DENMARK - "Changing minds. Changing lives."

That's Voorhees College's new mantra, President Cleveland L. Sellers Jr. announced in unveiling the college's new branding campaign on Sept. 16.

"We are changing our emphasis into a new era for our beloved institution," Sellers said. "A great philosopher once said, 'change is inevitable, but growth is intentional.'"

Although growth often comes with difficulty, Voorhees is embracing a change that will turn it into a premier liberal arts institution with a specific focus on developing a student-centered environment, Sellers said.

"This environment will prepare our students for meaningful careers and/or graduate students," Sellers said. "It will develop and enhance school pride. It will work to bring maximal recognition to our institution. The development and implementation of this plan is critical in meeting this goal."

The college's new brand was developed by ADCO of Columbia. As part of the event, ADCO unveiled Voorhees' new logo and Web site.

A brand is much more than a logo, said Lora Prill, ADCO's vice president of marketing.

"It's the visual representation of who you are," she said. "The brand is really everything that you are; it's who you are and it's what you do and how you do it."

The brand is putting words to the emotions that make people feel what you feel about Voorhees, Prill said. It creates a psychological and emotional connection that sets the tone for standard of service, she said.

"This branding process enabled us to take an introspective look at ourselves so that we can better tell others our story and vision for the future," Sellers said. "Through this process, we have discovered several personality traits that exemplify who we are and what we aspire to become at Voorhees."

Those traits are nurturing, cultivating, spiritual, transformative, intellectual, resourceful, personable, patient, adaptable, competitive, creative and challenging, he said.

"We want our audience to know that Voorhees provides a nurturing, supportive environment for each of our students, that we are concerned with the total transformation of our students - not only academically, but spiritually and socially as well," Sellers said.

"We want the world to know that we are cultivating a community of scholars. We want parents to know that their child is safe with educators who care about his or her success, that their child is receiving a quality, affordable education," he said.

Jessica Cook Woodrum, director of new media at ADCO, unveiled Voorhees' new Web site at www.voorhees.edu. The site is very valuable because it provides hundreds of pages of information - it is the Voorhees experience online, Woodrum said.

"The Web is where people enter your door. It's the welcome mat - the portal for all the information about Voorhees," she said.

Courtney Davenport, who came to Voorhees two years ago, is the college's vice president and chief development officer. He said he soon saw the need to develop a consistent focus for the college, to look to the future and see where the college was going and to look for a way to show who the college is.

"I took a look at all the material we had. I saw different logos, different messages," he said. "It came to our attention to find out who we are and how we're going to find out how we're going to go about making Voorhees College a premier liberal arts Institution."

Voorhees turned to ADCO for help in developing a brand, Davenport said.

ADCO worked with members of the administration and staff to dissect the history of the college and survey students to find a way to put words to the emotions they felt about Voorhees, Prill said.

This process was not an easy turnaround, according to Davenport.

"It took months and months and hours and hours of dedicated persons with ADCO and the staff here to develop this brand," he said.

* T&D Correspondent Dale Linder-Altman can be reached by e-mail at jerryanddale@lowcountry.com.

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