INTRODUCTION

The Creative Media Unit (CMU) began its work this year after being written into the AS Legal Code as part of the restructuring of AS that was initiated during the 2013/14 academic year. The unit was created to consolidate student initiated media and publicity functions. This past year the CMU was chaired by Annie Chen who did the challenging work of establishing the unit and bringing together students and staff to define the unit’s priorities.

CMU is a unique unit that includes students, student employees, and AS career staff. During the 2014-2015 school year, the newly established unit took on ambitious tasks in order to achieve its goal of marketing and promoting the works of AS campus-wide. Two of the major successes of the unit were successfully getting the “ASSOCIATED STUDENTS”  added to the exterior of the AS main building and a successful Care-to-Know campaign that helped pass all AS-related lock-in affirmations in the annual campus elections.

The unit started an AS newsletter and planned to make weekly “Senate Room” videos recapping Senate meetings in order to condense and highlight activities in AS. Although only 3 newsletters and an equal number of Senate Room videos were produced in the course of the year, it was a start. It also underscores the challenge of creating a historical record for AS that requires participation by students who are continually busy with upcoming projects and, of course, also must attend to their academic work.

With the hiring of a paid student videographer and a student graphic artist, projects such as a campus-wide AS brochure and the creation of a time capsule-like video modeled on Campus By the Sea a twenty minute long film about campus life produced by AS in 1963 were initiated. AS Art Director Chelsea Lyon oversaw these efforts.

Additionally, the AS Media Center under the umbrella of CMU provided a place for students to expand their creativity by offering free loans of professional video and photography equipment.

The center also offered free weekly skills workshops which though poorly attended presented a variety of media related information. Research Specialist Andy Doerr coordinated the center after leading the effort to relaunch it the previous year.

AS CARE TO KNOW CAMPAIGN

The AS Care to Know campaign was the CMU’s most visible project during this inaugural year. The campaign’s purpose was to let the campus community know about the many ways that AS entities and services, like the Bike Shop, serve our community. It coincided with AS campus-wide elections that this year included lock-in reaffirmations to provide funding for numerous AS groups.  The informational campaign included designing posters, Digiknow slides, buttons, and other publicity to give AS as much visibility as possible during this critical time. As a testament to its effectiveness it was gratifying that due to the work of CMU and AS as a whole all of the AS reaffirmations were passed as well as an initiative to establish a new lock-in to support the work of the Pardall Center as an essential student and IV community resource.