Public Relations & Strategic Communications identifies the strategic communications needs of DePaul University and leverages the skills of its staff to provide communications planning, message development and public relations campaigns. These communications are designed to engage members of the DePaul community – including students, staff and faculty – and constituencies external to the university.
We develop strategic, multiplatform communication campaigns that embody the voice and vision of the university, drive visibility with events, and safeguard and enhance DePaul’s reputation. We contribute to the production of strategic events and use targeted outreach to engage local, national and international communities.
Public Relations
DePaul’s public relations staff provides counsel and develops and implements public relations strategies that garner public attention and shed a positive light on the university to maintain competitive share of voice, leverage news cycles and trends and help meet the university’s high-priority objectives.
Initiatives include:
Issues Management
UMC engages in issues management to focus on anticipating issues, allowing the university to pre-empt potentially reputation-damaging situations. We prepare communication strategies in advance to respond to those issues swiftly. We provide timely information and research to senior administrators to assist decision-making on critical matters and support administrators with communication guidance. We also examine trends in the national higher education landscape to assess implications for DePaul. Maintaining awareness of public sentiment allows us to communicate more effectively and build strong relationships with the university’s key constituents.
Crisis Communications
In an emergency or urgent situation that affects or may affect the health, safety or welfare of DePaul students, faculty, staff or other DePaul-related constituent groups, UMC helps ensure that important information is disseminated in a timely manner through a variety of communication channels to audiences both within and beyond our institution. The UMC crisis team bears primary responsibility for the university’s crisis communication response.
When a crisis occurs, our staff construct a sound communication response strategy by anticipating questions and planning appropriate responses as well as monitoring both traditional and social media during an emergency.
To do so, UMC:
- Leads and manages the crisis communication planning for the university
- Conducts regular training exercises, including tabletop drills to test our plan and crisis communication readiness
- Provides crisis communications counsel to university departments and offices as needed
- Acts as Public Information Office during critical incidents or emergencies
Text messaging is the fastest and most reliable means of communication during an emergency. DPU Alert is the university’s emergency alert system. Please take a moment to
update your DPU Alert contact information to ensure your DPU Alert contact information is correct.
In an actual emergency, please visit DePaul's home page at
depaul.edu for the most comprehensive and timely information available.
Additional Resources
For more information about DePaul's emergency response resources, please visit
emergencyplan.depaul.edu.