Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Five university outreach units of Mississippi State are major winners in a regional competition of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
CASE is the country's leading educational-support organization for professionals working in alumni relations, communications and development.
Staff members in the Office of University Relations received two CASE Grand Awards, the highest honors, at the organization's recent District III annual conference in Nashville, Tenn.
Their entries and four others from MSU receiving 2007 Awards of Excellence were among more than 1,100 submitted this year from educational institutions in nine Southern states stretching from the South Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River.
District III Grand Award winners included:
--Photographer Megan Bean, for the portrait series of client families served by MSU's T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability; and
--Publications coordinator Becky Smith, who shared the honor with the Division of Student Affairs' Office of Admissions and Scholarships for a student recruitment package of print materials.
Four awards of excellence, the next highest levels of recognition, went to:
--University Relations assistant director Erika Celeste, for production of "High Notes," a series of radio programs and announcements;
--The MSU Alumni Association and Office of Admissions and Scholarships, for sponsoring and organizing a series of entering freshman send-off parties in advance of the 2006 fall semester;
--The MSU Foundation, for improvements in the design of annual reports; and
--MSU Foundation and University Television Center, for a series of television spots promoting the ongoing "State of the Future" fundraising campaign.
In addition to Mississippi, CASE District III includes nearly 600 public and private institutions of higher learning, independent and secondary schools, and other educational entities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. It is among eight CASE districts covering the United States and Canada.
CASE national offices are located in Washington, D.C. In all, the organization serves more than 47,000 professionals on the staffs of member institutions.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.