Cultural Awareness Promotional Guidelines

The Division of Marketing & Communications follows these cultural awareness promotional guidelines.

Scope

UND maintains multiple calendars for various purposes. The promotional list below is new and related only to annual and signature cultural awareness events, holidays and observations that the Division of Marketing & Communications (M&C) is responsible for promoting. Other event calendars that are not part of this scope include:

UND Events Calendar – Used to promote any campus event open to the community in accordance with our posting guidelines.
History & Awareness Months – Listing of cultural awareness months on diversity websites.
Academic Calendars – Follows NDUS calendar; managed by One-Stop and Registrar.

Guiding Principles

M&C is committed to advancing cultural awareness initiatives. While we recognize the importance of cultural awareness celebrations, we also understand the need to communicate a diverse array of topics, including academic achievements, announcements and campus news. We strive to strike a balance between cultural awareness content and other valuable information to ensure a comprehensive representation of UND. To achieve this balance, M&C adheres to the following guiding principles to help us prioritize and make the most meaningful impact:

1. Be Authentic to UND

Show, not tell. All content must have an authentic UND connection, follow UND brand guidelines and align with our mission and values.

2. Highlight Cultural Awareness Observations by Following a Pre-approved Annual List

To allow M&C time to plan, create and share content, we will follow a pre-approved annual list for the promotion of UND’s annual, signature and cultural awareness observations. These observations can include cultural heritage months, diversity awareness weeks, inclusive programming and other cultural awareness initiatives. The list will be created based on these parameters:

Only include events listed on the UND Events Calendar. Events not listed on the UND Events Calendar will not be promoted campus-wide by M&C.
Only include events where all students and/or all employees are invited to participate. Exclusive events/activities that are only open to a subset of the UND campus community (e.g., student group, academic department, etc.) will be excluded from M&C’s campus-wide promotions.
If a student group sponsors a campus-wide event and requests M&C’s assistance, the event must be endorsed by and connected to an official UND department. A UND department employee must serve as M&C’s primary point of contact.
To ensure that all members of UND’s community feel included and respected regardless of their religious and spiritual beliefs, M&C will:
- - Only promote secular events and holidays to the UND community. M&C’s role is to represent the entire University to all stakeholders. Promoting religious events and holidays at a campus-wide level may be seen as favoring a specific religion, thus violating separation of church and state.
  - Only recognize the secular holidays listed in the North Dakota Century Code (section 1-03-01). If UND is closed due to a religious holiday, M&C’s notifications will be generalized to say “in observation of a state-recognized holiday.”
  - UND departments and student groups may promote religious or spiritual events through the UND Events Calendar and their own communication channels, such as their own newsletters, social media channels, My UND App opt-in channels, posters, etc. M&C is available for consultation as needed.
M&C reserves the right to add cultural awareness dates that have a direct tie to a UND Today story, recruitment-specific content or deemed strategic priority by the Exucutive Council. New requests from UND departments will be thoughtfully considered with a minimum of three-weeks notice to prevent last-minute additions, ensuring a well-coordinated approach to our cultural awareness efforts.

3. Prioritize Impact

Focus on cultural awareness initiatives or topics where M&C can make a meaningful difference or contribution, rather than spreading resources too thin across numerous causes.

4. Every Day is Not a Holiday

There is a huge risk of turning off our audiences with the overuse of national “blank” holidays. We will select carefully what we communicate. There are multiple sources for national days:

5. Look to Share User-Generated Content

M&C will reshare social media content on main UND accounts but will not create custom, original content for specific events or celebrations that are not included on the pre-approved annual content calendar.

We encourage UND departments to identify national “blank” holidays related to their academics, services and programming (e.g., Happy National Nurses Day) to generate original content that can be reshared on the UND main accounts.

Roles and Responsibilities

Open All

Event organizers and M&C will create inclusive content by following digital accessibility best practices (i.e., alt text, video captions, color contrast, authentic imagery, etc.).
Follow UND’s social media policy.
Follow the UND Events Calendar submission guidelines.
Follow UND Brand standards.
Follow M&C’s guidelines for student communication channels.

Add a cultural awareness event to UND Events Calendar and keep it updated if any details change (i.e., time change, room change, etc.). Events will not be promoted by M&C if they are not on the UND Events Calendar.
Proactively reach out to M&C at least three weeks in advance if any special promotion is requested by completing the Project Request Form.
Provide a budget for any marketing with an associated cost (i.e., printed banners, newspaper ad, etc.).

M&C will communicate openly about the rationale behind selecting certain annual, signature and cultural awareness events to promote. We will do this by sharing the annual cultural awareness list for feedback/approval with the Executive Council, University Programmers Group, Office of Diversity & Inclusion and Marketing Council and posting the pre-approved cultural awareness list on the M&C website.
In following our guideline to be authentic to UND, M&C’s priority is to recognize cultural awareness observations by first sharing what UND departments are doing related to cultural awareness (e.g., hosting events, new research, curriculum, etc.).
If a cultural awareness observation is important for the University to recognize and is listed on the pre-approved list, but no UND departments are actively sponsoring a related event or awareness activity, then M&C will work to create Original content to tell UND’s cultural awareness story. For example, a UND Today story may highlight UND’s historical connections to cultural awareness observation.

Annual Cultural Awareness Promotional List

Italics = State of North Dakota Recognized Public, Secular Holidays listed in North Dakota Century Code (section 1-03-01).

Role Prioritization Key

Re-share (R) = M&C is responsible to reshare and repost cultural awareness content fully sponsored and created by other UND departments.
Amplify (A) = M&C is responsible for creating content to amplify and augment cultural awareness stories, activities and events that are sponsored by other UND departments, who serve as the content experts for these initiatives. This may range from pre-event promotion to post-event coverage.
Original (O) = When UND content is not available to Amplify or Re-share from other UND departments, M&C will determine the best approach to initiate and create original content from scratch. This may range from a single social media post to an in-depth story that involves research, graphics, photography, videography, etc. to tell UND’s cultural awareness story.

2024-25 Academic Calendar

September

Latinx Heritage Month (Sept 15-Oct 15) (A)
Suicide Prevention & Awareness Month (A/R)

October

LGBTQ+ History Month (A/O)
Domestic Violence Awareness Month (Clothesline Project) (A)
National Disability Employment Awareness Month (A/R)
Indigenous Peoples’ Day (A)
National Coming Out Day (R)

November

Native American Heritage Month (A/O)
Veterans Day (A)
Transgender Awareness Week or Transgender Day of Remembrance (R)

December

Happy Holidays from UND (O)

January

MLK Day/National Day of Service (A/R)

February

Black History Month (A/O)
Rosa Parks Day (A)

March

Women’s History Month (A/O)
Disability Awareness Month (A/R)
Cezar Chavez Day (R)
International Transgender Day of Visibility (R)
International Women’s Day (O)
Feast of Nations (A/R)

April

UND’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month (R)
Sexual Assault Awareness Month (R)
Wacipi Powwow (A/R)

May

Asian American, Pacific Islander and Desi American Heritage Month (A/R)
Memorial Day (O)

June

LGBTQ+ Pride Month (A/O)
Juneteenth (A/O)