Each user type on your sign-up page — Student, Employer, Alumni, etc. — displays as a tile with an icon. These icons are assigned automatically based on the community's name and internal identifier (slug). There is no setting to manually choose an icon for a community.
Icon Categories
Every user type is sorted into one of nine categories, each with its own icon:
| Category | Icon | Example User Types |
|---|---|---|
| Student | Graduation cap | Students, Undergraduates, Transfer Students |
| Employer | Briefcase | Employers, Donors, Sponsors |
| Staff | ID badge | Staff, Faculty, Advisors |
| Alumni | User with graduation cap | Alumni, Alumnae, Alums |
| Prospective | Crossroads | Prospective Students, Admitted Students |
| Parents & Family | Users | Parents, Families |
| Graduate | Diploma | Graduate Students, MBA, Doctoral |
| Community | Organization | Community Partners, Volunteers |
| Other | Generic person | Anything that doesn't match a category above |
If a community doesn't match any category, it receives the "Other" icon — a clean, generic person icon that ensures your sign-up page still looks polished.
How the System Decides Which Icon to Show
The system checks each community in the following order:
- Slug match — The community's slug (its URL-safe identifier) is checked against a known list of exact matches.
- Keyword match — If there's no exact match, the slug is scanned for keywords like "employ," "alum," "grad," "parent," or "community."
- Display name match — If the slug doesn't match, the visible community name is checked for the word "student."
- Degree-code pattern — Names formatted like "MSW in Social Work (MSW)" or "MBA in Management (MiM)" are recognized as graduate programs, even without an obvious keyword.
- No match — The community receives the generic "Other" icon.
How to Influence Which Icon Appears
You can't select an icon directly, but you can influence which one your community receives by editing its name or slug to match one of the patterns above. You're able to make these edits yourself in your platform.
Example: Masters Programs
A short, program-specific slug like msw, mim, or mpa doesn't contain a recognized keyword (such as "grad," "master," or "phd"), so the tile will show the generic icon instead of the Graduate diploma.
To get the Graduate icon, there are two options:
- Change the display name to follow the degree-code pattern — for example, "MSW in Social Work (MSW)." This pattern is specifically recognized for these cases.
- Include a graduate keyword in the slug or name — for example, renaming the community so its slug is
msw-graduate-programrather than justmsw.
Important: Changing a slug changes the community's URL. If the community is already live and linked elsewhere — in bookmarks, emails, or printed materials — those existing links will break once the slug changes. uConnect can set up a redirect from the old URL to the new one, but redirects can only be added, edited, or removed by the uConnect support team — this isn't something you can configure yourself. If you're planning to rename a live community, reach out to support before making the change so a redirect is ready to go.
Watch Out For: Keyword Collisions
Because keyword matching follows a fixed priority order (Employer → Staff → Alumni → Graduate → Prospective → Parents/Family → Community → Student), a slug can accidentally land in the wrong category if it contains an unrelated trigger word. For example:
- A slug containing "partner" (e.g.,
industry-partners) will match Employer, not Community — "partner" is treated as an employer keyword first. - A slug containing "mentor" will be treated as Alumni.
If your icon isn't what you expected, check whether the community's slug or name contains one of these trigger words before reaching out to support.
Good to know
- You can edit community names and slugs yourself — no need to wait on support for the rename itself. You can edit this under the Manage>Communities section by editing a Community page.
- Redirects are support-only. If a community is live and linked anywhere outside uConnect, contact support before renaming so you don't accidentally break existing links.
- If you get stuck at any point, or you're not sure whether a redirect is needed, reach out and we're happy to help.
Have questions about a specific community's icon or slug? Reach out to our support team!