Best of FY25

In June, the College of Health Sciences hosted their second annual Health Sciences Camp! This year, COHS doubled their attendance with 40 high school students from all over the Treasure Valley and out of state, including Washington, California and West Virginia. Students spent three days on campus, staying in the Keiser Hall dormitory. They participated in 10 learning sessions from each COHS department, as well as tours and recreational activities on campus. The goal of COHS’s camp was to introduce high school juniors and seniors to health science programs and careers, showcasing the world-class education and professional development students can look forward to at Boise State. COHS partnered with Career Services as well as St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus hospitals to host presentations. This marketing strategy is not only an individual team project, but an entire college effort supported by many faculty and staff, and COHS has seen great success!

The School of Public Service had a three-day photo and video shoot with marketing and advertising agency Mitchell + Palmer. Senior Communications Specialist Lainey Rehkemper recruited and auditioned 28 actors — students, faculty and staff in the School of Public Service. Rehkemper is proud of this project because it represents SPS so well. SPS shot at seven different locations both on and off campus, including the capitol building, the Boise River, Boise State Luminary and Julia Davis Park. It was an intense but amazing three days. From this shoot, SPS received 300 professional photos and 28 campaign themed videos.

Last year, the College of Business and Economics team redesigned and rewrote the COBE website’s main pages to be more student- and SEO-focused. Gone is the “vibe”-related messaging, replaced with friendly language that addresses prospective student and parent priorities. The redesign also lets COBE showcase the college’s newly-defined value props: hands-on learning, more major options than any other PNW business school, affordability, strong Idaho business connections, and business-specific academic and career support. This transformation allowed the team to take a step back, benchmark 18 competitor websites, reshape the way they talk about COBE and lean into what’s possible with the Boise State WordPress templates. How did it work? Year-over-year across main pages, Google organic search is up 97% on average and sessions have increased by an average of 75%. Currently, COBE is working on FAQ pages to optimize inclusion in AI search summaries, and this winter they look forward to adding a short COBE hype video in place of the home page header image.

To support recruitment into the Interdisciplinary Professional Studies (IPS) degree, CI+D launched a strategic campaign tailored to the unique needs of time-strapped student-athletes. CI+D developed a cohesive suite of assets — including flyers, social media graphics, digital signage, internal talking points for advisers and athletics staff, and a Boise State News story — to spotlight IPS as a flexible, high-quality academic path. The campaign was timed for maximum impact and centered on real student voices, showcasing how the program supports academic goals alongside athletic commitments. The news story received praise from Athletics leadership and continues to serve as a compelling, values-aligned recruitment tool.

The College of Education’s top project is the development and reorganization of content on their program websites to prioritize prospective student and parent needs, as well as supporting faculty program coordinators with recruitment strategy, communications and collateral. The newly designed webpages include links to admissions, tuition and contact information at the top, as well as bulleted language advertising the most important points for the target audience for each program. Links to a contact form are at the top and bottom of each website front page, allowing the College of Education to get the prospective student and/or parent information quickly.

In collaboration with the New Faculty Working Group and Human Resources and Workforce Development, the Office of the Provost successfully executed the “New Faculty Newsletter,” a series intended to bridge the communications gap for new faculty between when they are hired, often in May, and when they join the university community in mid-August. Historically, new faculty have expressed frustration with the fact that there was limited communication over the summer months as they prepare to join Boise State. Now, they receive a series of three newsletters, with each month’s issue built around the themes of human resources, faculty affairs and academic affairs, respectively. New faculty are supplied with employment resources, opportunities for professional development and networking, useful information about resources like the Albertsons Library and the Office of Information Technology, and a calendar of upcoming events both on campus and in the greater community. Each newsletter opens with a letter from a member of university leadership welcoming the recipient to the institution. As a result, attendance at new faculty-aimed activities has improved overall. While the series launched in 2024, we have since added a consolidated edition for hires with January start dates, and have begun including supervisors on the mailing list to ensure they are aware of what information has been shared with their new employees. This project represents a massive collaboration across university divisions, and contributes to the goal of attracting and retaining faculty in order to support student success and a thriving community.

