The Edge Of Greatness

Branding is just as important in higher education as it is in consumer packaged goods and services. Those words and symbols serve to communicate the uniqueness of the offering, and provide customers and clients a handy place to hang their hat, if you will. In the process, the brand becomes a known quantity, and, hopefully, known for its greatness.

The College of Business took on a new brand back in 2017 when Dr. Paul Engler, along with the Paul F. and Virginia J. Engler Foundation, made a significant donation to the College. We thus became the Engler College of Business, putting us on common ground with other named colleges and schools of business around the country.

But it became apparent we needed to do more than rest on our accolades and good fortune, and devise an even more profound brand, a mindset, and ethos, of how we educate our students. The result of this is the Engler Edge, a new program designed to instill the COB’s main values in freshman and transfer students from the moment they step foot on campus.

“The purpose of the Engler Edge is to give our students an edge or a competitive advantage by providing both in-class and extracurricular opportunities for growth in various areas. Students will leave WT with an outstanding business education and the ability to be leaders in the workforce,” said Brandy Carr, Coordinator of Undergraduate Business Programs and Chair of the Engler Edge Committee. 

It is a sentiment echoed by Dr. Elaina Cantreel Robinson, Clinical Assistant Professor of marketing “As a faculty member, I see the purpose of Engler Edge as Student Success: Enhancing the professionalism of our students and developing successful habits and attributes in the classroom and in the workplace after graduation.” 

Dr. Jeffy Babb, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and a primary architect of the program, concurs. “The Engler Edge focuses on ensuring that students augment their business curriculum with acutely developed and harmonized overall competencies in leadership, digital readiness, and business acumen.  The program is intended to raise direct competency and self-efficacy that results in an enhanced leadership orientation, increased self-awareness, a broader ethos of responsible behavior, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills.”

These are lofty goals, but more easily understood within the context of the five pillars of the program:

  • Leadership and Teamwork
  • Critical Reasoning and Problem Resolution
  • Personal and Professional Responsibility
  • Digital Readiness
  • Effective Communications

“Current college programs and activities supporting the Engler Edge include significant curricular support in BUSI1301 – Introduction to Business.  This is a freshman-level course designed to facilitate early college success as well as provide a broad introduction to business,” Babb continued.  “Students engage in teamwork and design activities in this course that lead to early competencies in Leadership, Teamwork, and Effective Communication.” Also included are efforts to provide mentorships through a network of alumni, business leaders, and students.

Other student-forward activities include CliftonStrengths workshops, Career EXPO preparation and pointers, an immersive career seminar at Amarillo National Bank, and breakout sessions where students and business leader mentors discuss career development topics in a roundtable format.

Students will benefit immensely, according to Carr. “Students will have not only the coursework and curriculum needed, but also the competencies and skills employers are seeking. Students will graduate with higher levels of communication skills, digital readiness, career readiness, critical thinking skills, etc that will make them more attractive to employers.”

Babb detailed the benefits that will accrue to students. “The student outcomes of the program we would most want to see include:

  • Portfolios of work that demonstrate each of the outcomes
  • Highly refined resume and interviewing skills
  • Earned certifications of technology skills that result in demonstrations of digital readiness
  • Participation in the mentorship program as a mentee, mentor, and future alumni who is vested in the success of Alma Mater Engler College of Business.
  • Samples of thought leadership and/or entrepreneurial activity that reflects an innovative, can-do, problem-solving approach to all endeavors.”

Measurable benefits will include the creation of student portfolios, LinkedIn usage, enhanced resumés, digital certificate, interactions with a mentor, and interviewing skills, Cantrell Robinson and Carr both listed. Babb went a step farther in saying, “The best possible outcome would be positive and acute reputational lift for our students on brand recognition – ‘Oh, the Engler Edge from the Engler College of Business? Yes, let’s speak with this candidate’.” 

That alone would be the pinnacle of success for any academic unit.

All three of these colleagues spoke about the Engler Edge on a recent episode of BuffSpeak, the official podcast of the Engler College of Business. That episode can be found here.