Bridgewater, VA – Over the summer, Bridgewater College started to expand the campus and their brand through the soon-to-be-completed Learning Commons and through a campus-wide rebranding project. This rebranding project left the school with a new logo, new signs, and a greater focus on fostering connectivity.

The project as a whole has done exactly what it said it would do: design a new identity, create new admissions packages, implement new fundraising pieces, update signage on campus, as well as emphasize a greater focus on what the college is posting on social media.

Through this project, specifically through the new logo, the College has made a point that it wants to foster connections. The interconnected B and C in the new logo show this idea. These connections can be between anyone who is affiliated with Bridgewater, whether that is student to student, student to professor, and even student to alumnus.

While the rebranding project was necessary to keep Bridgewater competitive in regard to admissions, what has this project done to the brand of the school overall? The new signs that took the place of the ones featuring Bridgewater’s seal and our core values — Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Harmony — incorporate the new emphasis on connectivity, but what is that truly doing?

The new brand cannot affect admissions, prospective students, and alumni without doing anything for the current students who attend Bridgewater.

If the College wants to foster greater connections, then they must take a look at what they are doing to create them. The same people attend the same campus-wide events, while the same organizations put them on. If the rebranding project was designed to make our campus look more diverse online, the College should be paying attention to how we look in reality.

This means that lesser-known organizations should put on more campus-wide events. Current organizations should figure out ways to get more than just the same groups of people coming to their events. The students who want to foster connections are going to do so, but we, as a community, must find a way to foster connections with everyone.

If the Bridgewater College community can do that then the rebranding project is a complete success. If we continue to talk about connections, but not change how we go about trying to make them, then the project remains unfinished.