MarCom Studio

The essence of UTSA’s Creating Bold Futures brand can be found in its promise, pillars and personality.

Brand Promise

To be a model Hispanic thriving research university where aspiring students from all backgrounds experience a life-changing education leading to a bold future.

The Promise, Deconstructed

A model Hispanic thriving research university

• UTSA is an innovative, impactful university tightly linked to our community and dedicated to pursuing research, academic and career excellence. Our 50-year evolution shows that we are unafraid to take bold steps to make change happen. We are setting the model for the future of higher education.
• UTSA students, faculty, and staff work together, push each other, and are dedicated to creating an educated and skilled workforce well-prepared for success in first, new, and re-imagined careers.
• We embrace UTSA’s Hispanic serving identity in everything we do—from honoring our founding history to bolstering student success to fostering excellence in faculty research to partnering with our communities. In progressing beyond a Hispanic serving to a Hispanic thriving institution, UTSA strives to meet the unique needs of our region, broadening access to education, increasing professional opportunities for students of all backgrounds, and hiring diverse faculty, staff and leaders who reflect the South Texas community the university serves.  
• The UTSA experience reaches far beyond our physical campuses. We offer an education that comes alive in classrooms, labs and innovative online formats, all dynamic learning environments extending our reach throughout the region we serve.

Aspiring Students

• Our students come from many backgrounds, with nearly every possible back-story, motivation, goal and dream represented.
• They may know what they want to do in life; they may well not. We work with all students to meet them where they are in life, showing them possibilities to achieve successful futures.
• The best-fit UTSA students share a commonality— they are driven to take initiative and action to find their path ahead.

Life-changing

• At the heart of our purpose at UTSA is fostering a culture where students can experience a life evolution that helps them reach their bold future.
• Our students apply the knowledge and skills they learned at UTSA to impact themselves and others in tangible and meaningful ways, making a difference to the businesses, organizations, families, and broader communities in which they engage.
• Not only does UTSA care about traditional “success” measures like job and graduate school placement statistics, but also personal ones. We want our student to feel well-prepared for their bold futures, ready to make the world a better place.

Leading to a bold future

• We are investing in the people and programs that foster the highest-impact research activity— leading to tomorrow’s discoveries and inventions—and are preparing our students for next-gen industries, such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
• Though COVID-19 has affected industries and shifted higher education models globally, UTSA is well-positioned and well on our way to ensuring our community will be ready to meet known and emerging challenges.
• As a nimble, forward-thinking university, we are pioneering what the future of higher education will look like—accelerating change to better serve our students and our community through innovative course delivery and customizable professional development opportunities.

Brand Pillars - How We Make Good on Our Promise

• Hiring talented faculty and staff who help students succeed
• Engaging in impactful research and inspired teaching
• Offering learning experiences that change lives
• Providing outcomes worth the investment
• Leveraging our location in San Antonio, the city of the future

Brand Pillars, Deconstructed

Talented faculty and staff

• Students succeed at UTSA for many reasons, but most impactful are the committed human relationships that make this university special. Faculty and staff are the driving force of UTSA.
• In our learning community, faculty give emphasis and direction to UTSA’s life-changing education in our daily fabric. They serve as the fuel to the engine of discovery for our students. And our engaging classrooms, laboratories and performing venues give faculty the invaluable chance to get to know their students as individuals.
• Our focus on student success extends beyond the classroom when our staff members work with student one-on-one to meet their unique needs.
• The result? When students earn a UTSA degree, they are well-prepared for success in the careers of today and tomorrow.

Impactful research and inspired teaching

• One of UTSA’s fundamental anchors moving ahead is as a discovery enterprise, one that values the life-changing impact of research.
• UTSA, as San Antonio’s largest research university and a proud and prominent member of the UT system, is producing impactful and relevant research with direct impact on our city, state, nation, and, at times, the world.
• For students, being a member of the UTSA community means being part of a rich university culture of discovery, where they can participate in research to make the world a better place.
• At the same time, our innovative approaches to teaching and learning help us deliver on our promise of a career-minded, student-focused experience.
• This equal emphasis on teaching and research as elements that—in combination— amplify and enhance the educational experience of our students sets UTSA apart from other institutions.

Learning experiences that change lives

• The breadth of opportunities at UTSA transcend the usual rhetoric of “something for everyone.” Our robust learning experiences are innovative and impactful, designed to encourage our students to explore their potential.
• We believe that building upon academic classroom knowledge with hands-on, real-world experiences is the best education for today’s world. UTSA is expanding experiential learning opportunities for all students, an additional dimension to their preparation for a bold future in an ever-evolving and highly competitive job market.
• This focus on relevant, real-world, future-focused knowledge defines UTSA’s overall approach to education. It is a way of life here at UTSA that gets results and impacts both the students’ lives and those of the world around them.
• Similarly, extensive non-academic experiences provide opportunities for UTSA students to extend themselves in countless ways. They find their way into leadership, service, activism, civic engagement and other activities that add to their breadth and depth as human beings.

Worth the investment

• The value of an UTSA degree is the result of a student’s commitment of both time and treasure.
• For students, measuring the return on investment in a UTSA education is twofold. There is professional success—our students go on to desirable careers, well-prepared for a changing world. And then there is the personal success and empowerment that comes with meeting the UTSA challenge to create a bold future and make the world a better place. By either definition of success, pursuing a UTSA education is time and money well spent.
• UTSA is making a rich investment in San Antonio through impactful research that directly benefits our local community and by supplying the workforce talent San Antonio needs the most.

San Antonio, the city of the future

• UTSA’s namesake and home is a compelling city alive with opportunity—an American city of the future. UTSA’s bold strengths in discovery and applied knowledge complement those needs and wants of San Antonio. It is an ideal fit.
• San Antonio is incredibly diverse by every measure and any definition: tremendous ethnic and socio-economic differentiation, a rich mix of cultural heritages and influences, and an emerging national powerhouse in cybersecurity and technology.
• As home to a fast-growing, Hispanic-majority population at the forefront of the nation’s demographic shift, San Antonio is the city of the future.
• Best of all, San Antonio is our living laboratory, offering our students and the broader university community experiential learning opportunities. From San Antonio’s growing Technology Corridor to the hundreds of neighborhoods throughout the city, ours is a robust and engaging place to call home.
• More broadly, UTSA’s success hinges on the success of San Antonio, and vice versa. This unique dynamic, combined with UTSA’s deep community relationships, creates a living laboratory for our community of learners, leaders and researchers and a talent engine for San Antonio’s business community. UTSA is providing essential services and research programs that strengthen economic opportunities within San Antonio and the broader region.
• Area business leaders and influencers value UTSA’s role as a talent engine. We are the source of graduates who bring ideas, skills and solutions to meet their needs and allow UTSA to help fill the workforce pipeline.
• Regardless of the circumstances, UTSA remains determined and focused on continuously innovating, improving our university and our community, and offering inventive, relevant and flexible educational and career opportunities.
• As we intensify our focus on our bold vision, UTSA continues to prepare our students, workforce and community for the evolving global economy and transform the future of our region for the better.

Brand Personality

The UTSA community—our students, alumni, faculty and staff—embody the are Creating Bold Futures for themselves and others, embodying a shared set of characteristics that sets UTSA apart from other. They are:

• Audacious
• Tenacious
• Determined
• Inspired
• Inventive
• Familia
• Leaders
• Partners