Priorities:Kent State University Strategic Priorities

Overview

Kent State University is quickly evolving it’s entrepreneurship and innovation scene on campus. Home to a variety of events and organizations working to develop a community of cross disciplinary creators and thinkers. Kent is home to Kent Hack Enough, the largest hackathon in Ohio. It is one of the only, if not the only, school to have a University specific Makers Faire. The issue is that the university is very decentralized, so every department and college acts as a separate entity and communication is sometimes lacking. Each part of the University has events and groups that are actively doing cool things, but it is very difficult to join all of the different groups on campus as one. This issue expands across Kent State University's main campus as well as between all 8 regional campuses. Kent is beginning to recognize and celebrate it’s makers and entrepreneurs more than ever before, it just needs to develop a way to get more of a community involved in the conversation.

Strategy: Innovation Space to Foster Developing Maker Community

One project that has been rapidly gaining interest is a need for a space for students to work collaboratively. This kind of space would get all interested parties in the same room working together. Kent State University's campus has some spaces for students to work in, but they're either located within departments and not open to most students or too crowded to foster true creativity. 

Tactic 1: Traditional Makerspace

Makerspaces are popping up everywhere these days. Near Kent State there is Case Western Reserve University's Thinkbox space and Youngstown Business Incubator's makerspace. Even closer is Synhak, Akron's public makerspace. Kent does not have a single space dedicated to creativity and innovation. There is currently a makerspace committee on campus consisting of various Deans and faculty from around the university discussing ideas for a makerspace. 

I image a Kent State University makerspace as an open, comfortable space to work in with a variety of resources right there in the space. The space would ideally be in the library or another building near the middle of campus. It would look brightly colored with tables, chairs, and couches. Some resources available would include prototyping machines like 3D printers, laser cutters, wide format printers etc, as well as small electronics like arduinos and raspberry pis. The space would have mannequins and scrap art supplies. Students would come to the space on their own in their free time to work on projects. The space would have to be open late hours so it could be accessible to students when they have time to use it. 

There are a few issues with creating a traditional makerspace. First of all, there currently exists no large, open space to develop one. Additionally, all the machines, resources, venue, and security would bring high start up costs. There has been a lot of interest in developing a space like this from all different departments, but crowdsourcing/crowdfunding for a model like this would be very expensive and time consuming. There are a lot of politics and bureaucracy when dealing with so many different departments from one school. Because of these factors, development and idea generation is taking a very long time.. 

Tactic 2: Mobile Innovation Van

Another tactic that has been discussed is the idea of a mobile makerspace. This would be a van with a 3D printer and other small resources that would travel around campus and between regional campuses. The van would be more so an inspirational resource than a typical makerspace would. 

This model of a makerspace is cheap and viable. It is unique because it would create a bridge connecting different areas of the main campus as well as the other regional campuses. The operating costs are fairly low. However, it limits the number of students able to use the space at once and it would be harder to access with it moving all the time. This model would not engage as many students as a static space would. 

Tactic 3: Circular Whiteboard Kiva

Another kind of space that would fill the need for an innovation center would be a whiteboard kiva. This would look like a circular space sectioned off in a bigger, open space. Inside the circle, the walls would be all whiteboards, allowing for easy active collaboration. Inside the circle would be comfortable chairs, allowing people to sit and be comfortable but encouraging them to stand up and be actively creating. 

This kind of model would be ideal for a smaller department, like Computer Science. Opening up a space like this would encourage students to think more collaboratively and creatively. It is cheap and viable, with no operating costs. It would also need to have late hour availability to provide real value to students. This model also limits the number of students and would not fully satisfy the needs of the campus. 

Tactic 4: Barebone Coworking Space

A coworking space eliminates many of the high costs of a more traditional makerspace while still providing students with the value and community space they're seeking. A coworking space at Kent State University would look similar to the fourth floor of the library (a large, open space with lots of seating and tables). Students and possibly even parties from outside of the university would rent a table or space within the room. They would decorate and fill the space with any materials and resources they want. It wouldn't require all the machines and resources as a traditional makerspace, although it would have the potential to expand to that kind of model in the future. 

This space would also need late hours and maybe security, but other than that there would be few costs involved. A model like this would have the pure intention to provide the students with a place to be creative and work outside of their dorms/apartments. Student organizations could gather here and students would be able to see each other's activities due to the close proximity. 

Strategy: Virtual Community Support

There are significant challenges involved in the above projects. These all require resources and locations that haven't been gathered or even sought out yet. In the meantime, Kent State University would provide support for the maker community through virtual systems. 

Tactic 1: Virtual Makerspace

A virtual makerspace would consist of a public map of the web of resources open to people from all different of areas on campus. This has started to develop with some of the labs on campus creating flyers mapping out where they were and what resources they had. This could be expanded to provide students with a whole network of machines and materials available to them.

This model would provide valuable information to the students and community members that are already seeking out and creating with these kind of resources, but it would not encourage more people to get involved. While this would be helpful to the community, it is not enough on it's own. This would be very beneficial to add to one of the above tactics.

Tactic 4: Community Calendar

Similar to a virtual makerspace, the Kent State University community would benefit from a crowdsourced calendar of all the events that go on throughout the calendar year that contribute to the innovation and entrepreneurship scenes on campus. This calendar would include everything from small events like student organization meetings to the maker meet ups being hosted to big events like any inspirational TedX events.

This would expand the maker community at Kent State University because it would be easier for people to see what is going on and when, making attendance and participation higher for all these events. 

Related Links

1. http://www.kent.edu/

2. http://www2.kent.edu/blackstonelaunchpad/index.cfm

3. http://hacksu.cs.kent.edu/khe2014

4. http://www.innov8athon.com/

5. http://makerfairekent.com/

6. http://tech-style-lab.org/

7. http://www2.kent.edu/cebi/index.cfm

8. http://www2.kent.edu/caest/index.cfm

9. http://www2.kent.edu/caed/

10. http://www2.kent.edu/artscollege/

11. http://www2.kent.edu/business/

12. http://www.kent.edu/dsci

13. http://www.kent.edu/research