Harvey Mudd Wins Two CASE District VII Awards of Excellence

Prospective students receive dozens of viewbooks from colleges as they search for the best fit. It’s likely they had never seen anything like what they received from Harvey Mudd: a deck of cards. This innovative approach contributed to the College’s deck of cards/viewbook receiving top honors in two categories of the 2017 Council for Advancement & Support of Education District VII Awards of Excellence.

The Harvey Mudd viewbook received the Gold award for Student Recruitment Publications: Viewbooks and Prospectuses (Print) and the Silver award in Innovative Use of Technology. The CASE awards recognize educational institutions for outstanding work in advancement services, alumni relations, communications, fundraising and marketing. Awards of Excellence winners of CASE District VII, a region including the western U.S., Guam and Hawaii, are chosen based on the overall quality, use of resources and the impact the campaign or program had on the institution or in the community.

The College’s viewbook provides prospective students with a comprehensive look at what makes Harvey Mudd unique, exciting and excellent. Content is presented on the playing cards in two ways: that which can be read and that which can be experienced via augmented reality. Prospective students are encouraged to download Layar AR, a free app, and then scan the cards to make them come to life as brief videos or animations. Through the app, prospective students are able to see and hear a diverse group of Harvey Mudd students, faculty and staff talk about academics, research, community involvement and creative endeavors.

Also included in the cards is a puzzle: Morse code discretely printed on 12 cards. After locating the codes and solving the puzzle, users enter words on a dedicated web page and are then encouraged to share photos of themselves based on the theme “What matters to you?”, a theme related to Harvey Mudd’s brand expression “relationships matter.” Many of these photos have been shared on the Harvey Mudd College Admission Facebook page.

CASE District VII Awards organizers received a record number of entries this year, over 600 in total, and HMC’s excellent work stood out among the best.

Video of Harvey Mudd viewbook demonstration