Michigan Dining
I served as the marketing coordinator for Michigan Dining, the on-campus dining and retail operations at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. My job was to work with our creative agency to best represent our dining halls, retail shops, and catering services to our students, faculty, and staff. This included project management, stakeholder communication, and brand oversight. From time to time, I also contributed photography, graphic design, social media management, and PR work.
Prior to my time as a marketing coordinator, I worked with Michigan Dining through its creative agency, Student Life Auxiliary marketing, as a social media and marketing assistant. And before that, I started as a student employee working in one of Michigan Dining’s nine dining halls.
I try to remain unbiased, but Mary Markley was the best dining hall on campus.
Food pictures are worth a thousand drools.
I led Michigan Dining’s media operations, including working with U of M’s in-house photographers to generate multi-purpose assets for creative promotions and internal storytelling purposes. This event took place at Michigan’s student-run Campus Farm and led to multiple placements in industry media.
Public universities should serve their communities and their planet. A university’s food system should play a big role in that service.
As one of the largest employers, business units, and resource drivers on campus, Michigan Dining had a unique opportunity to influence sustainability initiatives on campus. Housed within our organization was the Student Life Sustainability brand, a marketing and communications team focused on driving environmental and social change within our division.
In my work on the Student Life Sustainability brand, I led projects like a multi-channel marketing push around Michigan Dining’s new partnership with the student-run Campus Farm (which I mentioned further up). I also publicize student events, led on-location brand messaging, and spoke with media outlets regarding our efforts.
The University of Michigan is one of the biggest brands in education. That means its supporting brands better be good.
I led the brand creation process behind four unique, proprietary retail restaurant operations during my time at Michigan Dining. Darwin’s, a cafe within our Museum of Natural history that showed respect to the father of evolution, was one of those brands that came about from the community input, design feedback, and impact vetting processes I organized.
Other brands we launched included Maizie’s Kitchen and Market (our first food hall concept), Blue Cafe and Market (a line of community-centric coffee shops), and a refreshed Bert’s Cafe (named after a lifelong Michigan donor).
Timeline:
Marketing Coordinator: June 2017 - July 2018
Social Media and Marketing Assistant: January 2015 - June 2017
Student Employee: September 2013 - April 2015
I worked on the Ann Arbor campus of the greatest university in the world, the University of Michigan. Go Blue!