Priorities:NMSU Strategic Priorities

- Overview -

Founded in 1888 as a Land Grant institution New Mexico State University (NMSU) has a long history of entrepreneurship and business development in the community.  As the second largest university in the state NMSU has a student population of nearly 18,000 students. Through the university discovery mission started by Dr. Carruthers, the Colleges of Business and Engineering have begun an initiative to integrate multidisciplinary learning across campus. This collaboration has encouraged students to take ownership of their learning, and has led to the creation of several dedicated innovation and design centers: The Aggie Innovation Space, Studio G, and Arrowhead Center.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJStVYEjawo

- Strategies for Innovation & Entrepreneurship -

Studio G Satellite Office

Studio G, the student incubator located in the Arrowhead Research park, has been looking for ways to engage students in a more proactive manner. With the recent completion of renovations to the Corbett Student Union, there is the potential for available space to be occupied for entrepreneurship and innovation. This space would allow university student mentors and Innovation Fellows the ability to meet with students in a central location directly on campus. Services to be provided would include a continuation of current operations underway at the Arrowhead Entrepreneurship Institute and Aggie Innovation Space: business model development, rapid prototyping, concept design, manufacturing assistance, and team development training. 

Multidisciplinary Senior Design Classes (Capstone)

Recognizing the global impact of education, it is essential for students to work on multidisciplinary projects throughout their student tenure. Through the Aggie Innovation Space, engineering students have begun collaborating and working in a more open and supportive environment where experiences have allowed for mentors to emerge. Over the past year, these mentors, from different majors, have worked together to guide a number of student projects through the design phase. Having seen the early success of this initiative, we are hoping to implement a university wide senior design course that will enable students from every college to work together to solve industry-based problems.

Integration of Baja SAE into a marketable and multidisciplinary capstone

Capstone projects are one of the most important parts of an engineer’s education. Recognizing that capstone can be used to learn, use and refine skills related to I&E, it must be made better. Baja SAE is a design challenge that is put on by Society of Automotive Engineers and to compete in this series take a great amount of engineering, marketing, and teamwork. Most importantly this design challenge is created out of the idea of each college being considered a startup firm that is to design and market their vehicle. This creates a great deal of I&E thinking. My hope is that integration of Baja SAE into a capstone project with raise the level of I&E in capstone while also providing students with a useful engineering project/start up.

Milestones:

1. Talk to admins about proposal and any problems
2. Introduce Baja for a single group (both ME and Business students)
3. Fix any problems that arise from first semester of integration
4. Introduce baja in a greater manner the next semester
5. Full integrate Baja SAE as a capstone project
6. Based on successful integration other similar projects will be introduced to other departments capstone projects 

Pop-up Classes

Building on early mentorship initiatives, it was determined that many students sought to learn in a non-traditional manner that would allow them to gain familiarity with new concepts quickly. These courses are designed to help all university students learn the value behind innovation, and to provide them the essential tools for their project needs.  These courses have been very well received by university faculty members who regularly attend and often teach these new pop-up courses.  

Industry Reverse Sabbatical

The newest concept being developed within the College of Engineering is an Industry sabbatical that will allow for people in industry to get back on campus to teach a full course.  The idea behind the initiative is for students to gain familiarity with the practical applications of knowledge in industry.  Course topics will range from circuit design to additive manufacturing, enabling interested students to get an early understanding of an industry that they may seek to join in the future. 

Technology Transfer and Business Model Canvas

Students, who work on Capstone project to complete their degrees, always dedicate their time to design and develop an idea or a concept to a prototype, demonstrating its working at the end of the semester; however, these students hardly get any chance to assess if there is any Intellectual property associated with their project and also is it a viable technology to start-up a business around it. So, it is very important to teach these students how to do a preliminary technology evaluation and build a business model canvas, exposing them to a great learning technology transfer/entrepreneurial tool. After learning these concepts, students will be asked to assess their project in a step-by-step process and present not only the technical part but also the business prospects of their work and thus earning an extra credit as an incentive.

Involving Students in Grades 9-13

There are a large number of students who compete in very innovative STEM competitions on campus, but are unaware that what they are doing is innovative.  A solution to this problem is to create a semester long Innovation Challenge that has teams develop innovative solutions to a real world problem and then present it to a panel of judges and receive awards and prizes.  Part of the challenge is creating a prototype of their solution, but also creating a business model canvas and trying to find a way to successfully market their product.  This approach focuses on improving students' design-thinking, entrepreneurial and communication skills while defining for them what the real meaning of innovation is.  It is crucial that we develop students interest in innovation and entrepreneurship at a young age in order to create a strong I&E culture on our college campus.  

Increasing Awareness and Engagement

There is a wide array of resources available throughout the New Mexico State University Ecosystem that are unknown and underutilized. These resources are already established and continue to improve organically but are invisible in the eyes of most students on campus. The solution identified is to create a Marketing Blitz that will increase awareness of the resources but also push students to interact with these resources. Through large volume outreach to classes, faculty, and other organizations; awareness will increase and long term engagement will begin to develop. 

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