Loyola students have found the winning formula for presenting their case as the success of the advertising, Bateman and marketing teams will attest. All three teams have finished among the top teams in their respective competitions this past month. The accomplishment is a rare feat, according to Teri Henley, associate professor of communications and communications department chairperson. “I’ve tracked these competitions for a long time, and I don’t know of any university in the country that has finished in the top three for all three competitions,” Henley said.
Bateman team places third in nationThe posters around campus promoting academic integrity are not only around to remind students not to cheat on exams. They are also part of a campaign that made Loyola’s Bateman team a finalist in a competition sponsored by the Public Relations Student Society of America.According to Cathy Rogers, associate professor of communications, the “Check out my Ethics” campaign was designed to promote academic integrity on campus.”I found this topic extra sensitive,” Rogers said. “I think the team did an outstanding job to find a creative solution to tackle the subject.”It was challenging to get the attention of the students without offending honest students or faculty, Rogers said. Overall, she said the project was a time-consuming effort.Even selecting the team took time. Each team member, personally selected by Rogers, had to do an interview as well as demonstrate the ability to work on a team and prove strong communication skills.Once chosen, team members, like communications senior Kirby Scelfo, found the project to be a semester-long process.”I am really glad we came out so successful with this,” Scelfo said. “All five members worked extremely hard and put in long hours.”With an eight-year streak of Bateman finalists, this team could have been under a conceivable amount of pressure to continue Loyola’s dominance in the competition. But Rogers did not notice any negative effects. “I use past teams success as an instructive mechanism. Every year there is a new and challenging group of students to work with,” Rogers said. “This group of women was selected because I knew they could handle it; the writing, the research, the statistics and the editing process were all covered.”
Ad team wins district competitionThe ad team won first place in the seventh district National Student Advertising competition. This is the sixth time in 12 years that the team won first place. The team prepared a 32-page booklet and held a 20-minute multimedia presentation. The team’s creative director Robyn Alello, communications senior, said that it was an incredible feeling to win. She said the team was just hoping to place because the competition was so tough. “This was the closest way to gain real job experience in the advertising world other than doing an internship,” Alello said. Five students presented, but 15 students worked on the presentation all semester.Amy Bowles, communications junior, agreed with Alello. She said the set up for the project was like a real ad agency, complete with directors for every department, a media team and a creative team. “We put in a lot of hours,” Bowles said. “Once we stayed all night until ten the next morning.”Behind every winning team there is a good leader. Bowles insisted that Teri Henley, communications chairwoman and associate professor of communications, and Debra Woodfork, assistant professor of communications, not only kept up with the housekeeping for the team but gave them lots of support and encouragement. “Henley can just look at something, and she knows if it will work or not,” Bowles said.
Marketing team places secondThe marketing team placed second in the American Marketing International Case Competition. Marketing management senior Amanda Eckersley said it was a year-long project that her team worked on for Goodyear/Sullivan.”It was exciting to place in the finals because we put forth so much time and effort. We felt we had a solid and worthy project, and we were even evaluated by some groups that our advisor, Dr. Caroline Fisher, put together to give us feedback,” Eckersley said. The group spent the last two weeks prior to the competition reworking some of the presentation using the feedback as necessary.Only four members were allowed to speak, and one member presented a power point presentation. Anita Oubre can be reached at [email protected].
