Western Oregon Journal

Issue date: 11/9/07 Section: Headlines

One of the four chosen billboards [Click to enlarge]

One of Western's goals as an institution of higher education is to provide students with the skills to advance in today's society. Western attempts to leave its graduates with the ability to succeed in an ever more challenging work environment by adding creativity and inspiration to graduates' repertoire. Western has been known to prepare students for real challenges that they may face within each given field through projects and faculty guidance. The WOU and You Billboard Project is an example of combining creativity and academics to produce a fantastic learning outcome. It gave a handful of Western students an opportunity to gain more insight into a real-world situation in their field while producing an image beneficial to the Western community.

The Billboard Project took place during the 2007 spring term. The billboards are posted in various locations around the Portland area. Students from several different majors submitted possible designs for the billboards. With only guidance and support coming from Western faculty, four billboards were created with this model. Ryan Alonzo, one Western student who designed the billboards, stated, "There is so much talent at our school and this was a great opportunity for the students to step up and prove it."

The billboards will be posted for three months, rotating on a monthly basis. At this time, the billboards can be seen in Beaverton, Clackamas and Downtown Portland locations. They will be moving the week before Christmas and again during the middle of January. If you haven't seen the billboards yet, contact David McDonald in APSC 408 for exact locations.

Though this billboard project is only one piece of a large-scale multimedia-marketing plan used by Western to gain student interest, it has already had a significant effect. A large number of Freshman that participated in the 2007 Summer Orientation Advising and Registration program (SOAR), stated that they remembered seeing the billboards. In many cases they said it had contributed to their decision to apply to Western Oregon University. This is the second year that billboards have been used to attract students to the university. The billboards have proven their worth and the university intends to continue them, hoping the response increase in enrollment continues.

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