Barbara (Bobbi) Barrow has been named to the position of executive director of institutional relations at the University of Colorado at Boulder, pending approval by the CU Board of Regents, according to an announcement by Chancellor Richard L. Byyny.
The executive director will be charged with responsibility for evaluating, reorganizing and streamlining the communications programs serving the campus, Byyny said, as well as for finding opportunities for consolidation that will lead to efficiency, continuity and cost containment.
“In today’s intense communications environment, we must meet additional communications needs in our programs without any increases in the budgets committed to these functions,” he said. “Bobbi is an experienced communications professional with a known track record in comprehensive communications planning and implementation. I am pleased we were able to recruit her to this position.”
Barrow will transfer from her current position as director of institutional relations for the CU-Health Sciences Center and University Hospital. Campus communicators involved in public relations, marketing, alumni relations, student recruiting, publications, fund-raising and community relations will be members of the communications team headed by Barrow.
Salary for the position will be $100,000.
Barrow, a 15-year university employee, has served as director of public relations for the University of Colorado at Denver, University Hospital and the CU-Health Sciences Center.
In 1989 the communications functions for the hospital and the Health Sciences Center campus were consolidated into a centralized public relations and marketing office that is responsible for an integrated program of news media relations, internal communications, publications, hospital advertising, campus marketing, community education, community relations, statewide outreach and Internet communications. All work, including advertising, is prepared internally through desktop publishing facilities.
Before joining the university, Barrow worked in communications and lobbying for state government and in agriculture.
Barrow earned a bachelorÂ’s degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin and a masterÂ’s in political science at CU-Denver. She and her husband have three grown children.