Enrollment at Oakland University has steadily risen, with the latest figures counting nearly 20,000 students, all of whom chose OU for various reasons. Administrators want to know what those reasons are.

Students and faculty have launched a research project to bring together those ideas into a new brand for OU.

“Oakland University doesn’t currently have a well-defined brand, per se,” Lillian Lorenzi, OU’s constituent communications director, said.

To say OU is re-branding its image is an understatement to the process that is scheduled to begin early 2012.

“A brand is much more than just a tagline, symbol or logo,” said Janell Townsend, associate professor of marketing and international business. “A brand really represents everything about an organization and we often think of it as an identifier.”

Townsend and graduate student and former OU Student Congress President Brandon Gustafson separately raised concerns for the university’s poor brand positioning — how people view the university compared to competition.

“Even though OU generates cutting-edge research, develops unique programs and has incredible students, there seems to be a relative lack of recognition of all these important contributions,” Townsend said.

Townsend, along with Gustafson, part-time professor Kim Serota and associate professor of marketing, Mukesh Bhargav, make up OU President Gary Russi’s Presidential Faculty Advisory Committee on Brand Strategy.

The committee began the first of a three-step process to analyze, devise and implement the strategy with the intention of molding how students and faculty view OU in coming years.

During the initial research stage of the project, the PFAC canvasses student, professor and administrator’s views of OU through surveys, focus groups and interviews.

“This is called the multi-method approach, so we are using different methods to get at the same core ideas,” Townsend said, adding that the tiered levels “helps to fill in the gaps” in perception.

“Our role is not to tell the university what it stands for,” Serota said. “Our role is to facilitate a dialogue among all of the stakeholders – faculty, students, administrators, alumni and the surrounding community in order to identify the key values shared across Oakland University, to determine what expectations and aspirations exist with regard to the university, and to assess what Oakland University is actually delivering.”

The OU journalism department offered a special topics branding class over the summer that worked to provide the university with a cohesive brand. The group presented their brand ideas to President Russi and other university key players.

That initiative continued through this semester with a new group of students in Townsend’s brand management course.

“Student involvement is key to the branding process,” Gustafson, a first-year MBA masters student, said.

Gustafson approached administrators during his time as OUSC President, after he noticed disparate views of OU’s identity from various groups.

The PFAC views Gustafson as a chair member of equal standing, he said.

While he admits that his perspective as a student grants him unique insight in the branding process, he said he does not view himself as a representative.

“I am not the voice for every student when it comes to branding,” Gustafson said.

Rather, the PFAC receives its student consensus on affairs by directly querying students.

“We are doing student surveys, we are going to be doing student focus groups and we are looking for anyone else who wants to be involved in the project,” Gustafson said.

“My ultimate goal would be that we are able to put something together that everyone in some fashion can believe in and they can put their support behind.”

The PFAC has been presenting research to President Russi throughout the semester. Within the next six months, Townsend said she expects the committee will devise a branding strategy to unify and publicize OU’s strengths from various perspectives.

On Wednesday, Townsend and the President’s Faculty Advisory Committee for Brand Strategy will provide an overview of the new brand and ways to implement it.