In the midst of a campaign to remind Tennessee residents of UT's presence in the life of the state, another need developed for a rich overview of the school--an orientation piece for visitors from other colleges and other countries.
Communication leaders (including my friend Katherine Key) wanted, at the very least, to balance UT's image as an NCAA powerhouse with other aspects of campus life, each holding out its own inherent drama and value.
The strategy became one of shuffling ten profiles into a single sketch book, lavishly illustrated and illuminated with historical time line and a clutch of effervescent sidebars on subjects like dance marathons and cosmochemistry. We also included a "Harper's Index" fact page and, in the end, brief descriptions of the nine colleges within the University. But the central theater of the piece rests in the ten profiles chosen, from Marco Institute medieval studies to campus internationalism to the court-side philosophies of Pat Summitt.
Published in the spring of 2007, the brochure (later imported to UT's web site) set off a storm of interest beyond its original purpose.
Writes Nancy McGlasson, director of undergraduate admissions: "Congratulations. . .for this magnificent piece! I would love to have lots of them for special. . .groups and let me know if we should work up a list of these sorts of things. Truly, this is the prettiest piece like this I have EVER SEEN and I see a lot of them. Get this, I cannot decide which spread is my favorite two pages."
Many thanks to Katherine Key for stewarding this project and to Alison Fields who co-drafted the profiles with me.
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