Human Resources and Workforce Strategy’s standout achievement for FY25 was the launch of the 2024 Employee Experience Survey – Boise State’s comprehensive, confidential survey measuring leadership, culture and engagement across the employee lifecycle. The survey was designed to take the pulse of Boise State’s most valuable resource, our employees. 

Building on the beta 2022 Supervisor Survey, this project represents two years of listening, research and collaboration with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to develop a tool aligned with our campus values and strategic priorities.

More than a survey, this is a catalyst for culture change. For the first time, leaders now have access to an interactive dashboard with filterable results by department, classification and theme. The findings are being brought to life through a university-wide roadshow, giving leaders at every level the insight and tools to act. This project is about more than just data – it’s about creating a workplace where every employee feels heard, supported and valued.

Project deliverables included:

• Brand-new Employee Experience Survey 
• News release
• Survey website (improved over 2022)
• Survey Report, Infographic and Slide deck
• Interactive Survey Data Dashboard (new!)
• AI-generated comment themes for each division and college (new!)
• Unit-level action plan template (new!)
• Final reports for the President and Provost (in progress)

Impact:

• Engaged all divisions and colleges across campus
• Amplified employee voices at the highest levels of institutional decision-making. 
• Set a lasting foundation for continuous improvement tied to the Blueprint for Success

What’s Next:

• Partnering with executive leadership to develop and execute targeted action plans
• Rolling out feedback-informed changes throughout the academic year
• Administering biennial surveys to track progress and measure impact over time

Why it matters: Engaged employees are the heart of a thriving campus. This project empowers leaders, amplifies the employee voice and lays the groundwork for a more high-performing campus culture.

Over the last year, the College of Arts and Sciences asked: what does it mean to be the College of Arts and Sciences? How do they present themselves cohesively across disciplines? They found that what unites them as one college is who they’ve always been. The College of Arts and Sciences is the largest and most academically diverse college on campus, bringing together departments from the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. They launched a branding campaign for the college, including a tagline, graphic motifs and a branded video. All these materials show their students and their community who they are as the College of Arts and Sciences.

Link to video

The Division of Research and Economic Development wielded email newsletters to build awareness and community in the Division and across the University around research. The internal newsletter reaches the Division’s 90+ team members and saw an average open rate above 90%. The campus newsletter goes to all Boise State faculty and staff and saw an average open rate between 70 and 80%. All newsletters are produced by Senior Research Communicator Jenny Gilman.

Love for innovation and blue turf thinking led the Extended Studies MarCom team to take on an exciting pilot project at the end of FY25 with the implementation of Halda.AI. Halda is a hyper-personalization tool that starts with RFI forms, turning them into a Netflix-style experience that captures more than your name and email, but explores motivations and fears. After submitting your info, you are served a personalized widget that will follow you around the Boise State website, recommending content and delivering custom calls to action depending on what stage of the application or enrollment journey you are in. The tool is driven by AI, giving prospective students real-time answers sourced from our existing web content. You can see a behind-the-scenes walkthrough here, or interact with it live on our website (though please add TEST to your name when filling out the form).

The Boise State University Foundation Communications and Marketing team would like to submit the 2025 Impact Report for consideration. This report was redesigned this year to be more narrative in form and function, more strongly telling the stories of the students and faculty who directly benefit from philanthropy. Multiple Foundation teams collaborated to ensure the final report provided student voices, faculty voices, accurate data, visual assets, design assets, video assets and high-quality copy, all within both the Boise State and Unbridled Campaign brand guidelines. It’s a great testament to what we can all do when we work together — both as teams at the university and as advocates for the power of higher education.

Link to video

Link to paperturn

In FY25, ExtraMile Arena proudly hosted over 407,000 attendees across concerts, sporting events and community programs, an extraordinary achievement with approximately 36% of those visitors traveling from out of state, 52% from out of county. By welcoming this vast and diverse audience, the arena serves as a powerful gateway, introducing thousands of new faces to Boise State’s vibrant campus and the city’s unique culture. Beyond entertainment, these visitors generate significant economic impact through tourism, local spending and increased visibility for Boise State as a destination for premier events. This influx not only boosts Boise’s economy but also amplifies the university’s brand recognition regionally and nationally, positioning ExtraMile Arena as a critical driver of community engagement and institutional growth.