunate high school-aged girls in the greater Los Angeles region with Scripps students and faculty to ensure college preparedness, and an admissions publication that featured a version of Rosie the Riveter adorned with Scripps paraphernalia.
“Our main goal is to reflect Scripps authentically, and that is what we try to do, to capture that feeling that is uniquely Scripps, and I think we did that in the winning pieces,” said Marylou Ferry, Vice President of Communications and Marketing at Scripps.
Ferry said that participating in the CASE awards reflected part of President Lori Bettison-Varga’s push to expand the scope of Scripps’s involvement and presence among its peers.
“It was a part of her strategic focus to bring the world to Scripps and bring Scripps to the world. Participating in CASE was a great opportunity to share our work with our peers and colleagues,” Ferry said.
Scripps’s alumnae magazine, which focused on Scripps’s key involvement in the ceramics movement, earned Silver in the Communications & Marketing Programs—College and University General Interest Magazines category.
Ferry said that the recent publications reflect a movement toward a focused approach to a greater level of outreach among the Scripps administration.
Pitzer’s winning videos, which promoted the 50 Forward campaign honoring the 50th anniversary of the college and the newly dedicated Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability, sought to capture the ethos of the campus, said Mark Bailey, Pitzer’s Vice President for Communications, Marketing, and Public Relations.
“[The video] effectively presents not only Pitzer the place but Pitzer the people, our mission and our hopes for the future,” Bailey said.
The video was presented during a press conference in L.A. last year.
The 50 Forward campaign adopted four major goals for institutional improvement: an expansion of student aid, improvement to critical facilities, an increase in alumni support for the annual fund, and an enhancement of the academic program.
Pitzer President Laura Skandera Trombley appeared in the videos as a spokesperson for the college.
“We’ve received a lot of positive feedback. People find the content to be very good, very accurate, and they’re not too long, so people watch them,” Trombley said.
Both Trombley and Bailey stated that they have already personally felt the effects of the campaign video. Bailey specifically cited the exuberant response of the Board of Trustees, which he said spontaneously erupted in applause after first viewing the video.
“Universally, without exception, people are very pleased that the video captured the sights, the sound, the feel of Pitzer’s campus. That’s why there are so many traveling shots, particularly the mounds at the center of campus. The whole sense of movement was really at the core of what we were trying to get at with the video,” he said.
Although Pitzer and Scripps did not collaborate on their winning videos, Ferry stated that the communications staffs of the 5Cs do rely on each other for new ideas, meeting to discuss use of digital publications and social media once a month. According to Ferry, the awards were simply a commendation for the work the communications departments at the 5Cs are producing.
Both Pitzer and Scripps have hired new Vice Presidents of Communications and Marketing in the last two years, with Bailey arriving at Pitzer this year and Ferry at Scripps a year and a half ago.