University branding and appointing a new vice president of communication are on the agenda for new WSU president Kirk Schulz.

Schulz said the branding isn’t going to affect the look or colors of WSU, but it will impact the reach of their communication efforts. He said he would like to bring in a professional from the outside to work with the current team, but he does not have a step by step plan yet of what this will look like.

“I don’t think we’re telling the stories of our successes as well as we could,” Schulz said.

Schulz would like the new communication director to bring the current staff together and increase their reach to schools outside of WSU, especially other land grant universities. He said some of their programs, such as the viticulture program, he hadn’t heard about until he applied for a job at WSU.

The new vice president of communication will replace the currently vacant positions of associate director of university communication and director of communication, combining their positions into one job that reports directly to president Schulz.

The salaries of those two positions will also be combined to provide funding for the new position. Schulz said he is not yet sure what the salary of this position will be, but he said they are looking into the salary range of other universities with similar positions.

“I wanted to be very careful that we weren’t adding new administrative positions,” Schulz said.

Schulz said he would not reshuffle or start any big administrative changes for the first six months of his presidency, currently just focusing on filling positions that had interim leaders, such as the vice president of student affairs.

“I pledged when I came in I wouldn’t shuffle for six months,” Schulz said. “Sometimes presidents come in and announce a lot of changes; I don’t want to do that.”

Reporting by Rebecca White