The Department of Marketing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business announces the launch of the Boldsquare Residency. This new undergraduate course offering debuts in January and is a partnership between Boldsquare — a leading strategic marketing and communications firm — and Haslam’s Marketing and Sales Skills Lab.
Designed to help students apply classroom lessons to relevant workplace situations, the course provides junior and senior marketing students with hands-on opportunities to gain deeper insight into agency life by working in partnership with clients to solve real-world marketing challenges. Haslam faculty and Boldsquare’s team of experts will guide the students toward building a strong foundation for future careers in the marketing field.
Christine White, director of partnerships for Haslam’s Department of Marketing, explains, “This course will provide in-depth exposure and practice in all elements of agency life, including working directly with multiple clients simultaneously, developing and delivering creative solutions based on client needs, exploring agency growth through business development and executing effective strategies in various unique settings.”
Boldsquare was founded in 2018 by a group of marketing and communication professionals with in-house experience at some of the best-known brands in the U.S. and Europe. It has quickly become one of the Southeast’s most successful agencies, and for the past two consecutive years, the Knoxville-based firm has been recognized on Inc. Magazine’s annual Inc. 5000 list as one of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.
Creating an Equitable, Immersive Learning Experience
The Marketing and Sales Skills Lab at the Haslam College of Business was conceived to create on-campus internship opportunities in which students can gain in-demand skills through hands-on work and immersive engagement with industry. Relocation expenses and housing challenges can create barriers to traditional internships, so for many students, this model presents a more equitable alternative.
Dylan Jones, managing partner for Boldsquare, believes collaborating with the Haslam lab is a natural fit for the agency. “Residencies have been proven as a successful teaching model in the medical profession for decades, and this is a first step toward bringing that approach to marketing,” he says. “It’s too easy for agencies and marketers to complain about a lack of position-ready young talent. To play an active role in the development of future leaders — for the industry as a whole, not just for ourselves — we all have to build meaningful partnerships with schools and universities.”
To offer students a variety of on-campus internship options in the lab space, Haslam is seeking additional partners for future sales and/or marketing internships. For more information about these partnership opportunities, contact Christine White.
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CONTACT:
Stacy Estep, writer/publicist, sestep3@utk.edu
