We’ll confess that one of our favorite places on campus is the Andrews University Airpark (that's its official name — which you can read all about in our very own IMC Editorial Style Guide, including the detail that the Airpark's identifier, in FAA terms, is C-20; that’s even how you can find the Airpark on Google). Among the coolest of its features are its two Alsim FTDs (Flight Training Devices), the first of their kind to be installed at any American university (although you can look at this cool chart of where the devices are located around the world). The training devices (sometimes called simulators) offer the chance to emulate three different aircraft for our students, giving them a chance to experience flying in any variety of weather and day or night-time conditions. You can see the FTD's deeply impressive wrap around video screens that add to the reality of the experience (motion sickness no extra charge).

The installation nearly two years ago brought a lots of publicity, including a two-page article in the September, 2007 issue of Flying magazine, if you happen have any extra copy laying around (see pages 79 and 80, to be specific)

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the Andrews University Board of Trustees introduced its first full start of the week schedule to its meetings (in the past, board sub-committees would begin their meetings on Friday morning, and the board work would continue through Monday), and we welcomed back some of the new members of this year's Board of Trustees (along with those who happily continue to take part).

The Tuesday morning meeting seemed to offer a beautiful enough day in Berrien Springs to walk across campus on that sunny March morning and take the Board of Trustees’ picture on the stage of our Howard Performing Arts Center, and you’ll see the final results of that effort above.

We also launched a brand new website for board members this week (and for you, too; you can check out the public part of the site right here), which will give our board members access to committee assignments, minutes, contact lists and other detailed information.

As we worked on the public part of the site for the Board of Trustees, we also included schedules, committee memberships, bylaws and even a link to our NCA self-study site, the latter an important area as we prepare for our formal accreditation visit late this March.

There's more to come, including periodic reports to the constituency from our board chair, Elder Gerald Karst, general vice president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

During the IMC launch last week, the IMC Blog had the chance to sit down and listen to Meredith Jones-Gray share some great stories about presidential houses at Andrews University (the IMC offices are now housed in a “mansion” first built for Percy W. Christian, who was president of Emmanuel Missionary College between 1950 and 1955).

Gray, author of “As We Set Forth,” shared no small number of wondrous stories, ranging from the president who raised chickens to her own personal connection with the first presidential house built on campus, the Sutherland House (it was there that she was first brought home after she was first born by her parents, then faculty members here).

During the presentation, she reflected briefly on the old sign that once welcomed generations of students to Andrews University, a sign first used during Andrews’ very first days as a university in the early 1960s. That sign was designed by then President Floyd O. Rittenhouse (who was occasionally nicknamed "Scribbleshack" by the students then attending Andrews), and until this year, the sign marked the entrance to University Boulevard (once you get to the map, click on street view to see the sign in its original location).

When the new entrance was opened (see below), the original Andrews University sign was moved behind President Christian's old “mansion” (again, home to Integrated Marketing & Communication and world headquarters for the IMC Blog), where it lives on in a sort of outdoor sign museum, with a gallery of one exhibit (as seen in this great shot taken earlier this year by Martin Lee).

Last evening, we at the IMC Blog spent some happy time reviewing the new editorial style guide found elsewhere on our site, which thanks to the great work of our colleagues Patricia Spangler and Keri Suarez offers a wonderful array of information on everything from punctuation to capitalization to titles to degree usage (as well as a comprehensive and growing glossary of the right terms and names for things throughout the Andrews University community) when we write about all things Andrews .

Labels: IMC, style guide

During the official launch of Integrated Marketing & Communication in early December, 2008, we had a mini-seminar on how to compose a short “elevator speech”...a brief and incisive way to tell someone else about Andrews University and what it might have to offer to them.

While preparing for that seminar, we found this video online of a great elevator speech, using paper as much as words, from Ball State University:

Labels: elevator speech, IMC, story

Above, you’ll see an example of ligatures available via Linotype for Herman Zapf’s Zapfino typeface, but you can find some examples much closer to home with the new wordmark for Andrews University that was introduced in 2008. While it looks very much like what you may be used to seeing when you see the Andrews University with the flame/arch (we call that part of the wordmark the “flogo”), designers Mark Cook and Brian Edelfson of Thesis: created ligatures for the “A” and “n” in the word “Andrews” and between the “t” and “y” in “University” to help create a wordmark that is uniquely Andrews’ own.

Look at the yellow circles below to see the new ligatures in question (which, for type geeks among us, is a wordmark set in the Berkeley typeface):

Labels: design standards, IMC, typography