Publicizing Events: In LAS, at UIC, and locally and nationally.
UIC has many robust and helpful resources for publicizing campus events of all kinds. Nearly all of them are available with just a little foresight, and without any financial cost whatsoever to individuals, departments, or programs.
When publicizing departmental events, LAS recommends the following:
For special events that may generate interest outside UIC:
Contact the UIC News Bureau:
Brian Flood (Humanities and Social Sciences) (312) 996-7681
Paul Francuch (Natural and Physical Sciences) (312) 996-3457
Jeff Boynes (Economics) (312) 413-8702
The UIC News Bureau is responsible for publicizing all external and UIC-wide press releases for news and events happening on campus. The News Bureau helps with posting event announcements to various newspapers around Chicago, and when viable, sending out press releases to local and national media. Its staff ask for plenty of lead time—ideally, four to six weeks prior to the event itself—for making these announcements.
When contacting the UIC News Bureau, LAS recommends that you also copy Stacia Campbell on any message that sent to the UIC News Bureau so that LAS may also post the event to the LAS home page, to the LAS Calendar, and when appropriate, to e-AtLAS or AtLAS magazines.
For events that will most likely garner an internal UIC audience, we have several suggestions:
Post the event to the LAS Calendar. You can do this by visiting the LAS home page and clicking on the calendar icon.
Why is this important? Posting to the LAS Calendar by default posts the event to the larger UIC Event Calendar. From this, the UIC webmaster then posts significant events on the UIC home page. Also, by referencing the LAS Calendar when planning events, you and your department can work to avoid event scheduling conflicts with other LAS departments and programs.
Utilize UIC Announce. The UIC Announce system is now connected to the UIC Calendar. When posting your event, you will see an option for sending out announcements up to five times to the campus via the daily email announcements. Each date must be at least three days apart. LAS recommends posting three times: one month, one week, and one day before the event.
Post the event to the Calendar section of UIC News. Send calendar announcements to Christy Levy at least two weeks in advance of your event. If you have an accompanying image of your speaker, send it along in electronic form, and it may appear in the newspaper.
Utilize Web Sites. To request a post to the “News and Announcements” section of the LAS home page, send Stacia Campbell a week or two before the event itself. Something short (between 60 and 70 words) is best. Check out the LAS home page to see how other announcements have been written to get an idea of what to include.
We also recommend utilizing your department’s web site for posting event content.
Utilize listservs. For events that promise to attract members of specific departments, I recommend sending fully prepared e-mail announcements to their specific department contacts. Ask them to share the posting with the faculty, graduate and undergraduate students in their units. This informal system relies on each department and program supporting one another.
Please do not attach pdf files of posters to e-mail messages. If you want recipients to see your poster, the best practice is to include a web link to the poster. It is not vital to do this, however. Most people are used to reading text-based messages without any concern.
Postering. Send posters to departments to ask for their help in displaying them in public areas of high traffic. Consider also sending limited numbers to other schools and colleges on campus, the UIC library, Student Center East and other public venues that have bulletin boards for posting.
Please follow UIC style guidelines and use the UIC official logo systems for your department. The guidelines detail how to refer to scholars with doctorates, how to list dates and times, addresses, and other language found on most publicity.