Office of Public Affairs undergoes name change
DAWright@tntech.edu
Office of Communications & Marketing
In order to better represent its duties and responsibilities, the Office of Public Affairs has been renamed the Office of Communications & Marketing.
“With the changing nature of communications, Public Affairs didn’t capture the breadth of what we do for the university,” said Monica Greppin, associate vice president for Communications & Marketing. “It used to be that our role was primarily focused in two areas: news releases and publications, but now with the growth of marketing and new media, along with the addition of Photo Services to Public Affairs a few years ago, a change was in order.”
Along with the overall name change, two units within Communications & Marketing are undergoing name changes: News Bureau and Publications.
The News Bureau is becoming News & Communications to better represent its role in generating stories outside of the traditional media of newspapers, radio and television.
“More and more of our efforts are focused on telling Tech’s story directly to audiences through YouTube, TTU’s web site and other non-traditional media,” said Karen Lykins, director of News & Communications. “We found that with our previous name, people thought we worked solely with the news media. While that is an important part of what we do, we strive to use our reporting, writing and storytelling skills in a variety of ways.”
For Publications, the name change to Creative Services fulfills a similar need to better communicate what the unit does.
“When people hear ‘Publications,’ they think of printed materials like single brochures and newsletters,” said Dewayne Wright, director of Creative Services. “Certainly that has been the majority of our efforts in the past. Now we do more, be it web work, illustrations or entire campaigns. We look at Creative Services as a problem-solving partner for university offices and departments.”
Communications & Marketing, part of University Advancement, is made up of the following units: Creative Services, Marketing, News & Communications, Photographic Services and Web & Digital Media.
The name change was approved by the Tennessee Board of Regents as part of TTU’s organizational chart approval in December.
