MU grads: make a promo video, win football tickets

Two Missouri School of Journalism students are capturing the stories of passionate alumni who credit the University of Missouri for their success. These stories highlight why the For All We Call Mizzou campaign is close to reaching its $1 billion goal.

Convergence journalism students Carla Schaffer and Steve Sliker have created the YouTube channel, For Mizzou, www.youtube.com/formizzou.  YouTube, a Web video sharing site, provides a simple way for people to show videos to family and friends around the world. The For Mizzou YouTube channel is designed to reconnect alumni to MU and inspire them to increase their support for the university.

“Through the work of our journalism students, we are able to share the stories of why donors give to MU with alumni and friends around the world,” says David Housh, vice chancellor for development and alumni relations. “Many of these stories are quite touching, and I anticipate donors will really enjoy watching the videos.”

Housh encourages donors to create their own videos about why they give to Mizzou to post on the ForMizzou YouTube channel. He is offering two tickets to the homecoming football game as an incentive.  The winners of the tickets will be drawn from the names of all who post videos on the channel before October 15. Videos may be posted as part of comments on the ForMizzou YouTube channel.

Wally Pfeffer, a Mutual of Omaha insurance agent, and Greg Cecil, chairman of the airport advisory board and development and corporate relations director for MU’s school of engineering, are two of 21 contributors to the channel.

For Pfeffer, the decision to give back to MU was easy.

“Why I give back to the university I think is fairly basic,” he said on his You Tube video on Mizzou. “A university really isn’t just the bricks and mortar and the programs we enjoyed while we were in the buildings we studied in and roamed around in. It’s the people that are there, and there were countless people that helped me in my Mizzou experience and still so as an alum…It’s a pretty basic way to say thank you to them for all the things they did for me.”

Like Pfeffer, Cecil knew he wanted to give back. He said in his YouTube video he thought it was “cool” when his wife, Michelle Arnopol Cecil, a William H. Pittman professor of law, received the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. Since then, he has given back, even supporting a Formula One car built by Mizzou students.

Schaffer says she enjoys working with YouTube because it connects directly to the audience.

“YouTube is finding out what people want to see and giving it to them,” Schaffer says.

Convergence journalism students learn to report the news in every medium available today, including the Internet, radio, television and print publications. The convergence emphasis area is housed in the new Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute building, which opened in August.  A $31 million gift from the Las Vegas-based Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the largest single gift to the For All We Call Mizzou campaign, funded construction of the building.

“The building is amazing and we have a lot of new technology to use,” Schaffer says as she leads a tour of the facility.

The university dedicated the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute on Sept. 12.

As of July 31, donors had given $964.06 million to the university during the For All We Call Mizzou campaign.  Contributions to the campaign enhance MU’s ability to compete nationally and internationally for the best students and faculty and provide broad access for students of all economic backgrounds to Missouri’s flagship university. The university will celebrate meeting the $1 billion goal in the spring of 2009.