I’m beyond thrilled with the final results of my spring quarter graduate students at DePaul University. Rather than simply confining their final presentations to fellow students and me, we worked with communications consulting firm Gagen MacDonald to share their efforts with a much broader audience–the world.
The assignment: Students drew names of prominent Chicago business and civic leaders, who they then researched and interviewed. Students discussed their individual interview experiences and shared highlights of the conversations with other class members before submitting a final Q&A and profile that will be featured on the Let Go & Lead website. The site is launched today with the first interview–Jon Harris, most recently chief communications officer of Hillshire Brands and soon-to-be announcer on the Meredith Vieira Show that debuts in September. Additional interviews will be posted in August.
“We love working with the students at DePaul and finding ways to create memorable learning experience for them,” said Meg Wheaton of Gagen MacDonald. “From listening to each of their stories about their encounters with these amazing leaders, it was obvious that this project did just that. I’m so glad they had the opportunity to learn from this incredibly impressive group of leaders, and I’m so thankful that the Let Go & Lead community gets to benefit from the leadership insights these astute students uncovered.”
Thanks to the 17 prominent business leaders for finding time in their busy schedules to share their leadership philosophies with the students. Special thanks to Maril MacDonald, Meg Wheaton and the entire Gagen MacDonald team for their ongoing engagement and support of this course.