Priorities:Utah Valley University Student Priorities

Overview 

Fall 2017

Spring 2016

Utah Valley University is a teaching institution with a unique focus on "engaged learning," or the combination of traditional academic and hands-on education. This mode of teaching goes back to UVU's roots as a vocational school at its inception during World War II and persists today across the institution's full array of university-level programs. Utah Valley University is a school with a rich history of innovation and entrepreneurship. UVU students are passionate about solving the world’s complex problems.

Utah Valley University’s Business Resource Center offers a wide variety of resources for entrepreneurs including: Business Counselors, Accelerator Programs, New Product Development Training, Prototyping, Tech Commercialization, Government Grants, Tech Transfer, The Vivint SMARTLab, and more.  This great abundance of resources drives many student entrepreneurs to utilize the Business Resource Center each year. But how does UVU reach the rest of the students on campus? How can UVU teach students to generate new ideas? How can UVU drive more traffic to the Business Resource Center? 

It is imperative that we engage students in a hands-on learning experience that allows them to identify and solve the problems the world is facing. We must provide students with a cross-disciplinary collaborative environment where they can generate and test new ideas. Our goal is to teach all students about Design Thinking: A human-centered approach to creative problem solving. This knowledge will make students a versatile tool as they enter the workforce. Regardless of major, job, or industry, this knowledge will teach students to solve the unknown problems of tomorrow.  

Strategic Priorities

Create a Center for Excellence & Innovation on Campus

-Work with Presidential Cabinet to facilitate the design and development of the UVU Center for Excellence & Innovation

-Work with adminsitration to create sustainable model and policies for the new Center. 

-Secure physical land in Vineyard, Utah. (Completed 09/2019)

-Secure temporary space on campus. (Completed 09/2019

Utilize Business Resource Center 

-Move University Innovation Fellow program into the Business Resource Center at UVU. 

-Create sustainable model of growth and development to move into a phyisical dedicated building.

-Create comfortable space for students to innovate and design. 

General Ed & Capstone Integration

-Refine Tech 1010 (popular general ed course) curriculum to include students spending two weeks in the Innovation & Design Thinking Lab to learn about the Design Thinking Process. The reason Tech 1010 would be a great opportunity is because a large amount of students from a  wide variety of disciplines take the class. This would create diversity and promote innovative and unique  ideas. 

-There is a large gap between the amount of Capstone students and the amount of projects available. The first two weeks of the Senior Capstone class could be spent in the Innovation & Design Thinking Lab brainstorming ideas for potential Senior Capstone Projects. 

-Speak at the Utah Business and Marketing Education Summer Conference to explain the impact of Design Thinking Curriculum on the Undergraduate Experience.  

-Create a design thinking course for students major and as a general course, so that there will be more innovation in the mind of all students.  

Partner with the UVU Foundation to expand the Wolverine Fund

-Collaborate with student Matthew Bryson regarding WF events, such as the 2018 ribbon cutting, and involve fellows from all available cohorts. 

UIF Fellows and Candidates were in attendance at the ribbon cutting. The Fall 2017 cohort is currently working on getting UIF Fellows and Candidates enrolled in the Wolverine Fund class. 

-Act as a funnel between excellent student ideas, and the available resources of the fund. 

-Integrate UIF students with the Wolverine Fund structure format.

The Fall 2017 cohort has also considered attempting pushing for a UIF Faculty champion to be on the Wolverine Fund Board. 

-Create a Wolverine Fund Website. 

This has been accomplished. 

(January 2018)

Facilitate Greater Collaboration Across Departments

-Finish prototyping the Innovation Incubator Event Series. This includes the event design, the ideal place and time to hold the event, the event frequency, and the optimal amount of student involvement (March 2018) (Nick Varney).  

-Leverage networks of professors and department heads to identify "lone wolf innovators" and personally invite them to attend the series. The success of the event depends upon getting the right people to attend (March 2018) (Nick Varney). 

-Create digital and print advertisements for the event series (March 2018) (Tim Smith). 

-Work with administration to promote event series through campus digital signage. Digital advertisements on campus are not the most effective way to promote events, but they will hopefully intrigue a couple of professors we otherwise would have missed (March 2018) (Tim Smith).

-Establish a social-media marketing strategy for the event (April 2018) (Nick Varney). 

-Take pictures and record videos of the events. We will use these pictures and videos to augment our social media advertisements (April 2018) (Nick Varney). 

Create a Website that will compound all the resources available for I&E

-Increase awareness about the resources available for Innovation and Entrepreneurship through a Website (Wendy - September 2018)

-Introduce the website to Faculty and Students (Wendy - September 2018)

-Promote the use of the website through the discover passport activity (Wendy - September 2018)

-Promote the use of resources through class assignments  (Wendy - September 2018)

-Provide a 5 to 10 minutes training about how to use the website to learn about the resources (Wendy -September 2018)

-Include videos, about the use of the resources, on the website to make it more interactive and attractive (Wendy -September 2018- January 2019)

- Create ready to use lesson plans for professors to implement in their courses, that includes engaging with a resource (Khaliun - July 2018)

- Create engaging 'Escape Room'-style resource discovery/adventure guides for I&E resources. (Khaliun- July 2018)

- Create a Discover Passport for students to mark discovered resources (Khaliun - July 2018)

Map out all current makerspaces at UVU:

Discover and record all of the makerspaces at UVU, and present this record in an easily understandable matter.

• CB - April 2018
• FL - April 2018
• LA - April 2018
• EC - May 2018
• SB - May 2018
• RL - May/June 2018
• SL - June 2018
• SC - June 2018
• PS - July 2018
• BA - July 2018
• WB - July 2018
• LC - August 2018
• SA - August 2018
• GT - September 2018
• FA - September 2018
• NC - November 2018
• CS - November 2018

Related Links

Utah Valley University

Utah Valley University Student Priorities

University Innovation Fellows

Spring 2018:

Luke_Atticus_Kennard

Wendy_Fernandez

Nick_Varney

Khaliun_Amarjargal

Fall 2017:

Brooke Schroeder

TE Smith

Erin Call

Nicholas Tyler

Spring 2016:

Jason Carrick

Brayden Cutler

Derek Latimer

Dallin Ott

Mark Romero

Spring 2015:

Tanner Wheadon

UIF Project Business Model Canvas - 2015

UIF Project Business Model Canvas - 2016