UHCL seeks designers for logo, slogan contest
Graphic by Roberta Cowan: The Signal.
Mark Bownds
The Signal
Submissions are now being accepted for a contest that would create a logo and slogan for UHCL’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP).
The QEP will play a significant role in the upcoming 2012 reaccreditation process overseen by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
The topic chosen for UHCL’s QEP is Applied Critical Thinking for Lifelong Learning and Adaptability, a topic that the logo and slogan should reflect.
L. Jean Walker, professor of marketing and convener of the QEP Promotion Committee, says she is excited about what will be submitted.
“There are so many people throughout this university that have all kinds of great ideas and concepts,” Walker said, “so we’re excited to see what comes forward and where it comes from.”
All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to enter because the contest is designed to create campus-wide awareness of the QEP and its topic on critical thinking. The contest is also an opportunity for creative minds to generate motivation and enthusiasm toward the topic.
“The idea is that critical thinking skills are portable and transferable,” said Chloé Diepenbrock, associate professor of writing and literature, director of the UHCL Writing Center and co-chair of the QEP steering committee. “You need to know what we [UHCL] are going to give you in terms of your education, or what you are going to come away with that will have the best value for you and that will allow you to go through the rest of your life being successful. I would say that the foundational skills are critical thinking skills. Your ability to assess information and to problem solve are going to be the most valuable thing.”
As part of the accreditation process, UHCL needs to show SACS that improvements are being made toward UHCL students’ developmental critical thinking skills. This raises the question as to how these skills can be measured.
“As a chair of the assessment committee, we have been investigating different measures of critical thinking skills to see how you figure out whether somebody’s critical thinking skills have improved, and there are various measures out there,” Diepenbrock said.
As far as the contest goes, Diepenbrock stated that the goal was not only to promote awareness of this particular mission, but to stir up campus involvement as well.
“Awareness is a big part of the contest, but it’s also to get people involved,” Diepenbrock said. “You know if a student decides to come up with a slogan for critical thinking, then that tells us a lot about how that student views critical thinking skills. We want people to be involved; we want them to have some sense of involvement or buy-in with this because this is your school.”
The winners of the logo and slogan contest will win a $150 gift certificate to the UHCL bookstore, and the logo and slogan will be featured on many forms of media and communication tools. Walker explained that although it is undetermined exactly how the logo and slogan will be used to promote critical thinking, she was clear in that they would be put to various good uses.
“We are just starting to put together our promotional plan, which will be how do we promote to all the internal audiences once we have this,” Walker said. “It could be on additional fliers; I think that would be kind of logical, but there’s a lot of other options downstream when we start implementing the program. Certainly it will be on the QEP website, and certainly it will be on the front of the QEP program book that we submit to SACS when they come in the spring of 2012 to review us.”
Any student, faculty, staff member or administrator who wishes to participate in the contest can pick up submission forms in the Student Life Office. The deadline for submissions is Monday, April 18, at 6 p.m. All submissions must be in hard copy form and brought to the Student Life Office.
Stuart Larson, associate professor in graphic design and member of the QEP Steering subcommittee of implementation, had this advice for designing a logo.
“An effective logo is interesting enough to be viewed the size of a billboard, yet simple enough to be recognizable the size of a postage stamp,” Larson said. “Use a unique combination of simple shapes, making sure that the logo will function both in color and as a black and white silhouette.”
Additional forms for the contest, the official contest rules, guidelines, procedures, and all other information on the QEP can be found by going to www.uhcl.edu/qep.
