Students in the Integrated Marketing Communications class taught by Professor Mark McConnell recently completed two community engaged learning assignments. 

The first assignment involved developing a new brand identity for a community center in Alliance that is seeking a new name and logo. 

With the possibility of being used by the organization, this project gave small groups in the class the opportunity to pitch their brand. Presentations were scored by Ryan Smith, director of academic marketing at Mount Union and Abby Schroeder, director of the Regula Center at Mount Union. 

“Projects like this that allow students to learn about agencies and businesses in our community are crucial to helping them learn skills while interacting with real clients and understanding needs beyond the Mount Union campus,” said Schroeder. “The Regula Center is always eager to support class projects that are experiential in nature while serving the community at large.” 

The second project in this course was to evaluate a subscription based non-profit fundraising model and provide details about the marketing persona, target demographics and ultimately make suggestions as to how the organization could improve. Through this assignment students learned marketing principles while researching a non-profit agency. Their presentations allowed for all students to learn about multiple non-profits.  

This round of projects was judged by Schroeder, McConnell and local business leader Terry Hoopes.  

“I strive to create assignments that allow my students to learn through hands-on experiences and expose them to community and business leaders, so they are better prepared when entering the workforce,” explained McConnell. “Additionally I am passionate about organizations that are doing good and use assignments like this as a way to teach students about the work they are doing.” 

Austin Owens, a student in the class, said, "This project is not something I have done before, but it gave me great insight into the approaches to branding that I would be doing in my future career."