CMSV News Winter 2013

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college of mount saint vincent

NEWS

Alumnae/i, Students, & Friends

Winter 2013

MARKETING THE MOUNT

FACULTY FOCUS:

ANA RIBEIRO:

By Erin Walsh

Of Mice & Mothers

The Nike swoosh. The Apple core. NBC’s peacock.

By Pat Conti

A

ssistant Professor of Biology Ana Ribeiro and her colleagues have produced groundbreaking research demonstrating that a single gene in mice could be responsible for the maternal instinct.

All of these symbols instantly conjure up an image of the brand associated with these iconic logos. Ask any marketing guru, and they’ll tell you that a strong brand identity is one of the most crucial facets of a corporation or nonprofit institution’s chances for long term success. Although the College of Mount Saint Vincent doesn’t use a logo (we use the College name as the word mark) or catchy slogan, for the past two years, the Mount has been engaged in an Integrated Marketing initiative, the goal of which is to capture and distill its signature strengths and proof points, and use these to create messages that are synonymous with the College of Mount Saint Vincent to the outside world. Rather than to hang its identity on a logo or slogan that might quickly fall out of fashion, the Mount has chosen to promote its enduring strength as a high-quality Catholic and ecumenical liberal arts institution through strategic messaging and a timeless visual style that differentiate it from competing institutions.

Dr. Ribeiro recently published the findings of her postdoctoral research, which indicates that diminished levels of Estrogen Receptor Alpha in the medial preoptic area of the brain of female mice resulted in those mice exhibiting infanticidal behavior. “The uniqueness of our findings is that we were able to demonstrate that silencing ER Alpha in a specific

To build upon the efforts of the Integrated Marketing initiative, an internal Branding Committee was formed under the direction of Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement and College Relations Madeleine Melkonian, and was tasked with further refining the Mount’s brand identity. The committee held focus groups for students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and used the results and other research to create strategic messages and visual elements that will be used in written and verbal communications to create a cohesive brand identity. The result, a comprehensive Brand Guide, was completed by the committee and distributed to the College community this fall. “For the College of Mount Saint Vincent, branding represents identifying that which we believe truly defines the College and makes us distinctive, for the audiences we want to reach, with an eye towards our Continued on page 3

MOUNT ROUNDTABLE Dr. Ana Ribeiro

EVOLUTION OF A CLASSIC By Erin Walsh

O

ne could argue that a College of Mount Saint Vincent education is like a Chanel suit—it never goes out of style.

Mount’s high quality, liberal arts curriculum gives students the analytical and problem-solving skills to become leaders, thinkers, and trailblazers.

The Mount provides education for life and a career—not just a job.

“A Mount education develops the whole person,” says President Charles L. Flynn. “Every field of study emphasizes analytical skills; critical thinking; clear, persuasive

Rather than teaching students hyper-specialized skills that may quickly become outdated, the

communication; and moral and religious thought—the essentials for success in every profession.” In a still-faltering economy, when jobs are scarce and parents may worry whether a liberal arts education is still the best investment in their son’s or daughter’s future, the question is particularly relevant.

region of the brain and time point in an adult female mouse’s life actually abolished motherly instinct,” Dr. Ribeiro says. Indeed, Dr. Ribeiro suggests that these findings have many implications, even for humans.

College of Mount Saint Vincent

“What’s critical is that having this key (ER Alpha) present in the medial preoptic, an area that has many connections to high order functions, as well as very primal functions, is

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COLLEGE OF MOUNT SAINT VINCENT 6301 RIVERDALE AVENUE | RIVERDALE, NY 10471 | PHONE (800) 665-CMSV | (718) 405-3345 | WEB:WWW.MOUNTSAINTVINCENT.EDU


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