Among popular student activities: building and racing cardboard boats on our five-mile square lake

Web & Marketing Writer – University Marketing & Communications (2009-2011)

Higher education offers experiences from the relatively mundane to the literally earth-shaking, encouraging students as they develop intellectually, professionally, and as caring engaged global citizens. If it’s an especially noteworthy experience that happened at Buena Vista University from 2009 through 2011, chances are it passed through my office. As one of three staff writers, for almost three years I got to talk with professors and students about the amazing things they do and share them with the world. (In September 2011, I left to pursue an MSc in Digital Anthropology at University College London in London.)

Nearly all the online promotional copy about BVU’s academic programs, I produced.

If it’s classified on the menus under “View By School,” I most likely researched and wrote it. If it’s copy under “View By Major or Minor” I revised it from previous materials (or, in some cases, started from scratch). This content is largely aimed at high school-age potential students, and writing it required interviewing nearly every professor at the University.

As per the developing direction of our office, many of the pieces I produced were designed for the web: short and focused. Many slightly longer pieces I write get printed in regional newspapers, and have been re-purposed for BVU’s site. Substance-wise, I’ve tended to gravitate toward writing about student experiences that are active, socially conscious, and that often involve travel.

I also wrote features for BV Today magazineand the BV Briefs alumni publication, including feature-length profiles of professors, long and short profiles of alumni, fundraising pieces, and the following cover stories (sectioned for online display):

Urban Legends, Pranks, and Oddities (Fall 2009)

Climbing the Arch, Chapel Beetle, and other Pranks ~ Buena Vista Oddities ~ Legends from Buena Vista ~ Mary Swope and Other Ghost Stories

The Harold Walter Siebens School of Business (Fall 2010)

Intro ~ The Challenge Gift ~ Yesterday and Today ~ A Multi-Disciplinary Approach ~Business and Technology

BV Today feature stories I’ve written available online as PDFs, covered in this blog post and this one, are:

“Of Apes and Apps” (Feb 2012)

“Spirited Enterprise” (July 2011)

“That Much Further West” (Feb 2011)

“Opportunity, Next Exit” (Feb 2011)

“A Man of Many Words” (July 2010)

“A Changing Practice” (Feb 2010)

Other pieces have included the occasional  interview, speaker profile, and scripts for presentations and videos.