Communications Professionals

Deans, directors, and chairs work closely with communications professionals to maximize visibility and contribute to their institutions reputation. Together, you collaborate on strategic communications, crisis management, and telling the institution's story through print and digital platforms. To augment your International Council of Fine Arts Deans membership, a Communications Professionals Network has beenformed. It is designed to create a network for communications professionals working in the visual and performing arts, design, and creative industries in higher education. The Communications Professionals Network engages throughout the year to share challenges and successes, best practices, strategies, research, communication models, and trends that support communications efforts in the creative, higher education space.  Click here to add your Communications Professionals, if you are already an Institutional Member. Or, click here to renew your Institutional Membership. If you prefer to share your p-card information by phone for either, please call (561) 514-0810 or e-mail [email protected] for additional information.

To augment your International Council of Fine Arts Deans membership, a Communications Professionals Network is being formed. It is designed to create a network for communications professionals working in the visual and performing arts, design, and creative industries in higher education. The Communications Professionals Network will engage throughout the year to share challenges and successes, best practices, strategies, research, communication models, and trends that support communications efforts in the creative, higher education space.

Benefits of membership in ICFAD’s Communications Professionals Network include, but are not limited to: 

Membership is $200 annually and is only open to those whose institutions hold an active Institutional membership. Click here to add your Communications Professionals, if you are already an Institutional Member. Or, click here to renew your Institutional Membership. If you prefer to share your p-card information by phone for either, please call (561) 514-0810 or e-mail [email protected] for additional information.

More than 80 people joined us for Best Practices: Digital Marketing for the Arts in Higher Education. You’re invited to click on the presentation title to see a recording of the session. Here is a copy of Chris’ slidedeck and here is a copy of Alice’s slidedeck.

ICFAD's Communications Professionals: Storytelling was held on October 21, 2021. In this session we discussed how storytelling is an important tool for authentically communicating the university experience. Yet, producing each piece of content can involve time-intensive tasks. By planning to repurpose stories across a variety of platforms, one can reach broader audiences. In this session, we talked about story and image selection, content management, resource sharing, and how to repackage content for a variety of purposes. Find the recorded session here.

Media Relations: The Great, the Good and the Challenges was an online program offered in July 2021. We all would like our stories placed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, but very few of us have the staff dedicated to building these kinds of long-term relationships . . .should they be reaching out via social media? Does the traditional press release, emailed to a list, end up in a spam folder? How much time should they be dedicating to building relationships with reporters? Do news outlets even have traditional reporters any more? What, if anything, is the role of the influencer? What's the best way to get a story placed? What do reporters need to run with a story (thinking here about the pitch but also the complete press package, including images ready to go)? Mary Dettloff, Office of News and Media Relations, Umass Amherst, shared this slide deck. She encouraged us to all become familiar with The Conversation and to reach out to the university liaison there:[email protected]