ASU Strategic Initiatives

As I mentioned before, I'm working on Strategic Initiatives in the Housing Department and after a few days of working...here is a little more about what that means. The week before the first day of classes for ASU is called "Fall Welcome", during this week they try to give local vendors as much exposure to students as possible. With this exposure comes some revenue for the university. They have set up many opportunities for vendors to be apart of, all with different costs associated with them. Vendors are not able to sell any of their products or services on campus, but can hand out promotional items, brochures, flyers, free samples, and have great access to a lot of students for publicity! Some options that vendors have include the following:

• Welcome Zone- this happens on move-in day and is the first thing that students will go through during the orientation process. They have it in Wells Fargo Arena and students walk through and see all the vendor booths and displays. There is different size spaces that vendors can "rent out" each with a different cost. After students get done they get keys for their residence hall and are free to go check-in.
• Welcome ePacket- this is an electronic magazine that is sent to all on-campus residents. Vendors can pay a fee to put an advertisment in the magazine.
• Sun Devil Fast Pass- vendors can pay to get their logo printed on a lanyard or card holder that all residents get with their keys.
• Other opportunities include being a part of the welcome kits that get placed in all the resident's rooms before opening, direct mailings that can be distributed to resident's mailboxes, in-kind donations, and participating in other events throughout the week.

ASU offers packages for vendors who want to do a combination of these opportunities. A lot of what I am doing is getting a hold of different vendors to see if they are interested. If they are, a meeting is usually set up to negotiate the details and plans are finalized.

I have already had two meetings shadowing my supervisor Rebecca, but could be doing meetings on my own soon. Also, I am designing a postcard and flyer that we plan to distribute to some local vendors around Tempe and Phoenix. The last few days have been great, and I am sure things will continue to get better as we get busier!