<span style="font-size: medium;">Develop a platform for Iona students to build relationships with each other and gain mentors through faculty and successful alumni. It will be promoted through acceptance letters/emails, orientation, promotional events and fliers. Students will then sign up to our schools platform to stay connected and receive support on their track towards their diploma. This platform will be using an existing websige implemented by the Hynes Institute called startup tree.</span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"></span> Strategy #2
<div><br/></div><div> : Introduce “Design Thinking Tasks” at Freshmen Orientations
</div><div>Orientation leaders would be trained with premade lesson plans facilitated by us. Our lesson plans will be concise and consist of design thinking tasks/challenges. Ideally, the freshmen would work together in groups to figure out creative ways to solve problems through multiple design thinking methods and challenges. This will be used to introduce entrepreneurship and help motivate them to get more involved with entrepreneurship on campus in the future. </div><div>Initially, we would train our orientation leaders with what the lesson plans we made consist of along with actually teaching them about entrepreneurship to ensure an authentic reciprocation from the orientation leaders to the incoming freshmen. We would collaborate with the orientation leaders and faculty and explain to them the lesson plan and how it could be incorporated with their activities. Through prior training of the orientation leaders before the actual orientation this would ensure the feasibility of it continuing annually. </div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div>Strategy #3: Mix it Up…</div><div><br/></div><div>The syllabus is arguably the most important part of any course or lecture at any college or university setting. If it is the first thing that is reviewed and/or looked at to get a general idea of the lecture/course structure, why not incorporate entrepreneurship and innovation in some way and tie it into the task at hand. Keeping in contact with faculty as well as the administration would allow the students to produce and think outside the box despite the major. Working along the side of professors to ensure clarity of how we could collaboratively integrate entrepreneurship within their preset topics on their syllabus or how we can incorporate a design thinking method to fit their lesson. This is mixing up the traditional ways of lecturing to a more fun, interactive and creative way to learn. </div><div><br/></div><div>Strategy #4: Introducing Innovative Games</div><div><br/></div><div>After overviewing the orientation schedule, we are able to see that innovative games aren’t being introduced to incoming students. Playing innovative games are a fun way to build confidence, be creative, collaborate and find your passions. Some games that can be played include giving students legos or jenga pieces in to spark creative building. Giving students “The Big Creativity Can”, or Play-Doh that can help them prototype ideas they may have already. A Marshmallow Challenge where students work in teams to create the tallest tower with only string, tape, spaghetti and marshmallows. The Wallet Challenge were students team up to design a wallet suitable to the partners needs, These innovative games allow students to be introduced to creative thinking through simple objects. </div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div>Strategy #5</div><div><br/></div><div>We can ideate with our stakeholders the mapping of executing a design challenge program at orientation. We can pitch this program glimpse into entrepreneurship during freshman orientation. So that new students on campus are more comfortable by being exposed to entrepreneurship in a fun, creative and challenging way. Also incorporating an activity like this will provide variety to the current schedule on campus where incoming freshmen are simply consuming information. This program will be a hands-on activity that will be effective towards community building and communication.</div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div>Strategy #6
- : Live Questionnaire with ...</div><div><br/></div><div>Orientation at Iona is a 2-day event allowing students to get situated and comfortable with the environment around them. There are 6 sessions that tackle different events on the first and on the second day. This strategic priority would be great as it is very inexpensive and only requires fitting in with the schedule already provided for orientation and sitting in a designated area to engage the freshman. These activities will be taken out strategically and in a way that would engage the freshman’s recollection of their favorite changemakers or entrepreneurs what they liked about the entrepreneurs’ innovative solution to their problem. </div><div>This in turn, would create a sense of possibility at the campus with the students constantly being reminded that they have a career ahead of them and should decide to use it wisely. With these questions and activities and activities at the orientation they would be asked what they would have done if they were in the shoes of the entrepreneur being described at hand. Thus, creating more senses of self-empowerment, opportunity and the ability to envision.</div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ygsz43cXpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ygsz43cXpk]</div>