Augusta University | Augusta, GA
“We live at the intersection of art and science. In any other institution, we wouldn’t have such extraordinary collaborations between disciplines and across fields. But here, we’re always looking for ways to make those connections.”
—ADMINISTRATOR
background
Augusta University is designated by the Georgia Board of Regents as the state’s center of health science education, research, and practice—renowned home to the next generation of doctors, dentists, nurses, healthcare practitioners, and medical researchers. These strengths shape AU’s campuses as dynamic sites of real-world practice and high-stakes problem solving, creating an atmosphere that infuses the work and thoughts of everyone at Augusta University, in every field, with greater urgency and higher purpose.
It’s also a thriving, multifaceted university with programming that stretches far beyond the health sciences. AU’s students come to study not only medicine, but also math, music, marketing, military science, and so much more. AU’s breadth and depth also instills reflective, expansive perspective in all who study at Augusta University, fostering a shared world view across disciplines, which acknowledges human life as more than a biological system and recognizes that caring for people means caring about hearts, minds, resources, stories, histories, connections, and cultures as well as bodies.
branding + recruitment
Our partnership with Augusta University began with an undergraduate enrollment campaign. We created a suite of recruiting materials that conceptualize education of all kinds as nothing less than a means to make people—and the very world in which they live—healthier, happier, stronger, safer, and better. In doing so, we helped this rich but complicated university make sense to students looking in from the outside, while also making a strong case to prospects in fields beyond the health sciences. Our college-specific materials also give individual areas of study clear and compelling voices, which speak directly to best-fit audiences.
The undergraduate viewbook allows prospective students to see themselves in the daily life of the campus. It also invites them to imagine what an Augusta University education can do for them throughout their career—and for life.
strategic planning
When the university began work on its strategic plan, we brought our extensive discovery findings and intimate knowledge of AU to that effort. In a transparent and inclusive process, we helped the university identify major objectives, important initiatives, and key benchmarks for the plan. Then, we structured and articulated the plan’s areas of focus, wrapping clarifying and unifying language around the university’s aspirations and helping its many stakeholder to see themselves in the plan—and in AU’s auspicious future.
plan priorities
“I’ve never pinned much on strategic plans, because they’re often just that—a plan that produces a beautiful document to collect dust. But this experience is different. This strategic plan and what it outlines for our future is special. It’s a strategic opportunity to move us forward.”
–DR. BROOKS KEEL, PRESIDENT
overview of our partnership
1. DISCOVERY + ANALYSIS
We began by listening carefully to Augusta University’s stakeholders and students, past and present, across every field and focus.
2. INSIGHTS + IMPLICATIONS
This collaborative, conversational workshop organized and analyzed the community’s perceptions of AU, with recommendations for current and future initiatives.
3. BRANDING + MARKETING
Bearing our findings, AU’s aspirations, and the institution’s complexity in mind, we focused messaging initiatives on the community’s shared mission to enrich, improve, change, and even save lives. Our work together ranged from a university-wide viewbook to college-specific recruitment pieces, in both print and digital forms.
4. ADMISSIONS + RECRUITING
We worked with the AU undergraduate admissions team to ensure that the new branding program was authentic and actionable and to re-imagine and reframe outreach communications and efforts.
5. PLANNING + VISIONING
As part of a transparent and inclusive strategic planning process, we helped the university identify major objectives, important initiatives, key benchmarks, and framing language for a comprehensive strategic plan.
6. COUNSEL + CONSENSUS BUILDING
We facilitated planning retreats for the university’s senior leadership team to build buy-in and plan rollout for academic, research, campus planning, and cultural priorities for the university’s new five-year plan.
