Priorities:University of Twente Student Priorities
Spring 2016 Priorities
Project Pitch Video Spring 2016
The initial exposure of young students towards the entrepreneurial mindset and environment is not particularly well developed as compared to the other aspects in the Twente area.
This finding was discussed and reaffirmed by the other parties present during our first stakeholder meeting.
Based on this experience the discussion quickly zoomed in on the aspect of personal development that promotes a more experimental, hands-on, entrepreneurial and proactive mindset.
Essentially asking the question of how do we get students to…
* think about why they are here!
* develop a personal identity.
* set their own personal goals.
* select their assignments and work on these goals.
* develop their own moral compass.
* try something new more often.
* stimulate their own curiosity.
…and develop these ideas early enough so they can pick courses in an intentional and goal oriented way.
The new education system introduced in 2013 the Twente Education Model. Already tried to address these aspects. However, due to the inherent inertia of tutors and tutees, these ideas still need more time to come full fruition. In that way, additional support to could support these concepts.
The team realized that while there are many facilities available for personal self-development, start-up funding and extracurricular content like the Honours Program many students don’t know about them and even worse do not care to know about them.
It seemed like an imperative focus for this UIF-Team to stimulate the personal development of young students so that the available resources are used more effectively.
Furthermore, it is necessary to have a positive and inclusive environment available on campus. The DesignLab as it stands today fulfills this role and will likely be a fitting and great place from which the UIF program should operate.
The aspects above can be summarized by 4 simple goals.
1. Keep spreading the ideas and find mentors that can help with that.
2. A need for self-development!
3. Entrepreneurship needs to be valued by staff and students alike.
4. The necessity of an inclusive environment for all the points above.
Mid-term and long-term goals
Subsequent steps to establish a students self-development as the focus of the UIF program
Spring 2017 Priorities
Project Pitch Video Spring 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldMEI7CvrQU
The collaboration between the university as an organization and the university as a research facility is at the moment not as good as it could be. Many resources such as the knowledge and skills of students are not considered. The university is rather seeking help for the realizations of inside projects from outside companies and is therefore not using the talent that is right in front of them.
The first priority of the spring 2017 fellows is therefore to enhance the collaboration between different UT organizations and bring them into contact with the students.
The main goals we try to reach are:
- Awareness about all the possibilities the University holds for its students, researchers and staff, especially in areas of self-development, where students take control of their skillset development.
- Collaboration between staff, students and research in terms of resources as well as in term of skills and knowledge.
- Create an atmosphere where it feels natural for university to have many on-site projects run by students. A university where facilities and events are run by students can take real pride in their entrepreunerial students.
Steps improve collaboration and communication within UT organizations, students, researchers and staff members
In order to create an atmosphere of greater collaboration between the different members of the University we would like to propose different projects.
- Week of possibilities
- Student pool
- Add paragraph to Newsletter about board decisions and use platform such as Loomio so that students can add their opinions and suggestions.
Week of Possibilities
Our first priority in order to face the problem of collaboration we encountered during our analysis of the campus is to set up a week of possibilities to show all different parties of the university what possibilities in terms of collaboration they have. The idea is to introduce all different organizations of the university and what this organization can provide in terms of resources and knowledge or skills. It is all about increasing the awareness of all members of the university about what different facilities and organizations the university has to offer.
Student Pool
Our second priority will be to set up a pool of students, where students can indicate what kind of skills and education they have. By signing up for that student pool they agree to be approachable for university intern project that otherwise would have been given to companies. The basic idea is to use the talent of students and give them real world problems on which they can work. Students can make valuable work experiences and the university can save money by first asking students to look for a solution. Students will be paid for working on the project. In order to avoid the problem of unreliability of students fixed deadlines will be discussed and the university can decide at every step to outsource the project when they have the feeling that the students are not able to finish the project correctly or on time.
News of UT board
Our final priority would be to focus on the lack of communication and collaboration between the board of the university and the students and staff. We would like to have discussion with the UT news and the board about possibly adding a paragraph on the board’s decisions to the end of the monthly student newsletter. We would then like to set up a page on a platform such as loomio, for us to reiterate what that paragraph states and allows students to provide their opinions and suggestions. This format of a pool could enable the board to obtain a more all-encompassing view of what the student body thinks.
Fall 2017 Priorities
- Enhance the collaboration between Dutch and international students, bring them together and create an welcoming and comfortable atmosphere for them.
- Increase the rate of international students in extracurricular activities
- Raise awareness to about the wide variety of available entrepreneurial and innovative opportunities
Prototypes for better integration of internationals
We would like to propose 4 projects to contribute to these goals:
Buddy Programme
The buddy programme is introduced to close the gap between culture and study associations that are existing on campus. At the moment, those associations are not cooperating. In order to change this and create a connection between the international and Dutch students in those associations, the buddy programme is introduced. Here, the associations are meant to unite their forces to organize an event together where students come together, meet, connect and share insights.
Once a year, one study and one culture association are going to be picked randomly. Those are meant to work together towards a workshop/ event/ meetup/ drinks. Thereby, they are free to cooperate with the University’s culture department which can support the event with resources.
At the day of the event, the students have the opportunity to connect and meet up. This will get the associations and their members together and therefore reach out to more students uniting internationals and Dutch students.
Add-on to Campus App
The Campus app is a newly released app about the University of Twente. It has many features, such as viewing your timetable, exploring the campus and much more. However, it also has many opportunities. The University of Twente is a very innovative and entrepreneurial university. However, these opportunities are often invisible for many students. This app could make a difference in the visibility of opportunities at the University of Twente.
The idea of this prototype is to add innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities in the ‘explore’ section of the UT Campus app. At the moment there are only options such as Parking, Food & Drinks, Housing, Research, and Education. We want to add the ‘Innovation’ and ‘Entrepreneurial’ sections under Explore. So that students can see what they are and where they are. Students can also see events that are hosted by Innovative and Entrepreneurial organizations and add those to their interests.
DesignLab and Studium Generale
When looking at the engagement of students and possibilities to improve that, we looked at two major event hosting organizations on campus. DeisngLab is the makerspace at the University of Twente. Aside from that, it also hosts many events. Studium Generale is located almost at the opposite end of the university, and mostly organizes lectures, sometimes in cooperation with other study associations.
If you could combine these two organizations to organize a free-food event together, you would combine audiences and grab students attention with free food. This would cause students to come to these events, in which you can raise awareness of the DesignLab for example, and thus stimulate engagement.
Phased Studying for Entrepreneurs
Provide students the possibility to work as an entrepreneur alongside their studies by allowing them to spread their study load over a longer period of time. Currently, this is only possible for students practicing top-level sports or top-level arts. By making this available for entrepreneurs as well we hope to stimulate those students to keep studying while growing their company, which fits well into the slogan of the university “The Entrepreneurial University”.
Related Links
University Website
Wiki pages
University of Twente of Twente Student Priorities
University Innovation Fellows
Fall 2016
Spring 2017
Fall 2017
