ABSTRACT
This chapter explores branding on several levels. First, it defines and questions what branding is exactly. It then examines WGS as an actual brand. Lastly, it investigates how, because the people are always already branded, they might hack a WGS brand strategy for subversive ends. WGS brand identity affects the reader on the daily. Yet it often affects the reader in surprising ways—small, micro-experiences that take close reading to discern. However, high-earning degrees, especially in STEM and Business programs, are still going predominantly to men who then have almost zero contact with WGS thinking. There is understandable hand-wringing about the state of both higher education—an economic crisis of high cost and low enrollments—and WGS with little to no funding and uneven enrollments. The most successful organizations and brands hack maximum performance; they take something apart and put it together again.
