Making an Impact

Whether the occasion is a run-of-the-mill Monday or an awards ceremony, senior Marketing student Lauren Bushell is always dressed to the nines and ready to conquer the day. You can find her helping students in the Honors Advisement Center where she is the lead student advisor. Some of you may have met her previously as a long-time HONRS 120 TA, where she worked tirelessly to ensure incoming Honors students had a fantastic introduction to the Honors Program. When Lauren’s not in the Maeser building, she is most likely in the Tanner Building where she is actively involved in social innovation and community outreach. Recently, Lauren received the audience-choice Favorite Presentation award at the Ballard Brief Summit.

Lauren’s award winning topic, “Educational Disparities Amongst Racial and Ethnic Minority Youth in the United States” had its roots in Lauren’s mission experiences. Serving in the Texas Lubbock Mission, Lauren spent a great deal of time in New Mexico, a state that has the worst educational system in the US. She was heartbroken by the major disconnect between the educational resources she grew up with compared to those available to students on her mission. Many Spanish-speaking students didn’t have a chance of success in classes taught strictly in English.

After her mission, Lauren traveled to Pittsburgh with a class in the Education department. Pittsburgh is considered a center of educational reform in America and on the trip, Lauren was able to see what education could be when there is structure and honest effort involved. Both of these experiences lit a fire for Lauren, leading her to a Social Impact Project where she worked with Teach for America to better outline educational inequality. She followed up by enrolling in a class titled “Do Good Better.” The purpose of the class was to write an issue brief on a topic related to social impact. After writing and submitting that brief, she took another class, “Ballard Brief,” which paired her up with an editing staff to formally craft her brief into a publishable document. The best of these briefs were selected for presentation at the Ballard Brief Summit where Lauren received the audience-choice Favorite Presentation award.

Beyond creating an impact in education, Lauren is also passionate about brand authenticity within corporations. Starting college as a journalism major with a business minor, she quickly saw that business was much more enticing to her -- so Lauren switched to Marketing in the Marriott School of Business. She was inspired by brand strategy development; one class in particular, “Creating the Virtuous Organization,” taught Lauren all about corporate responsibility and how organizations can have the greatest impact on customers and their communities. Lauren believes it is crucial for businesses to create a brand focused on community outreach in order to truly succeed.

Lauren is destined to make an impact. Whether it is advising Honors students, battling educational disparities, or ensuring that corporations make ethics a forefront in their companies, Lauren is committed to affecting change through innovation and outreach.

Lauren is a senior from the Bay Area of California majoring in Marketing with Communications and Nonprofit Management minors. After graduating in June, she plans to work for an agency’s marketing team before deciding whether she wants to pursue a PhD to teach, or an MBA to work at a corporate level. She is currently working on her thesis titled, “Constructs within Advertising with Logo Redesigns and Branding.”