Priorities:Virginia Tech Student Priorities

As a Cohort, Continue to Seek Out Diverse Perspectives

In order to build a truly integrative project around innovation and entrepreneurship at the university, it is fundamental to obtain the opinions and perspectives from diverse groups, including students faculty and staff from several fields and also administration alumni and companies.

Strategies

• Set up booths on the Drillfield (center of campus), to get the community opinion about important topics.
• Promote small town hall sessions in different areas of campus aiming to get input from diverse groups.
• Stimulate discussion through VT official social media channels.
• Create fun events to get faculty, student and administration together in collaborative challenges.
• Set up online polls asking all segments about their desired future paths for the university.
• Add a comments box to be displayed every time a person logs in on the university computing system so that feedback can be readily recieved.

2018-2019 Establish UIF’s Long Term Projection/Goals for Virginia Tech

 One of the main goals we as the 2018-2019 UIF Cohort are trying to accomplish is making sure whatever we do as our change projects resonates for years to come.  We hope to instill a new type of culture at Virginia tech, one that involves truly understanding and appreciating innovation and entrepreneurship. What this will do is create an atmosphere for students to go and make their ideas into reality.

Strategies

• Host events that can help students realize what innovation and entrepreneurship is
• Ask around campus to figure out how the university is currently defining innovation and entrepreneurship
• Work to connect different I&E programs to work together and share ideas
• Inform students through email or social media platform of opportunities on campus of ways their ideas can be fostered
• Cause a movement on campus to make I&E a lifestyle focus around campus

Enhance Communication Effectiveness Involving Collaboration and Opportunities

 A prevalent issue across the Virginia Tech campus is that students aren’t aware of the many opportunities that are offered for them. Because Virginia Tech’s campus is so large, it is challenging for all students to be included or even informed about certain opportunities offered; which can be simply because of a specified major. However, it would be beneficial to have a platform to ensure all students are aware of the various opportunities.

Strategies

• Develop a quick survey for students to inform them about organizations and opportunities
• Create a poll of students interested in innovation and connect them
• Distribute information cards in the dining halls
• Create platform with student network inputs
• Create an online weekly reminder for collaboration openings

Efficient Use of Existing I&E Spaces

 A lot of spaces amongst campuses are used in very different ways. One emerging issue that we have seen is that people are not aware of many spaces around campus. If there was a way to spread awareness amongst these spaces throughout campus this will cause people to actually use these spaces more often. In addition to the previous thought, we want to create a space specifically for I&E where multiple different backgrounds can come and share ideas.

Strategies

• Analyze existing spaces that can be improved upon
• Get feedback from students and faculty to see what and where improvements can be made
• Look into new spaces available for development for student use on campus
• Account for all spaces on campus that students use for studying, group work, I+E, etc

Design Coursework for Interdisciplinary Collaboration; Students can begin to pair an understanding of I&E with an understanding of the resources Virginia Tech offers

The ultimate goal of UIF is to get students to understand the thinking processes that are associated with innovation and entrepreneurship. There is a lot of groundwork to be done beforehand; convincing the university to commit to this vision, communicating to students that these are important skills, laying out what an I&E thinking process is; and thus we want to include this priority as a multi-year goal. When students ultimately begin the learning process of innovation and entrepreneurship in the classroom, it is imperative that they have a strong understanding of  the campus ecosystem, so that they can act on new ideas, feel comfortable collaborating, and use their skills to be productive.

Strategies

• Go through the landscape canvas with a specific focus on I&E in the classroom. Identify the stakeholders who we can build our vision around. Is there someone who is already doing what we are striving to bring to the university as a whole? How do we involve the professors and teachers in the process?
• Get an understanding of how I&E is taught in places like the d.school. We need to know how to teach I&E.
• Draft a vision for teaching I&E at Virginia Tech, taking into account the resources and feelings towards I&E specific to our campus.
• Begin by implementing activities and modules into select classrooms who are well suited to receiving an I&E thought process, we can observe what works and what doesn’t.
• Ultimately, integrate ways of thinking about ideation and prototyping and human centered design into every students educational journey.

Partnerships With Industry and Research Bodies

Establishing more partnerships with industry and external sponsors that offer direct opportunities for students to learn and practice in real-world settings is a key component on a strategy aiming to expand the impact of innovation for students at the university.

Strategies

• Create multidisciplinary groups
• Ask for money
• Brag about company sponsors, include them in newsletters.
• Allow companies to sponsor more events on campus.
• Create more job fairs across all majors.
• Build close relationships with companies by keeping alumni involved. Get students access to them.

Related Links

Virginia Tech Overview 

Supporting Experiential Learning at Virginia Tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRXTFV5-Upo

Fall 2017

Jarrodd Davis

Danielle Jeffers

Najla Mouchrek

Sunny Murthy