FIU Business “Uncommon Thinkers” branding campaign wins national award

MIAMI (April 20, 2009) – Florida International University’s College of Business Administration has been selected as the winner of the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals’ (NAGAP) 2009 Award for Promotional Excellence.

The Promotional Excellence Award recognizes best practices in the area of graduate enrollment management. This year’s topic was Branding a Graduate School or Program.

FIU’s business school is being recognized for its “Uncommon Thinkers” branding campaign, and will receive the award at the NAGAP Annual Conference on April 23^rd in New York, NY.

The highly successful and innovative campaign was developed by FIU with the collaboration of advertising agency AlmaDDB, design firm Parrot Fish Studio and e-Community/Loyalty solutions company Quaxar.

As a result of this initiative, the attendance to FIU’s graduate business information sessions shot up by 273%, while the number of new graduate business students (MBAs and Specialized Masters) increased by 76%.

“The ‘Uncommon Thinkers’ campaign (www.uncommonthinkers.com) reflects our belief that successful ideas are often the result of uncommon thinking: seeing the opportunities that lie beyond obstacles, challenging conventional wisdom to solve issues from a novel perspective or putting together apparently unrelated pieces of information to come up with creative solutions to business problems,” said Luis Casas, director of marketing, communications and recruiting at FIU’s College of Business Administration. “Our location in Miami, one of the world’s truly global, richly diverse and dynamic cities, gives us the opportunity to bring people together from all over the world with a variety of backgrounds, experiences and cultures to create a unique learning environment – one that fosters, promotes and celebrates uncommon thinkers.”

Media Contacts:        Jean-Paul Renaud at 305-348-2716 or jprenaud@fiu.edu

                                    Luis Casas at 305-348-7399 or luis.casas@fiu.edu

About the Promotional Excellence Award
The National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals (NAGAP) established the Promotional Excellence Award in 1998 to recognize new or existing methodologies that demonstrate best practices for other graduate enrollment management professionals. Topics change each year based on current events in graduate enrollment management.

About NAGAP
The National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals (NAGAP) was created in 1987 and is the only professional organization devoted exclusively to the concerns of individuals working in the graduate admissions and recruitment environment. The mission of NAGAP’s  is to support, advance and engage graduate enrollment professionals by promoting integrity, excellence, and collaboration through education and professional development. It currently has 2,000 members.

About FIU’s College of Business Administration
Florida International University’s College of Business Administration, South Florida’s leading business school with unique expertise in international business, entrepreneurship and a broad range of financial services, is the largest of the university’s professional schools. Among the college’s nearly 30,000 alumni are some of South Florida’s most successful business leaders and entrepreneurs. More than 6,000 students are enrolled in undergraduate business courses in its R. Kirk Landon Undergraduate School of Business, and more than 1,000 graduate students study in its Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Graduate School of Business every year. Another 1,000 business professionals participate annually in one or more of its professional and executive education programs.

About FIU
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, FIU graduates more Hispanics than any other university in the country. Its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University.” In 2006, FIU was authorized to establish a medical school, which will welcome its first class in 2009. FIU’s College of Law recently received accreditation in the fastest time allowed by the American Bar Association.