Heather Miller, Brooke Bulow, Jess Cybulski and Alma Garcia at the Texas Association of College & University Student Personnel Administrators (TACUSPA) conference
By Heather Miller, Director of Development
This has been an exciting year of sharing the Living the Longhorn Life® story with our peers from colleges and universities across the country — yes, we literally took the show on the road!
Our Division of Student Affairs development and communication teams started with a presentation to our state student affairs colleagues at the Texas Association of College & University Student Personnel Administrators (TACUSPA) conference in October in Austin. This spring, we hosted a virtual presentation at the annual NASPA conference and presented in person to 50 of our development, communications and marketing colleagues at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Region IV Conference in San Antonio.
(From top to bottom) Cybulski, Garcia, Bulow and Miller present virtually at the NASPA Annual Conference
Our presentations chronicle the history of how Living the Longhorn Life® began back in 2018 and evolved over the years – from “There’s more than one way to be a Longhorn” to the expanded and refined message points we have today: You are here, You do you, You change the world. Adding “Influencing the Longhorn Life” to our messaging helped us acknowledge the work you all do every day to maximize the Longhorn experience, and it also applies to our alumni and donors. Additionally, one of the highlights was explaining how we created a game-changing partnership with the University Co-op to sell our Living the Longhorn Life® merchandise. Since May 2022, we’ve sold 5,000 items at the iconic store on Guadalupe (with some items also available online) and raised almost $10,000 for the NOW Fund, which directly benefits students!
Cybulski, Garcia and Miller at the CASE conference
It was a privilege to meet with peers from across the state and country, and it was an incredible opportunity to share how we are supporting our students’ success and academic journey. I hope what they learned from us in these presentations will help them develop creative ways to reach students, staff, faculty and alumni at their institutions and at the same time, instill a sense of Longhorn pride.
Thank you again for influencing the Longhorn life each and every day and helping make this story possible! If you’d like to check out our most recent presentation to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Region IV Conference, you can view the slides here.