Strategic Priorites

Strategies

Strategy 1: Centralize Resources

As many of the problems we found when we were looking at on our landscape canvas dealt with resources, one of our solutions was creating a centralized place where people could find the resources they need, and to provide the knowledge that these resources existed. Our first idea was to create a google sheet which would have different categories of resources with updated contact information, but we knew we would have a problem with keeping the contact information up to date. When we spoke with our faculty champion, he suggested that we use the existing student government wiki to create this, so that the contact information could be edited by whoever had the information, and the edits would just have to be moderated, making less work for the people maintaining the page. In addition to this, he suggested that we create a club listing, and in order for clubs to be on the current listing, the club leader (or whoever is in charge of their online presence), would have to update their listing each semester. This would help create an accurate picture of active clubs on campus.

Strategy 2: Mobile Maker Cart

Since large, unused classroom space is a rare commodity, we had to find a more flexible solution to provide students access to infrastructure. We came up with the idea of a mobile UCCS Maker Cart, which would be a mobile workstation for students. This cart would have consumable materials, such as construction paper, pipe cleaners, glue sticks and much more. Tools such as scissors, glue sticks, binder clips, etc. would also be included. The cart itself would have a large table top to work on, a whiteboard to get ideas down, an attached trash can for easy cleanup, many shelves for supplies, and plenty of “ad” space to advertise local campus resources and community resources, such as venture capital.

Strategy 3: Instant Innovation Challenges

To engage students on campus by actively involving them in team situations which require them to use innovation and creativity we prototyped an instant challenge game. This game involved basic materials checked out from the library including, tape, rulers, pencils, cases, string, and a large heavy book. The goal of the challenge is to get the book as high off of the table using only the included materials. We conducted the game on a table outside of our library and got a group of students, who had never met, to participate in the challenge. We gave them 2 minutes to discuss a plan, without touching the materials, then we gave them 5 minutes to actually implement their design. If successful at holding the book in the air, then another random person walking by is selected to judge the teams design.

We didn’t have a lot of materials and we were happy to see how engaged the students got when they started working together to figure out the problem.