The Marketing and Communications Department at Kellogg Community College has been awarded 13 prestigious Medallion Awards from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations for work promoting the College during the 2024-25 academic year.
The awards include five first-place Gold Medallion Awards, six second-place Silver Medallion Awards and two third-place Bronze Medallion Awards.
Medallion Award winners were announced Oct. 1 during the NCMPR’s annual District 3 Conference, which this year was held in Indianapolis. The NCMPR announced KCC won awards in the following categories.
Gold Medallion Awards
- Academic Catalog or Class Schedule: For a booklet schedule highlighting the KCC Lifelong Learning Department’s annual Bruin Youth summer camp offerings
- Brochure (Single or Series): For a foldout brochure highlighting the College’s Students of Color Club RSO
- Logo Design: For a “Make More Art” logo promoting KCC’s new Associate in Fine Arts degrees in Music and Visual Arts
- Logo Wear: For a branded scarf designed for KCC volunteers to wear at last year’s Christmas parade in downtown Battle Creek
- Print Wild Card: For a series of three bookmarks promoting a KCC literature course on Shakespeare
Silver Medallion Awards
- E-Newsletter: For “Bruin Bytes,” a bimonthly e-newsletter emailed to students by KCC’s Marketing and Communications Department
- Logo Wear: For an original T-shirt given away at the College’s 2024 Bruin Blast welcome back event for students
- Outdoor Signage/Displays (Single or Series): For a series of two “Battle Creek Original” billboards featuring notable KCC alumni
- Radio Advertisement (Single or Series): For a 30-second “Be Anything” ad promoting summer registration that ran on WIN 98.5 FM and Spotify
- Social Media Post or Story-Still: For a Facebook post featuring photos of the College’s “Battle Creek Original” billboard featuring notable alumnus Bobby Holley
- Wildcard: For the cover art from KCC’s December 2024 annual report edition of BruIN magazine, featuring original embroidery art titled “Stitched in Community,” commissioned from artist Annie Hall
Bronze Medallion Awards
- Academic Catalog or Class Schedule: For a booklet schedule highlighting the KCC Lifelong Learning Department’s fall class offerings
- Print Advertisement (Single or Series): For an ad featuring “Blaze Goes to College” characters placed in “My Future Me: Letters from 2024-2025 Fifth Graders in Barry County,” published by J-Ad Graphics/Printing Plus
“It’s the goal of the Marketing and Communications Department every day to produce work that furthers the College’s mission of providing accessible, high-quality education to enrich our community and the lives of individual learners, which is rewarding in its own right,” Marketing Director Simon Thalmann said. “But having that work recognized by our professional peers in the world of higher education marketing – an industry where much of what’s produced is increasingly ephemeral – is validating and inspiring, and a welcome motivation for our team as we continue doing work that, hopefully, inspires and motivates audiences of our own.”
KCC’s Marketing and Communications Department provides a variety of in-house strategy development, marketing management, graphic design and print services within the College’s Communications and Advancement Division headed by Vice President for Communications and Advancement Eric Greene. The marketing team has won a total of 101 Medallion Awards since 2012, as well as 26 prestigious Paragon Awards – national honors bestowed by the NCMPR – over the same time period.
Department employees include Mackenzie Griffith, graphic design process specialist; June Lewis, Print and Document Services senior process specialist; Mike Loader, print and document services process specialist (recently retired); Cab Rininger, media design manager; Kristen Schau, Print and Document Services process specialist; Krissy Stolz, Marketing and Communications specialist; and Simon Thalmann, marketing director. The department also employs part-time student workers as an opportunity for KCC students to learn valuable, on-the-job marketing, communication and design skills.
The NCMPR represents marketing and public relations professionals at community and technical colleges across the United States and Canada. District 3 of the NCMPR includes schools in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Ontario. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medallion and Paragon honors are awarded annually in a variety of marketing and public relations categories.
For more news about Kellogg Community College, view our latest press releases online at https://daily.kellogg.edu/category/news-releases.
