University of Maryland
Service
A data-informed recruitment campaign that grew undergraduate enrollment in the School of Public Health by 60%.
Category
Product Marketing
Year
01
The story of a bold reimagination of the University of Maryland School of Public Health's undergraduate recruitment campaign, driving a 60% increase in student enrollment.
As a part-time graphic design student employee for the School's communications team, I noticed the campaign reviving from years of declining enrollment was missing the one thing that actually moves a prospective student: authentic photos of people like them. I pushed for a full photoshoot, redesigned every recruitment asset major-by-major, and helped reverse a multi-year enrollment decline.
The Situation
The School of Public Health had seen enrollment spike during COVID, then decline every year since, hitting its lowest point the year before this project. The Dean's office wanted a marketing push to reverse it. I'd already designed 50+ initiatives for the communications team — events, social, TV — and was initially asked to design new recruitment flyers.
The Insight
Before designing anything, I flagged a bigger gap: the campaign had no real student photography. Prospective students don't connect with stock imagery — they connect with people they can picture themselves becoming. I proposed something bigger than a redesign: a full photoshoot with real students, in real places, doing the things SPH students actually do.
WHAT I DID
Research
I recruited 40 students for the shoot — starting from just 10 sign-ups by offering swag, then pushing further through my own student network to close demographic gaps, including actively recruiting male students in a major that's predominantly women.
Execution
I organized and ran the shoot across campus — classrooms, research labs, the pharmacy, and the fire station where I worked as an EMT, photographing real EMTs who were also SPH majors.
Design
I redesigned every recruitment asset within UMD's strict brand guidelines (a fixed red/yellow/black/white palette and a single mandated font) by introducing playful shapes, motion, and color to make a public health program feel approachable rather than clinical — closer to how a prospective student actually feels flipping through a pamphlet, not how an institution wants to look on paper. I built a unique flyer for every major in the school, reprinted three times due to demand.
Stakeholder Management
I ran one-on-one working sessions with the assistant dean of every major to align on messaging, ensuring each program felt equally represented with no major getting more space or attention than another.
the challenge
The hardest part wasn't design, it was balancing competing stakeholder requests. Every assistant dean wanted their major represented fully, but I'd committed to minimal text (driving people to a QR code/website instead) to keep the flyers scannable. That meant pushing back diplomatically when requests didn't fit, and making real tradeoffs on whose copy got cut and whose photos made the final cut.
results & impact
Undergraduate enrollment in the School of Public Health increased by 60%. I believe what set this apart from previous (and professionally-designed) recruitment efforts was simple: I was a student designing for students, with a fresh enough perspective to challenge brand guidelines that weren't serving the goal.
REFLECTIOn
Looking back, this is one of the projects I'm most proud of from undergrad. I went into it as a part-time student employee earning some pocket change and finding an outlet for my creativity, and came out having my fingerprints on everything and shaped how an entire school recruits its next generation of students. That experience taught me something I carry into every product I work on: nothing is too big to take on, and no stakeholder is too “big” to reach. At the end of the day, even something as massive as a university runs on people and people are always reachable, if you're willing to ask the question and care about the work.