FIU World Center Italy Awareness Campaign

Call for Creative Proposals

Overview:
FIU Global leads the university’s campus internationalization efforts and has recently designated two FIU World Centers, one in Italy and one in Colombia. For decades, FIU has maintained many active partnerships throughout Italy: collaborations, exchanges, and other programs that support our institutional mission and global strategic goals. Particularly FIU’s presence in Genoa and the partnership with the University of Genoa have enabled students and faculty to collaborate with Italian counterparts, expand their educational horizons, gain new intercultural and language competencies, and use it as a springboard for their careers. Yet, FIU’s success in Italy is still somewhat of a best kept secret.

To expand our existing portfolio and attract more students, faculty, staff and alumni to engage in FIU’s educational programs and partnerships in Italy, FIU Global is launching an awareness campaign. For this campaign, we will create info materials generating interest in our programs and partnerships across Italy. It will entail innovative communication vehicles that document our past successes, highlight current offerings, highlight the importance and benefits of international education opportunities, and impart to students that education abroad programs are likely more affordable and accessible than previously assumed.

FIU Global is conducting a student competition and is inviting proposals from students in which they showcase creative ideas for the FIU World Center Italy Awareness Campaign. The most innovative and actionable proposals will be selected by a small committee of university representatives. Student proposals should inspire us with creativity and the ability to join our team in developing the actual campaign.  

The two students whose proposals score the highest will be invited to travel to Genoa, which is FIU’s hub in Italy, from May 1-8, 2022. They will join our team to develop and help implement the promotional strategy and create the materials needed for the awareness campaign. FIU Global staff will guide the students throughout the process and work with them on site in Genoa.

• Awareness Campaign Purpose

  The actual awareness campaign (to be formed during the visit and we expect that it will incorporate ideas from the selected students’ proposals) is a multi-media strategy that will generate awareness of FIU’s contemporary educational programming and general career opportunities in Italy beyond the country’s common appeal as a travel destination. This would include the special characteristics of the Italian regions, cities, and institutions where FIU is already active, and their specific opportunities for students and faculty yet to explore. The emphasis is on Italy NOW as a vibrant place to live, learn, and collaborate, not just what we have imagined it to be. The idea is to engender awareness of potential and opportunity among FIU students, faculty, staff and alumni, but also to create awareness in Italy of FIU’s Florida home campus as a top destination for Italian students to study.  The creative proposals by students may focus on one of these stakeholder groups, multiple, or all of them.

• Eligibility

  Proposals by FIU undergraduate and graduate students from all majors who are enrolled in Spring 2022 or Summer 2022 are eligible for consideration. Students must be in good standing. Only U.S. citizens and permanent residents may participate. Unfortunately, international students and DACA students are not eligible.

• Judging Criteria

  The review committee will be scoring the creative student proposals on the following criteria:

  • Basic knowledge of FIU’s educational programs and successes in Italy so far (based on information that is publicly available).
  • Basic understanding of Italian culture.
  • Imparting the value of international and intercultural learning experiences. 
  • Demonstrated ability to reveal or give insight into something unknown or concealed by preconceptions.
  • Demonstrated media savviness and cultural sensitivity.
  • Innovativeness and creativity.

  Please note that the proposals serve to document skills, creativity and ability to collaborate on a team. These creative concepts may not be used in the actual campaign. 
• Proposal Components

  Student proposals for the FIU World Center Italy Awareness Campaign should consist of a 3-page narrative to describe the creative ideas for the awareness campaign and a 1-page statement of personal interest. Up to three examples of creative media components that are targeted to the university’s key audiences (students, faculty, staff, alumni and international students in Italy) may be uploaded for the committee to review. The proposals may focus on one or multiple of these key audiences.

  Ideas to create awareness may include, but are not limited to:

  • online messages
  • print brochures
  • multimedia clips
  • images/posters
  • social media campaigns
  • giveaways
  • campus events

  Contents should be informative about educational opportunities in Italy, Italian culture, and the benefits of international education, as well as FIU educational excellence in South Florida.

• Creative Content Components

  Proposals are not expected to offer extensive detail on FIU programs and partnerships in Italy but should feature information that is available on https://genoa.fiu.edu/ and http://global.fiu.edu and www.fiu.edu in general.  Other publicly available information from FIU websites will be acceptable as well. 

  Narrative (size 12 font, double-spaced, standard margins, Word file)

  • 3-page narrative describing your creative ideas for the awareness campaign.
  • 1-page statement of interest, describing why you are interested in submitting this proposal in support of our awareness campaign, and what the opportunity to travel to Italy and work alongside with FIU Global team members means to you. 

  Creative samples

  • Up to 3 media samples (text, images, video, audio files, etc.) of previous creative materials relevant to this awareness campaign to demonstrate your creativity. Media samples created previously (for a different project or a class) are acceptable but it must be clear how this concept would relate to FIU’s World Center in Italy.

  Finalists’ presentations

  • Finalists will be invited to present their creative media samples to the review committee in a one-hour zoom meeting. These presentations will also serve as an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the ability to collaborate in a team. 
• Proposal Submission

  Student creative proposals for the FIU World Center Italy Awareness Campaign must be submitted online via the proposal submission form by the submitting student. Students must use their FIU student email. Due to the nature of the award (one-week project trip to Italy) and to encourage diversity in proposals, each proposal is submitted by an individual student and needs to be original, i.e., proposals cannot be submitted as a group of more than one student.

• Review Process

  A small review committee will screen and score student proposal submissions within two weeks after the submission deadline. Students may receive follow-up questions from members of the review committee during this period and are expected to respond within 2 business days.  

  Plagiarized materials will be disqualified.

• Proposal Award

  The two students whose creative proposals and in-person presentations score the highest, will be invited to work with FIU Global team members in Italy to develop the actual awareness campaign. They will also be publicly recognized as Global Citizens and passionate Golden Panthers on the FIU Global website and via other communication channels.

• Travel Award

  Student awardees will receive the following travel benefits:

  • Economy roundtrip airfare from Miami to Milan, Italy, and back to Miami
  • Roundtrip ground transportation by train from Milan to Genoa and a regional excursion
  • Accommodation for up to 7 nights in Genoa
  • Meal allowance
  • Global travel insurance coverage (medical emergencies, trip interruption, etc.)
  • COVID travel protocol: should the US Department of State and the CDC rate the travel risk for Italy at Level 4 one week prior to departure, the trip will be canceled and postponed to a later date (to be determined). FIU Global will attempt to accommodate students’ availability for a potential later date. Should the students with the highest scoring proposals not be available for the new trip date, the next student(s) whose proposal(s) scored highest will become eligible to participate in this learning experience.
  • These travel benefits may represent income to students and students may be taxed. It is the student awardees’s responsibility to declare this benefit accordingly (please consult your accountant).
• Student Benefits
  • Practice the development of creative marketing/PR concepts on a real-world project
  • Work shoulder-to-shoulder with FIU Global team members
  • Include this unique award and professional experience in your resume and portfolio
  • Include the creative materials developed for this awareness campaign in your portfolio
  • Earn Global Learning Medallion points for submitting your proposal
  • Travel to Genoa, Italy, for a week with all major travel expenses covered by FIU