Students and faculty are passionate about learning at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
That’s what Randy Jolly, Media Relations and Publication director at A&M-C found out before creating the University’s newest slogan.
The slogan?-?”Passionate about Learning? You belong here.”?-?was created by Jolly, who is also responsible for the university’s new logos.
“We’re in the midst of a branding campaign,” Jolly, who worked for such corporations as Boeing and Raytheon prior to joining A&M – Commerce’s faculty, said. “We have to show what makes us different than [any other university].”
Jolly and a team of 12 created the slogan in 2006, which replaced the previous slogan, “your success is our business” after asking students and faculty why they came to the University.
According to Jolly, the word “passionate” was a reoccurring statement in many interviews.
“If you’re passionate about learning, you belong here; this is the place to be. Since 1889 the University has been teaching others,” Jolly said. “If you’re looking for a party school, you probably don’t belong here. If you’re looking for an Ivy League school, you probably don’t belong here. If you’re here, you’re probably here to learn something.”
However, Jolly and his team didn’t set out to create a new slogan. It was a natural progression when creating a new marketing campaign for the University.
“The slogan kind of evolved. We didn’t really set out to get a slogan. I wasn’t trying to create a tagline. I just asked the deans ‘How can I help you tell your story?'” Jolly said.
Colleges and universities of all sizes utilize slogans as a means to promote. The University of Texas at Austin’s slogan is “What starts here changes the world.” Previously, the slogan had simply been “We’re Texas,” but was changed in 2004 based on brand research.
“On working with the University’s several key constituencies, we asked about the overall strategy of this place. Given the range of topics within a world-class university, what do we want to do?” Neal Burns, Director of the Center for Brand Research at UT-Austin, said.
Whether collegiate slogans are even known by their students and alumni is debatable, however
“Honestly, I didn’t even know [Texas’s] slogan when I transferred here,” Jaime Chapin, sophomore film student at the University of Texas, said. “I just wanted to come here because of the film department.”
Private universities utilize slogans as well, just as their public counterparts.
Abilene Christian University’s current slogan – which was created in 1999 – is “Change the world.” Houston Baptist University’s slogan is “Write your own story.”
“I don’t know the slogan,” Spencer McGuffey, freshman business student at Houston Baptist, said. “I came [to Houston Baptist] because I was given a full scholarship and liked the people.”
So has the University’s most recent slogan resonated with its targets? According to Jolly, the answer is yes.
“It’s been very successful, I think,” Jolly said. “I had an [alumnus] come up to me and tell me how much he liked it. I think the new campaign is part of the reason we’ve been so successful recently, such as our current enrollment of over 9,000 students. It wasn’t the sole reason for the increase, but it was part of the reason.”
The current slogan won’t last forever, according to Jolly. New ideas are being brainstormed all the time.
One potential theme for the future is that “a great education is more than a degree,” Jolly said. “Another idea is that it’s all about relationships. You’ll have more of a personal relationship with your professors here, where [your professor] will know your name and know if you’re in class or not.”