Launching a new leadership program

Washington University in St. Louis was introducing an important initiative called the Bauer Leaders Academy (BLA) and they wanted to create marketing materials that would captivate and inspire incoming freshmen, their parents, faculty, staff and potential donors.

Problem

Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) was preparing to launch The Bauer Leaders Academy (BLA) as part of its WashU Leads strategic plan. The vision for WashU Leads is to create a model of leadership, empower each member of the community to build their leadership capabilities, and become an institution renowned for achievement in leadership development.

The BLA is an innovative new program that places values-based leadership development at the center of the WashU experience for all students, regardless of major. It’s an opportunity to build leadership skills inside and outside of the classroom.

Action

WashU wanted our help communicating the value of The Bauer Leaders Academy initiative to incoming students, parents, and donors. The messaging needed to answer the following questions:

• What does the Bauer Leaders Academy (BLA) offer prospective students?
• How will the BLA philosophy be integrated inside and outside of the classroom?
• How will the BLA help differentiate WashU among the nation’s top universities?

Result

For incoming students’ fall orientation, we designed a brochure that features an illustrated map. The map portrays the WashU experience as a pathway of collaborative opportunities — or ‘Bearprints for Success’ — in which participants learn the core tenets of purpose, values, and leadership. For WashU Faculty, we created a companion piece to help them better understand how to  support innovations in coursework that support the development of purpose-driven leaders of character and capability.