Tyra Banks to teach at Stanford this spring

Sept. 2, 2016, 1:00 a.m.

Tyra Banks, model and former host of “America’s Next Top Model,” will co-teach a class on personal branding at Stanford for two weeks next May.

Allison Kluger, lecturer in the Graduate School of Business and former producer for “The View” and “Good Morning America,” will teach up to 25 M.B.A students alongside Banks. In the two unit course called “Project You: Building and Extending your Personal Brand,” students will learn how to create an image to support their brand, handle media exposure and promote themselves using different media platforms.

Accordingly, final projects for the course will be shared on Facebook Live, local television and Youtube. According to the course description,  all students must submit a one minute and 30 second video before the first day of class summarizing“who you are, what your personal brand is and what you want it to be.”

Kluger first approached Banks about teaching the course at an on-campus event the model spoke at last spring, which Kluger told the Wall Street Journal left her “mesmerized.”

Banks is well versed in personal branding and self-promotion. Besides creating and serving as executive producer and presenter for “America’s Next Top Model,” she has created and hosted her own talk show “The Tyra Banks Show,” which aired from 2005 to 2010. She wrote a young adult novel, “Modelland,” which placed on The New York Times’ bestseller list in 2011. Banks also completed a certificate program at Harvard Business School to further her knowledge of business and help her launch her cosmetics line, TYRA Beauty, in 2014.

Banks seems eager to try her hand at teaching.

“If I see somebody not paying attention, I’m gonna call on them,” she told the Wall Street Journal, referring to her future teaching style.

 

Contact Elaine Pappas at epappas18 ‘at’ stevensonschool.org.

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