AFT honors UUP's communications efforts

UUP’s new-and-improved Web site has earned the union a first-place award in a prestigious national communications competition.

The union’s monthly membership magazine, The Voice, picked up four additional honors, including awards of merit for best feature story and political effort, and honorable mentions for best news story and best art/photo. UUP’s dual legislative handouts — which promote SUNY’s teaching hospitals and colleges of technology — earned an honorable mention in the annual contest sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers Communications Association (AFTCA). AFTCA is an organization of public relations professional staff and elected leaders of AFT state and local federations.

“State federations and locals should model their sites after this one,” according to the judges. Kudos go out to Webmaster Melissa Bishop, a SUNY Stony Brook UUP member, and to UUP Vice President for Academics Phillip Smith, who oversees the site.

The winning feature story, which ran in the November 2000 issue of The Voice, was written by UUP media specialist Lisa Feldman Reich. The story touts the multiple roles played by SUNY’s medical universities in providing health care, in training future physicians and in making a vital economic impact in their communities. “... a very comprehensive treatment of the hospitals and their impact,” the judges wrote.

The October 2000 issue earned the union another second-place finish for its in-depth coverage of Election 2000. The issue included an original, four-color, front-page caricature of presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush with senatorial candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick Lazio, by freelance artist Jason Yungbluth. It also featured articles on what was at stake for union members, how UUPers mobilized for a strong voice at the polls, and why one Republican unionist became a vocal Democrat supporter.

An original photograph by UUP communications specialist Liza Frenette picked up an honorable mention. The photo, which ran in the May/June 2000 issue of The Voice, was of a student protester being taken into custody by SUNY Albany campus police. The students — along with faculty, unionists and community leaders — rallied in support of food-service workers’ right to organize.

A January 2001 Voice article on SUNYConnect, written by Frenette, earned an honorable mention for best news story. The article highlighted SUNY’s technology plan to link its libraries to create the largest collection of any public university system.

UUP also received an honorable mention for its legislative materials focusing on the funding crisis at SUNY’s teaching hospitals and the unfunded mandates at the University Colleges of Technology (UCT). Feldman Reich, Frenette, UUP director of communications Frank Maurizio, UUP publications specialist Karen Mattison and freelance writer Karen Nelis combined to research and write the brochures and booklets; all of the handouts were designed by Mattison. The materials, which also included commentaries by union President William Scheuerman, were used to educate lawmakers on the growing challenges faced by these institutions and to underscore the economic impact of SUNY campuses throughout the state.

Contest judges were: David Berver, AFT online editor; Sue Graves, editor of Spotlight, a Capital District weekly newspaper; Michael Matejka, a field representative for the North Central Illinois Laborers; and Charles Michaelson, a retired staff writer for NYSUT’s New York Teacher.

— Karen L. Mattison