Denison's Toni King on how colleges can improve

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing a number of faculty and students from Denison University. Here’s a golden nugget from Toni King, professor of women’s studies and black studies…

I asked her how an institution gets better/improves and here’s what she said (paraphrasing from memory): “I believe an institution can make itself better if it has a strong sense of identity. It has to know who it is, and be able to articulate what it does well. If it can do that, it can identify how to do those things better. In this way it can avoid trying to be what it is not, and it can get better and better at what it is.”

Identity. Sense of self. In an institutional sense, that’s the core criterion for a brand. Thanks to Toni for words of branding wisdom every college can take to the bank.