University Relations’ Work to Promote Eastern Earns National Awards

Eastern Washington University took home six awards at the 2026 Educational Advertising Awards competition, the nation’s largest educational advertising awards program.

Eastern’s haul included two gold, two silver and two merit awards for projects ranging from EWU’s 2025 holiday video to its lookbook for prospective students.

Brent Reser, marketing director in EWU’s university relations division, says the recognition will allow him and his team to take a moment to celebrate the positive impact of their work.

“We received awards across a wide range of categories, from video to social media to radio spots,” Reser said. “This recognition reinforces to our team that we’re doing great work – and motivates us to continue.”

This year’s competition involved over 2,000 entries from more than 1,000 colleges, universities and secondary schools, according to the EDU Ad Awards website. It was judged by a national panel of higher education marketers, advertising creative directors and marketing and advertising professionals.

Below is the complete list of the EDU Ad awards that Eastern took home this year:

• Gold in Newspaper Advertising Series: “Build our Future” Sunday Morning Ad Series
• Gold in Special Video: 2025 Holiday Video
• Silver in Instagram Content: Welcome to the University House
• Silver in Radio Advertising Series: EWU Branded Radio Spots
• Merit in Student Viewbook: EWU Lookbook
• Merit in Email Marketing Campaign: Giving Joy Day Emails
• Merit in Integrated Marketing Campaign: EWU: The Region’s Polytechnic

EWU received gold awards for the 2025 holiday video and a series of Sunday newspaper ads to support the Build Our Future fundraising campaign. The holiday video, titled “The Future is Bright,” featured 30 students and garnered more than 80,000 views. The newspaper series ran in Sunday editions of The Spokesman-Review and told the stories of EWU students who received scholarships and the impact they had.

EWU’s social media manager, Amy Bradberry, says she hopes the awards will reinforce the work Eastern’s marketing professionals do to introduce the university to a new generation of prospective Eagles. She added that President Shari McMahan’s participation with EWU’s social media and marketing teams has been the icing on the cake of this year’s success.

“Getting awards is great, but what’s even greater is having students come up and tell me how much they loved the last Instagram reel, or that they regularly share our content with their families back home,” says Bradberry. “That to me is just as high of an accolade.”