January

MSU Denver wins CASE awards for Mug Club and video

MSU Denver Advancement and Marketing and Communications cited for excellence.

By Nathan Solheim

January 17, 2018

The Council for the Advancement of Secondary Education has honored MSU Denver with two gold awards.

Advancement and Alumni Relations won a gold CASE award for “Turning Beer Money into Scholarships” in the New Program Initiatives category. At MSU Denver, though, the program is known as the Mug Club, which raises money for student scholarships by selling memberships to a monthly beer drinking club that meets at the Tivoli Brewing Company. The Mug Club launched last year and currently counts MSU Denver President Janine Davidson amongst its members.

“We stopped, took a look at what makes MSU Denver special, and then built a program to share that with our alumni, faculty and staff and friends,” said Jamie Hurst, director of alumni relations and giving.

Hurst and colleagues Brandi Rideout, associate director of alumni relations, and Bre Milnes, associate director of annual giving, will present on the program at the upcoming CASEVI District Conference.

The Mug Club has raised $12,205—nearly half the amount of an endowed scholarship—from 277 donors and celebrates its one-year anniversary at MSU Denver’s 2018 Homecoming.

MSU Denver also won a gold CASE award for “For Homeless Students, There’s No Place Like School” in the General Information: Long Videos category. The video was produced by John Arnold of Marketing and Communications. “I wanted to make people aware of an issue that many might not know or understand,” Arnold said. “Homelessness among college students is more prevalent than we think.”

It features research conducted by Randi Smith, Ph.D., M.S.W., professor of psychology, who surveyed University students to learn more about the prevalence and causes of student homelessness. “These students are staying in shelters, living in cars, and couch surfing from one friend’s couch to another friend’s couch.”

Watch it here: