John Zhu

gradschool.duke.edu/annualreports

The Duke Graduate School works hard to support its graduate students across many aspects of their experience, such as financial aid, professional development, and wellbeing. Much of that work, however, often occurs behind the scenes and is therefore invisible to many students, faculty, alumni, and other key stakeholders.

To help bring that work to the forefront, in 2016 I began creating annual reports for the school. These were designed not to be dense documents, but rather easy reads driven by engaging visuals, infographics, and short text blurbs.

Since the initial report, I have continually refined this communication vehicle. It has evolved from a printed bifold to an entirely digital piece. After experimenting with several digital content platforms, I settled on using Carrd, an easy-to-use, click-and-drag tool for building webpages and mini-sites. I chose this platform not only because of its ease of use, but also because the finished product can be downloaded and hosted on the school's own servers, which means the reports would be insulated from any platform changes in the future.

The annual report is published around July each year. This publishing window was chosen because 1) it comes at the end of both the academic and fiscal year, allowing us to report complete numbers; and 2) July is typically a slower time of the year at a university, and the annual report provides a dependable anchor around which to plan our content for that lull.

Since its creation, the report has become an important and well-received tool for communicating the school's key accomplishments. It is promoted in the school's newsletters, on its social media channels, and sent directly to key stakeholders such as top university leaders and the school's board of visitors.