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Priorities:University of Detroit Mercy Student Priorities

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<li>Capturing students’ attention without intimidating them with the words Innovation and Entrepreneurship.</li>

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Groups with the words Innovation or Entrepreneurship scare some students away; they think “oh this is cool but I don’t think I want to open a business.” Or “I don’t think this will help me get a job.” Students at UDM are extremely career-focused and are driven to join groups because they know it looks good on a resume down the road. By rewording the name of the group, we don’t scare students away, and we can make the group look good on a resume too. This group should include anyone who wants to make change on campus, and won't be exclusively for engineering or business. We want the liberal arts as well as medical students. The next tactic is what catches the eye of those who are career driven.

<li>Provide an incentive to promote involvement and lasting commitment.</li>

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The incentives are a key part of the project. Earlier I&E groups on campus have existed and then eventually fizzled out. This group is created with the intention of longevity. For the group to last, students have to WANT to be a part of the group. The group cannot forced into existence by a faculty member or a student who will eventually graduate. Students will be participating, working towards earning one of the incentives, and they ways they earn points are through methods of developing their indivual knowledge of I&E or developing the ecosystem on campus. Since students always come up with reasons why they are too busy to do the work of making change on campus, this offers a background motive for solving the problems they want to fix anyhow.

<li>Award points in different categories to make sure winners are well-rounded.</li>

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~~~~The point system works like this: Points are awarded for different reasons by administrators of the group. The points will be given, first of all, for attendance. This will make sure we won't ever have any empty meetings. Points will be awarded for participation; Students will be rewarded for being actively involved and productive with challenges, discussions, and group projects. This also gives students reasons for going on and completing projects on their own time. Points will be awarded for group upkeep: things like fundraising and marketing. This ensures increasing membership by rewarding students for bringing in new students or posting on social medias about joining or group activity.

The point system also ensure well-rounded winners which is extremely important with prizes like a co-op position. A problem with a previously existing group was that students who won a design competition won a co-op job, but they proved to be “much less than satisfactory employees” and were poor representatives of UDM. With this new group, more than just design ability can be taken into account when awarding points. Students will be awarded more points at meetings for professionalism in addition to I&E qualities. The other aspect of this group as far producing well-rounded students is that improving students I&E knowledge and abilities will make them more impressive in the co-op positions. They will be great representative of UDM.

<li>Meetings will vary!</li>

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The meetings will be high energy and entertaining. They will expose students to new methods of thinking, to new people, and will open door on and off campus for them. In addition to learning about I&E themselves, the meetings will promote them developing their own ideas. We don't even have to focus on the terms "innovation" and "entreprenuership" because the activities will be instilling these ideas and qualities in a fun and interactive way. The goal is to have students intially join because of incentives, but have students continue to attend meetings because they learn quality material and are having fun at the same time (i.e. learning in a fun way much like the UIF Annual Meetups).

<li>Members’ passion will increase attendance and attention around campus.</li>

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Again, the point system gives the group some extra power: points could be awarded for promoting the group. Individual member may get more points by getting more people to come, or for posting something on social media, or for hanging a poster on campus. Because the meetings are fun as well as educational, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince members to join, and gain passion from members as they realize their own potential to make changes happen on campus.

<li>The group will not be entirely technical-based.</li>

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Sarah Mauser

28

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