MASGC Communications Program

The Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC) initiated its Communications Program in 1986 as a distinct element of the Consortium's management component and as a way to help meet the National Sea Grant mandates of education and outreach.  The purpose of the Program is to provide timely, useful information about the Consortium's research, education and outreach activities and accomplishments to all interested audiences.

As stated in the Consortium's 2000-2005 Strategic Plan, Communication's long-term goal is to build an award-winning communications program.  To achieve this, the Communications Program will pursue two objectives in this Omnibus cycle:  First, to re-establish the Program's presence among Mississippi and Alabama stakeholders including Sea Grant's institutional and extension partners, funded researchers, the media, community organizations, and the general public. Secondly, to expand MASGC's communications efforts using new communications technology, to create innovative communications products, and to establish new partnerships that leverage MASGC's communication funds.

Present Communication efforts include:

Press Releases
MASGC publishes press releases to disseminate important news regarding the research, extension, or educational projects that it funds.New press releases will be posted on MASGC's home page for a one-month period and then moved to the Press Releases page of the web site.

Publications
MASGC-funded projects, as well as independent administrative initiatives, create publications that are considered Sea Grant Publications. When a publication is published and processed it is "marketed" through a variety of channels. MASGC maintains an inventory of all MASGC publications available to the public. These publications, and all other Sea Grant Programs' publications, are listed on the National Sea Grant Library web site at http://nsgd.gso.uri.edu/. MASGC will fill all specific requests for our publications through our main administrative offices in Ocean Springs, MS.

Impact Statements
A dozen 2-page flyers in PDF format demonstrate how MASGC funds are put to work. These impact statements were originally prepared for our PAT review, but are now available on the web!

Sea Briefs
This is MASGC's official newsletter and is published bi-monthly. It contains recent news and reports from our funded researchers, extension staff, and legal program. It is available on our web site as a PDF file, and available from our Communications Office at the address below.

National Sea Grant Communication efforts include:

In addition to the local, regional and national communication efforts produced by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, the National Sea Grant Office works to generate information and disseminate it on a national and international scale. These components of the national office keep track of the research, education and outreach efforts (and their results) produced by all 30 Sea Grant Programs. Those marine issues (or "theme" areas) that are targeted as top priority by Sea Grant are addressed by collaborative teams from various Sea Grant Programs which target special efforts to explore these issues more deeply. Below are the links to these special Sea Grant communication components:

The Sea Grant Media Center provides members of the news media, researchers and educators access to marine research and resources available through the National Sea Grant College Program.

The National Sea Grant Libary at the University of Rhode Island's Pell Library has compiled nearly 55,000 scientific, technical, advisory, educational and public information reports from Sea Grant-supported work.

The Sea Grant Theme Teams are special collaborative projects that concentrate on issues considered top priority to Sea Grant. Each team is made up of knowledgeable representatives from several individual Sea Grant Programs.

MASGC Home
Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
(228) 818-8836 | Fax (228) 818-8841

Please contact our webmaster with questions or comments.
Last modified: 23 October 2006