= <span style="font-size: large;">STUDENT PRIORITY #3: Nick Russell </span> =
== <font color="#808080" size="3">First Year Experienc Experience University Conections Connections "Design Thinking College" Course </font><br/> ==
<font size="2">Through our investigation of the I&E ecosystem on our campus, a dichotomy began to emerge where I saw a divergence between those who viewed the design thinking process as valuable in itself and those who viewed </font>it as a means to developing technology. Tennessee Tech has done an admirable job building out the infrastructure that could support creating technology or a company, but has room to grow in terms of developing an I&E culture.
== <font color="#808080" size="3">Design thinking as a methodology has value when applied to a person’s life, college experience, or career. I </font> ==E can provide value to every Tech student regardless what they do after graduation. My goal is to blend I&E into the freshman curriculum through the University Connections class. I want every freshmen to begin their time at Tech with an I&E boot camp.
I will run a pilot “Design Thinking College” course. The class will meet in the maker space and feature key I&E faculty and leadership as speakers and guest lecturers. The class will involve a hands on I&E project from day one and will conclude with an idea pitch competition. The goal of this class is to introduce students to the I&E framework so early in their college careers it becomes their defaults and they can engage in the community and culture we are trying to build at Tennessee Tech.
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= <span style="font-size:large;">Related Links:</span> =
[[Jacqueline Schulz|Jacqueline Schulz]]
[[Nicholas_RussellNicholas Russell|Nicholas Russell]]
[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Enis_Cirak Enis Cirak]