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Priorities:York College of Pennsylvania Student Priorities

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Overview: York College has the possibly to become an institution that fosters design thinking and innovation. To do this will be a lot of work, but it is possible. The faculty here care about their students and want to hear their opinions and ideas. Well here they are! Described on this page are 4 strategies to turn YCP better campus. A better campus is one where we collaborate with each other, learn more about design thinking and innovation, and all have access to resources that will make us better professionals.

~~~~ #1 Create a Makerspace for Everyone On Campus Being developed on York College’s campus is a makerspace for a small group of honor students (including the eight of us) and a few others that are deemed innovative and important for large projects. The plans for this space and how we use it are not yet finalized, but it is a space that is privately funded with valuable resources, so there cannot be 24/7 access to everyone. While it is still inspiring as anyone with enough passion can be given access to make their projects come to life, the college needs a space for all students to come together. Makerspaces are known to provide the environment necessary for the creative process, and can focus on different subjects (software, business, art, etc). A general makerspace that provides anyone of any major the tools to follow the design thinking process would help bring a creative passion to the campus and its students. There are two ways to possibly advance this idea. The first would be to make access to the developing makerspace easier to obtain. However, this would be tough to implement because of the state of its existence. The fact that it’s funded not by the college but rather the benefactor of our honors program doesn’t automatically make it a campus resource. Because of this, installing another makerspace for all students on campus would likely be better. This way, the space can encapsulate everything the average student would want and more specific resources for each major involved. Some of the steps necessary for this endeavour are:

<li>Confirm a desire for a makerspace on campus</li>

<li>Listen to feedback on the space and improve accordingly</li>

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#2 Creating a Design Thinking Curriculum/Sessions   During our experience interviewing freshmen, many of them expressed in design thinking and innovation and entrepreneurship classes. Unfortunately, many of them were unsure of their ability in the field, or didn’t consider themselves creative enough to be a part of entrepreneurship avenues on campus. Currently, York College curriculum requires every incoming student to take a First Year Seminar (FYS) Class. The topics of these classes vary wildly from “The Harry Potter Phenomenon” to “Work, Play, Learn” to “What is Christmas”?  Only one FYS class offered teaches about I&E, “Intro to Entrepreneurship.” This class is only offered to a select group of individuals. What if the scope of this class could be expanded to the entire freshman class? FYS classes could be major-specific. Engineering students would take a class on how to design an original product and get a patent for it. Nursing students could take a class on how to develop a better bedside manner and empathize with patients. International Relations majors could take a class on learning a myriad of different languages and how to apply that to real world situations. Obviously, this would require close work with the staff. They would have to readjust their curriculum to fit the concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship. Required reading for the courses could be what was used during “Intro to Entrepreneurship,” which was “Creative Confidence” by David and Tom Kelley. In the book they talked about how the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center redesigned their MRI suites into adventure stories. This helped the sick kids feel more comfortable during the stressful MRI scans. This would be the ideal case study for students. Learning how to reframe problems is a critical college skill. Finally, the FYS program already has lectures and programs built into the curriculum. These events could be transformed to be hands on I&E workshops. Influential designers or inventors could be brought in to speak. Furthermore, FYS classes have a teacher assistant known as an FYS Fellow. These Fellows also plan low stakes social activities for freshmen. Instead of games like “capture the flag,” the Fellows could plan hour long creativity exercises. As an idea, they could sponsor hour long Lego building sessions, with the group that built the most elaborate castle winning a bookstore gift card. Events like this bolster students’ creative confidence, enabling them to feel more comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone. In conclusion, the FYS program has a lot of potential that isn’t being used efficiently right now, but with time it could be used as the perfect innovation vessel.           #3 Leadership Conference York College has many great clubs with many great student leaders, but we believe they do not work together enough and are not aware of their strengths. To help fix this, we want to host a weekend for a student leadership conference. Every member of an organization or club would be invited as it is not necessary to have a position to be a leader. This event would be sponsored by Student Senate, CAB, Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, and Student Athlete Advisory Committee. Having these large, overseeing organization plan this event would insure that many different types of student leaders would come. The event would be held in various buildings on York’s campus. We will hold sessions on design thinking, team building, and leadership. This means that UIFellows would be involved, but we would also bring in different types of outside speakers. The goal would be to give different opinions on what leaderships is. This would include TED talk like speakers, business owners from York, and Military personnel. We would also do many team building exercises in order to get club leaders to collaborate during the semesters. Timeline:

<li>Interview students and test how interested they are</li>

<li>Promo all over campus and create hype</li>

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#4 Design Your Own Minor and Advertize Design Your Own Major More One of the really unique and underused features that York College has is a student’s ability to design their own major. Students interested in following this path will meet with advisors to handpick courses that will compliment each other in order to give the student a degree in a major they have designed to encompass all of their interests. Some examples of this are Digital Design, comprised of computer science and art, and Biochemistry, which is comprised of biology and chemistry courses. The possibilities for students is endless. With this being such a unique and incredible opportunity for students, we have found that this is not advertised enough throughout the campus. Many juniors and seniors here have no idea that the program exists, and end up wishing that they were able to follow this sort of path instead of a predefined major. We would love to begin prototyping ways to make more students, especially incoming freshman and potential students of York College, more aware of this opportunity. We hope to finish prototyping by the end of this semester, implementing our ideas and solutions at the start of the Spring 2018 semester. We would also love to create a program to design your own minor. Many majors, such as nursing and engineering, have such rigorous curriculum that many do not have the ability to take a minor, or they are incredibly limited in their choices for minors. This is something that we would want to discuss with the Provost and the Academic Programs Committee of Faculty Senate. We hope to be able to establish a strong, solidified program that would enable us to make this a reality by Fall of 2018.

#4 Design Your Own Minor and Advertize Design Your Own Major More One of the really unique and underused features that York College has is a student’s ability to design their own major. Students interested in following this path will meet with advisors to handpick courses that will compliment each other in order to give the student a degree in a major they have designed to encompass all of their interests. Some examples of this are Digital Design, comprised of computer science and art, and Biochemistry, which is comprised of biology and chemistry courses. The possibilities for students is endless. With this being such a unique and incredible opportunity for students, we have found that this is not advertised enough throughout the campus. Many juniors and seniors here have no idea that the program exists, and end up wishing that they were able to follow this sort of path instead of a predefined major. We would love to begin prototyping ways to make more students, especially incoming freshman and potential students of York College, more aware of this opportunity. We hope to finish prototyping by the end of this semester, implementing our ideas and solutions at the start of the Spring 2018 semester. We would also love to create a program to design your own minor. Many majors, such as nursing and engineering, have such rigorous curriculum that many do not have the ability to take a minor, or they are incredibly limited in their choices for minors. This is something that we would want to discuss with the Provost and the Academic Programs Committee of Faculty Senate. We hope to be able to establish a strong, solidified program that would enable us to make this a reality by Fall of 2018. Student Priorities</span~~><br/~~>

Jkershner

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