UCA is offering faculty and staff access to Canva Teams, providing design tools and university branding resources in one centralized platform.
The initiative, led by the Office of University Marketing and Communications, includes official UCA logos, fonts, colors and branded templates.
The Canva Teams account costs $122 annually, allowing faculty and staff to transfer their current Canva designs.
If 185 faculty or staff members sign up, all students will receive premium Canva accounts.
Faculty and staff can join by filling out a form on the UCA Communications Toolkit website.
Digital Media Specialist Alyssa Sparks said between pending and active accounts, around 100 faculty and staff members are currently involved in UCA’s Canva for Campus.
“Our goal with Canva for Campus is to help faculty, staff and students have easier access to design tools and brand information that they already utilize in their daily duties and functions and to foster a greater connection between the university marketing and communications office and the rest of the campus community.”
She said the UMAC office started meeting with Canva late last year to discuss how UCA was using the platform.
“After looking at the data on how it is being used on campus and how other universities have implemented it into their university marketing, we began rolling it out on a gradual basis earlier this year,” she said.
She said about 800 faculty and staff currently use free or premium versions of Canva.
“While we are still in the early adoption phase of Canva, the price is comparable to most individual premium plans,” she said. “Canva has recently instituted some price increases due to its AI feature that will impact those who use personal accounts, which would make the move to the UCA Team account more affordable.”
Sparks said, “Our primary goal right now is to work with departments that are utilizing the premium version to educate them on the benefits that Canva for Teams can provide to their existing work and those that use the free version on what Canva for Teams can offer with a premium seat.”
She said a large number of students utilize Canva, “whether for class presentations or projects, student organizations they are a part of or building out resumes and portfolios to use when applying for jobs and internships.”
“Our hope is that this will not only further aid the students who already are using this tool but also unlock it for the ones who aren’t using it yet and provide a robust platform for them to use when creating work for their courses,” Sparks said.
Emily Tomlinson, a junior marketing major, said, “I have a premium account that I pay for with my own money due to running social media accounts for a few RSOs [Registered Student Organizations] on campus. I love to make flyers, graphics and edits that help promote the RSO. The branding feature is very nice for storing pictures, logos and fonts so that the graphics made follow one brand. I think for academics, it’s a lot easier to collaborate on group projects in Canva.”
Kailyn Jeffries, a sophomore communications and public relations double major, said, “I rely on Canva for a lot of my work. It would be great to have access to a Canva premium account to make my work better and cleaner. Other students in the PR and communication fields will find good use for Canva, but other students as well. Any student can use its premium features to build a resume or cover letter, slideshows for class or flyers for RSOs.”
Savannah Lee, a junior majoring in elementary education, said, “I understand that a Canva account may not benefit all UCA students, but it will benefit a majority of students. Any degree path that requires some sort of project can benefit from Canva, and a lot of the prerequisite classes have these types of projects — so that targets all underclassmen. Once in your actual degree, I know for certain it will aid education majors, especially when starting their practicum or internship.”
Sparks said each department can access its own brand kit, including logos, fonts and templates.
“The UCA Canva account provides brand kits for each department with their logos, university fonts and official colors, as well as university-branded templates and guidelines that range from print materials to social media,” she said. “With a large number of people on campus already utilizing this tool, we want to make university branding more available within that space.”
Sparks said, “Our mission is to enrich the university brand, and Canva for Campus is an initiative that we are aiming to use to help drive that goal. I encourage any faculty or staff member that is interested to reach out to me and I would be happy to meet with them.”