Virtual Awards Communication and Planning
To ensure we continue to Protect the Pack, we want to help you celebrate the accomplishments and honor award recipients virtually. We’ve put together a collection of resources to help you create presentations that you can customize for your event or awards celebration. We understand a virtual celebration is not a substitute for being able to celebrate in-person, but we hope that these resources are helpful and provide a virtual solution to the events and programs that are traditionally held on campus and in-person with large gatherings.
Preparing for a Virtual Ceremony
- Generally speaking, for large events that are widely and publicly shared, we recommend using Teams Live and having a run-through in advance. There are other platforms suitable for hosting virtual ceremonies, but you will need to determine what makes the most sense for your event.
- Get started using the awards template we created in PowerPoint.
- If you’re not planning an event, but you still want to honor award recipients, please read through the Ways to Get the Word Out for ideas on how to celebrate their accomplishments.
Creating Virtual Award Materials
Powerpoint Templates
Customize this NIU PowerPoint template (PPTX) for your award celebration. See sample slides below.
Video and Photography
You may still want to incorporate video and photography into your virtual awards ceremony or celebration. Taking advantage of the PowerPoint templates we’ve provided, you can invite your honorees to submit photos for inclusion in the presentation using tips from Institutional Communications on how to take a great self-portrait. You can also access the NIU Image Library to select and request images of NIU to use during your event.
You can also include self-recorded videos in your PowerPoint presentation, feel free to share and use tips for successfully self-recording video.
If you have additional photography questions or requests, please contact photography@niu.edu.
If you have additional video that you would like produced for your virtual award ceremony, The Multimedia Production and Support Team in DoIT may be able to assist you. When you visit the DoIT website, you can select “submit an incident or request services” in the left column and that will log you into the IT portal. From there, you can select make a request and then select Multimedia Production Support.
Sharing After Your Event
There are several options and platforms to consider when working with creating and sharing video content. Learn more about these video platform options and tools.
How to Get the Word Out
Here are some ways to share the excitement about your upcoming award celebration:
- Add your event to the NIU events calendar.
- Submit information to the Monday announcement email.
- Have award recipients submit a Huskie Spotlight profile.
- Spread the word by posting on social media with #HuskiePride.
Huskie Pride
Whether you’re hosting the event, taking a photo/video of yourself for inclusion in a virtual awards presentation, we’ve got ways for you to showcase your Huskie Pride!
Check out all of our digital downloads, including Teams/Zoom backgrounds, social media cover/profile photos and printable yard signs.