Gardner-Webb University

Institutional Identity

Brand Promise

As part of a formal workshop on brand and identity planning, members of the Steering Committee completed a number of exercises to develop a brand essence or "promise" for the University. In effect, the Committee was challenged to articulate in a single statement a promise that the University would make to its various audiences, which is compelling in its argument, distinctive to Gardner-Webb's character and mission, and believable in terms of how the University conducts itself. Moreover, the brand essence or promise would need to serve not only communications with external audiences, but also give a common voice to internal audiences of trustees, faculty, students, and administrative staff particularly as they carried out the University's strategic plan. The brand essence initially developed by the Steering Committee was further reviewed and refined by the Editorial Committee, reflecting its broader institutional endorsement.

Gardner-Webb University's promise to its key constituencies and audiences is to provide learning and leadership in service for God and humanity in a changing world.

This promise recognizes that the University's academic, professional, and personal formation of its students is pursued and accomplished not solely for personal gain, but for the expression of individual talent in service both to the glory of God who has created and redeemed humankind and to the spiritual, social, and material well being of other men and women both personally and in various forms of community. Moreover, the promise recognizes that learning, leadership, and service occur in a world that is constantly changing and developing, both through human agency and the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. As a vibrant learning and faith community Gardner-Webb is called upon to appropriately adapt scholarship, learning, leadership, and service, as well as extend its Christian faith traditions, for contemporary society.

Identity Repositioning

The University's statement of repositioning reflects how Gardner-Webb intends to be known and understood as an institution of higher learning among its various audiences and in relationship to other colleges and universities, as a result of implementing and achieving its strategic plan and its identity communications.

Again, through formal planning exercises, the Steering Committee prepared a draft statement of repositioning, which was reviewed and refined by the Editorial Committee. The approved statement is as follows:

Historically Baptist, Gardner-Webb University is a preeminent, leading, comprehensive Christian university in the Southeast.

In adopting this statement of repositioning, members of both the Steering and Editorial Committees:

  • Reaffirm the University's historically Baptist traditions and relationships for continuation forward under the strategic and identity communications plans.
  • Reaffirm the University's mission as a Christian university, in terms of the nature of its academic programs, its faculty and scholarship, its education and formation of students in the Christian faith, its expression of service and evangelism, and its closely-held institutional values.
  • Recognize Gardner-Webb's emergence as a comprehensive university, with the full range of academic degrees awarded, with a mature organizational structure (e.g., six established professional schools), with an ongoing dedication to academic scholarship, with sufficiently large enrollments in undergraduate and graduate programs, and with other essential cues normative for a comprehensive university in American higher education (e.g., NCAA-Division 1A classification; established campus setting; sufficient numbers of residential students).
  • Situate the University's identity, reputation, and geographical scope of operations particularly in the Southeast, especially for purposes of positioning and comparative reputation with other colleges and universities.
  • Articulate Gardner-Webb as a preeminent university-that is, ranking at the top among its peers and competitors in the Southeast for the quality of its programs and other institutional endeavors and for its overall institutional reputation.
  • Articulate Gardner-Webb as a leading university-that is, assuming a leadership role and reputation in the Southeast in terms of academic programs and delivery, faculty and student scholarship, co-curricular programming, institutional development and growth, commitment to expressing and making contemporary Baptist tradition and Christian education in the modern world, and other leadership cues (e.g., success in varsity athletics, outstanding administrative competencies, capabilities for successful innovation).

Identity Themes

The Steering and Editorial Committees identified nine specific themes or over-arching messages to be regularly communicated and reinforced to the University's target audiences through a disciplined program of identity communications. These themes are:

  • Academic quality, outstanding scholarship, and exceptional teaching and learning (including areas of program distinctiveness);
  • An intentional learning community that focuses on students and their spiritual, intellectual, social, and physical development;
  • Intellectual investigation and the search for truth;
  • Outstanding professional competence and expertise;
  • Personal, team and community leadership;
  • Faith-based personal and community service;
  • Personal and community commitment to Christian faith informed and guided by historically Baptist traditions;
  • Exploration of and engagement with issues of the human condition; and
  • Interpreting, and making contemporary, historically Baptist traditions of scholarship, learning, faith, service, and leadership for the modern, changing world.

When developing the content and "story agendas" for its institutional communications-such as the alumni magazine, publications of the professional schools, newsletters and publications related to church and denominational relations, presidential newsletters and addresses, and the like-the University will identify and select topics and content that promote and emphasize each of the above themes, in order to achieve its intended repositioning.