What I Did
Over two academic years, I designed and built 25+ presentations in Canva and the Adobe Suite for Emory University's Campus Life and Student Center leadership. The audiences ranged from student organizations to senior administrators — including the President's office and the Dean of Campus Life — and extended to national forums like the Association of College Unions International (ACUI). Every deck had a real audience, real stakes, and a real ask behind it.
My job wasn't just to make slides look good. It was to take messy, multi-stakeholder conversations and turn them into structured visual arguments. Some decks were asking for new positions. Some were defending budget allocations. Some were explaining infrastructure to people who didn't want to think about infrastructure. I figured out what each audience needed to hear — and built accordingly.
The Work
The scope was wide. No two decks served the same purpose or the same room.
Executive Reviews & Departmental Reporting
Annual and mid-year updates for senior leadership covering staffing realignments, programming expansion, budget shifts, and strategic priorities. These weren't informational — they were advocacy. The goal was always to leave the room with something approved.
Capital & Space Planning Proposals
Presentations mapping square footage, unit relocations, growth forecasts, and future-proofing plans for Campus Life spaces. The data was technical. The audience wasn't. I translated floor plans and capacity projections into visual arguments non-technical decision-makers could act on.
Operational Workflows & Systems Guides
Client-facing and internal decks outlining reservation processes, A/V capabilities, multi-purpose room capacities, and logistical workflows. Some went to students. Some standardized internal practice across departments. All of them had to be clear enough to actually change behavior.
Technical Education & A/V Strategy
Presentations demystifying A/V infrastructure in student centers — systems architecture, scalability needs, upgrade justifications. Built to bridge technical language with executive-level clarity. The ask was usually money. The deck had to earn it.
Professional Development & Training Modules
Dialogue-based training decks for student leaders and staff on generational communication, emotional intelligence frameworks, and facilitation strategies. Different tone, same discipline — structure that moves people through an idea.
National Conference Presentations — ACUI, NASPA, ETC.
Visual frameworks for sessions delivered at the Association of College Unions International, a national conference for higher education professionals, among others. Public-facing polish, industry-level positioning, thematic cohesion across the full arc of each session.
How I Worked
The design was the easy part. The hard part was everything before it.
Most projects started with a rough conversation or a loose set of talking points. I came in, figured out what the actual goal was, and identified what the audience needed to hear versus what the stakeholder wanted to say. Often those weren't the same thing.
I built the argument before I built the deck. Problem. Impact. Recommendation. Resourcing. Implication. Once the logic held, the slides followed. Every section had a reason to exist.
Every deck had to operate inside Emory's institutional brand guidelines — official typography, color palettes, crest placement rules, accessibility standards. Within those constraints, I calibrated visual density and tone to the room: tight and formal for executive leadership, more open and conversational for students and training contexts.
Feedback came from multiple directions — Executive Directors, Associate Directors, finance leads, technical staff. I integrated it without losing the thread. Decks often went through multiple rounds under short timelines before executive meetings. I delivered clean, presentation-ready artifacts on time, every time.
The Audiences
One format did not fit all. Here's who was in the room.
Vice Presidents & Deans
Synthesis over detail. Clear asks, defensible numbers, institutional framing.
Department Directors
Specificity mattered. Workflow accuracy, staffing structures, process clarity.
A/V & Facilities Staff
Accurate enough to earn their trust. Visual enough to reach non-technical co-presenters.
RSOs & Student Leaders
Clarity first. Low jargon, high utility. Built to actually get used.
Conference Attendees
Industry polish. Emory's work positioned as a model, not just a case study.
President's Office
The highest-stakes room. Every word earned its place.