Skip to main content

Department story submissions

The college wants to help share stories about your people, culture and achievements and how these impact the university community, Boise, Idaho and beyond.

In order to represent all disciplines and areas of the college, we request that each department submit one story per quarter to the college communications team. The goal is to minimally produce four stories a year about your department that we can share across college communication channels.

COAS communications will track these and send timely reminders to departments to be sure everyone is fully represented.

Within each quarter, there may be newsletter publishing deadlines to consider for when to submit your stories to get the most exposure.

Storytelling approaches

Departments can submit on any one topic or could create a thematic collage of individual stories to tell. For example, rather than publishing a single story about a single faculty publishing an article, consider submitting a story that highlights research and creativity within your department and mention several publications. Or, you could focus on student achievements, or tell the story of a particular award one of your people obtained.

Department story submission details and guidelines

The college requests that each department submit one story per quarter due no later than the quarterly reporting deadline. Stories should be submitted using the form on the Communications Resources page of the college website and should follow all the guidelines below.

Accepted stories will be published to the college website news feed and shared in the college newsletters. COAS communications will submit these to the university news website and The Update. The Office of Communications and Marketing may also share these on university social channels. We encourage you to share these on your department and personal social channels as appropriate.

Please note that stories will be edited to conform to AP and Boise State writing style and to be readable to a general audience.

Guidelines

Stories should demonstrate clear alignment with the university Blueprint for Success and the college strategic plan. These are described in detail on the submission form.

Write for a general audience.

Please submit your story written in Associated Press (AP) style. A couple of writing tips for AP style:

  • Only use active voice!
  • AP style does not utilize the Oxford comma.
  • AP and Boise State style guidelines avoid capitalization of most anything except proper nouns.

In addition to AP style, please follow the Boise State brand writing basics and the writing style guidelines.

For article publications

  • Include the full title of the article and journal/publication.
  • Include a link to the article (when possible).

Images

Please include any images we can use to publish along with your good news! Note that the Office of Communications and Marketing may not publish content without images. Social media requires images.