{"id":16392,"date":"2019-01-22T10:23:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T15:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/?p=16392"},"modified":"2025-04-21T16:04:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T20:04:33","slug":"new-campus-tour","status":"publish","type":"do_not_index","link":"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/new-campus-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Study: Building A Brand New Campus Tour With The Division of the Arts At UW\u2013Madison"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison is a picturesque college campus, resting in the heart of the state\u2019s capital. Bordering Lake Mendota on one end and downtown Madison on the other, UW – Madison is a naturally attractive option for high schoolers deciding where to spend the next chapter of their life. <\/span><\/p>\n

During the summer of 2018, we traveled to the Midwest to work with the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison\u2019s Arts Institute (recently renamed the Division of the Arts).<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did the Division of the Arts at UW\u2013Madison call us? <\/span><\/p>\n

They wanted us to help them build an awesome arts-focused campus tour that would engage and especially appeal to prospective and incoming students. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison\u2019s campus tour was already really great, but it didn\u2019t do enough to specifically highlight the school\u2019s arts departments. So, the division staff decided it was time to create a new tour – the Creative Campus Tour!<\/span><\/p>\n

Staff had a simple goal for the <\/span>Creative Campus Tour<\/span><\/a>: to showcase all the arts offerings on campus with the goal of attracting new students to their programs. <\/span><\/p>\n

Our creative consulting team was more than up to the task. After all, helping organizations build awesome one-of-a-kind tours from scratch is what we do best!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Abraham Lincoln sits atop Bascom Hill on the heart of UW – Madison’s campus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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A One-Day Workshop In Tour Design<\/h3>\n

Helping the team at the Division of the Arts develop the Creative Campus Tour required a full-day intensive workshop. Here\u2019s a quick breakdown of our day on campus: <\/span><\/p>\n

Part #1: Learning New Skills<\/h3>\n

We kicked off the day by teaching the UW team new skills and techniques to better engage with visitors in a meaningful way on tour. <\/span><\/p>\n

We focused on our \u201c5 Elements of a Hack \u201cstorytelling method and various activity design strategies (both of which we use IRL to create our own renegade museum tours!).<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an excerpt from our CEO,\u00a0<\/span>Tasia Duske, about how our team modeled out-of-the-box Museum Hack-style tour activities for the Division of the Arts team during the workshop: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn my mini-tour, I played a game with the workshop-ees in the Chazen Art Museum called #ShoppingforSellery (the name of the arts dorm building that houses the Arts’ Live-and-Learn-Community is Sellery Hall and pronounced like the vegetable celery). I paired everyone up and asked them to imagine they were chosen for a Sellery dorm room and they had to go shopping for dorm art with their partner AKA new roommate. They could use any art in the gallery with their partner and needed to come up with why they picked that together during their Sellery Shopping.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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?: Mary Ladoni, \u00a0UW-Madison Division of the Arts<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Part #2: Practice Makes Perfect<\/h3>\n

It is super important to us that everyone walks away from our workshops feeling confident in their ability to put their new skills into practice with a live audience right away! <\/span><\/p>\n

How do we make this possible? <\/span><\/p>\n

PRACTICE!<\/span><\/p>\n

We encouraged everyone on staff to create their own personalized tour stop using our \u201c5 Elements of a Hack\u201d storytelling method and then share it out in front of their peers and our team for immediate feedback. <\/span><\/p>\n

Through practice and feedback workshop-ees mastered the following:<\/span><\/p>\n