SUNY Oswego - Alumni Association

July 2010 • Vol 6 No 4

OAA Strikes Silver in International Competition

The Oswego Alumni Association has won a silver award in the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education’s international Circle of Excellence Program.

Screen capture of winning video. The award, for the 2009 “New Year’s Flash” e-mail, came in the Alumni Relations Programs: Creative Use of New Media category. Judges reviewed 33 entries in the category, awarding one gold and two silver awards.

“The Oswego Alumni Association has sent holiday greeting e-mails in previous years, but this one, enlivened with candid video of campus, was extremely successful in helping the Oswego Alumni Association generate positive—and warm—feelings on a cold winter’s day,” said Betsy Oberst, executive director of the association.

The e-mail greeting, sent to all alumni for whom Oswego had e-mail addresses in January 2009, conveyed the association’s holiday greetings in a light-hearted manner.

Local freelance videographer Tina Ruth filmed Oswego students, faculty members, alumni and development staff and shots of campus: Technology education professor John Belt grouped his students under a geodesic dome. The women’s ice hockey team skated up and sprayed ice at the camera. And a group of students sledded down Fallbrook hill.

Within moments of the e-mail’s sending, alumni began to write back with their comments, including:

* “Thank you! It is a pleasure to receive such warm and pleasant greetings from one of the best homes I have had over the past 40 years.”

* “Your video brought tears to my eyes. I so loved my years at Oswego.”

— Michele Reed

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Oswego Alumni Association, Inc. • King Alumni Hall - SUNY Oswego • Oswego, NY 13126
315-312-2258 • 315-312-5570 (fax) • E-mail: alumni@oswego.edu • Web site: oswego.edu/alumni

Who doesn’t want to save the world? Michael Kite ’02 does that for a living through World Wildlife Fund.

As marketing specialist for one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, Kite and his team of three work to raise more than $5 million each year. The majority of that money comes from licensing partnerships and promotions with the likes of Barnes & Noble, Gap, Hewlett-Packard, Dial and Coinstar.

Retail partnerships help WWF spread its message to the general public and raise funds for its conservation work around the globe. For example, Bank of America contributes $100 for every special Visa account opened and Nabisco is supporting WWF’s “Year of the Tiger” initiative with special packaging and a $100,000 donation. The new CVS Green Bag Tag program rewards reusable bag-toting customers, and generates five cents for WWF for each tag sold.

All support WWF’s mission of protecting the future of nature, down to the finest details, Kite said.

“We like to see that the product is made from recycled material and is recyclable itself, and somehow ties into our mission,” Kite said. The Green Bag Tag, for instance, is made from a corn-based material and features a 100 percent recycled silicone lanyard.

As a broadcasting major at Oswego, Kite got involved with WRVO-FM and WNYO-FM.

“I think it gave me a lot more confidence in talking to people,” he said. It was an important part of his early career in broadcast sales and remains an important piece in the message he “sells” today.

“The best part of my job is seeing a product in the store with the WWF logo after months of working with a company to launch it,” said Kite, who joined the organization in 2006. “It’s rewarding to give people a fun, unique way to protect our planet.”

— Shane M. Liebler