University Communications Guidelines

University Communications and Marketing’s Media Relations Office serves as an entryway for journalists hoping to obtain comment from the university, request interviews, and quickly and efficiently connect with faculty experts and other sources throughout the large and complex university organization.

Media Guidelines

To help coordinate responses, ensure efficiency and maintain consistency of message when it comes to official university statements, we request that campus community members route media inquiries they receive through the Media Relations Office. Media Relations staff will then work to connect members of the media with the most appropriate campus source(s) for their inquiries and/or gather the relevant information and provide university response and comment.

Members of the media may gather news in all public areas of campus without prior consent. Media members must obtain permission to report or take photos or video inside University Housing (private residences), classrooms and laboratories, private offices, and health care and childcare settings.

Individuals and organizations not with the news media must obtain prior permission to perform commercial filming or commercial still photography anywhere on campus. Media Relations also serves as the first contact for all requests for commercial filming or still photography on campus.

Direct all media inquiries and commercial filming/photography requests to:
Matt Lazier
Assistant Vice President for External Communications and Media Relations
[email protected]

Campuswide Communications on Current Events

Cal Poly is committed to open and consistent communication with its campus community. In addition to standard communications to keep students and employees informed about campus operations and programming, current events will from time to time elicit calls for campuswide messages, for the university to offer perspective or to voice support for campus community members and provide information on related policies or programming.

Cal Poly’s general practice is to offer campuswide communications on current events only when they have a direct impact on a critical mass of students or on higher education specifically. The decision to send a campuswide note is always made after careful consideration and consultation by the President and President’s Cabinet. In addition, Cal Poly will look to the CSU Chancellor’s Office for guidance and precedence when considering a campuswide communication.

With a campus community of nearly 25,000 people, almost all current events can have a direct or indirect impact on some portion of our student body and/or faculty and staff workforce. Cal Poly’s communications guidelines are in place to help avoid differing expectations around what does or does not warrant a campuswide comment; to help ensure the university always communicates in a fair and consistent manner; and to avoid over-communicating to the campus community and diluting the voice of Cal Poly’s leadership.

There will be cases in which a campuswide message from university administration has not been issued (because it does not meet the parameters detailed above), but a message from an office, division or department’s leadership to a targeted audience is deemed appropriate. In addition, alternative forms of communication and outreach (including web postings or social media) may occur in certain situations.

University Communications and Marketing is always available to discuss these scenarios and offer counsel on how best to provide clear and direct communication to a target audience. Please contact:
Matt Lazier
Assistant Vice President for External Communications and Media Relations
[email protected]

Student and Employee Resources

Cal Poly provides a wealth of resources on a wide variety of topics, for both students and employees. Please feel free to include these resources as appropriate in targeted messaging at the division, college, student and employee level.