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The University of Tennessee College of Engineering 114 Perkins Hall Knoxville, TN 37996-2012 |
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| Newsletter
of the UT College of Engineering |
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COE Recruiting CD is Challenging, Rewarding Project |
After I joined the College of Engineering as communications specialist in 1998, Dr. Jerry Stoneking already had a long list of tasks for me to take on. During one of our discussions he brought out a CD-Rom that he had received in the mail from another university.
"This is a project I really want us to do," he said. "These CDs are going to replace brochures as the wave of the future for recruiting. I want you to research this and find out how we can put something like this together."
Little did I know, four years ago, that this project would involve filming at sites ranging from UT laboratories to a road in the Nevada desert to a muddy cliff above the Tennessee River. And, unfortunately, none of us could know at the time that Dr. Stoneking would not live to see his beloved project completed.
The project did not truly get off the ground until the spring of 2001; other priorities, such as redesigning the college's web site, created several delays.
Eventually Dr. Roger Parsons, director of the Engage program, who was taking a group to the American Society of Engineering Education's annual conference, asked if we could put together a CD-ROM presentation.
We created a committee to begin work on the CD, which included Dr. Parsons; Engage team facilitator Dr. Elaine Seat; Dr. Stoneking, and myself. Dr. Fred Gilliam, associate dean of undergraduate education, served as committee chair. We contracted with a local multimedia
| Joe Jaynes (l) and Rip Noel (r) of Abacus Arts prepare to shoot Dr. Fred Gilliam's rappelling segment for the recruiting CD. |
The Engage CD was a joint effort among COE staff, Engage students and Abacus. Actual student-shot footage of Engage experiments, social activities and classroom interactions were used in the project. One-on-one interviews with Dr. Parsons and Dr. Seat were shot in Estabrook Hall by a camera team from Witt Video, a Knoxville firm, and footage of Dr. Stoneking provided the welcome and the closing message. Donated video footage from corporate supporters, including Astec, Duke Engineering, ORNL, CTI and Sea Ray Boats, also added visual appeal. Taped interviews with Engage students provided the voice-over for much of the CD.
The Engage CD won "Best of Show" for its presentation day at the conference. The CD was also shown to the college's Board of Advisors at the fall 2001 meeting and received a very positive response. The next step was to utilize the material from the Engage CD on an expanded recruiting CD.
Our theme became "the essentials": Students on the "road of life" need to have the essentials to succeed, and what better tool than an engineering degree from the University of Tennessee? We also decided to open the CD with a "music video" illustrating this concept, since our target audience is students aged 15-17 who are part of the "MTV generation."
In the summer of 2001, we began serious work on the second CD project. We decided to present COE administrators in a different way: not behind a desk, but in exciting, real-life settings. Dr. Gilliam outlined the advantages of the COE undergraduate program while rappelling down a cliff over the Tennessee River; Walter Odom, a former professional athlete, discussed the Cooperative Engineering Program from a site in Neyland Stadium; and Dr. Fred Tompkins outlined the graduate studies programs in a Science and Engineering Research Facility laboratory.
Several alumni and members of the COE's Board of Advisors agreed to offer testimonials about the benefits of their UT engineering education on the CD. Jim Porter, a member of the board and vice-president of engineering and operations for E.I. DuPont de Nemours Inc., was instrumental in helping us secure Chad Holliday, a fellow COE alumni and CEO of DuPont, as an alumni spokesman for the CD. Spruell Driver, a COE graduate and board member, and another UT engineering alumni, Jenny McGrath, also offered positive comments on the CD about their educational experiences at UT.
Our last scheduled shoot was Dr. Stoneking's concluding message at Ayres Hall. It was during this shoot that Dr. Stoneking collapsed and was taken to UT Medical Center, where he died. Stunned and disbelieving, we wondered what would happen to the project.
However, only a few days later, Dr. Tompkins came into my office and said quietly, "We will continue with the CD. Jerry would have wanted us to finish it."
Two UT engineering alums--Dr. Lee Martin, who is also a member of the Board of Advisors, and Martha Pollston--graciously stepped in to refilm the conclusion. The CD is dedicated to Dr. Stoneking in a special message just before the ending credits.
The final COE recruiting CD was completed in December 2001. A link on the COE web site allows prospective students to access a form to request a free copy of the CD.
Since the link was posted in June, we have received hundreds of requests, many of them from as far away as China, India and Saudi Arabia. As Dr. Stoneking had hoped, we are "getting the word out" about the UT College of Engineering--all over the world.
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Story by Kim Cowart
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Abacus Arts website: http://www.abacusarts.com
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