Priorities:Fisk University Student Priorities
Contents
Priorities(2022)
Strategy #1: Innovation Center (Covenant Adenuga)
Our research into opportunities for I&E in Fisk University turned up a space allocated to innovation in the schools library. It is non-functional and non-furnished but presents to us a blank canvas we absolutely can't wait to get some paint on. This project includes turning that space to a fully functional innovation center. We hope with the innovation center we can achieve two results:
- Create an avenue for students to develop innovative and entrepreneurial mindsets.
- Create a space that would be available for students to develop certain skillset that could be useful in the nearest future for income and/or recreational purposes.
To achieve this, we hope to employ the following starting steps:
- Pitch the idea to the school faculty, and receive permission to fully develop the innovation space in a way that it can draw students in.
- Organize workshops for faculty and students to help build innovation and entrepreneurship.
- To do this, we hope to start small by incorporating already existing classes and instructors of those classes to present at these workshops when they are available.
- Fisk University collaborates with companies to help prepare students for general career readiness. We hope to also utilize this to get company representatives interested in developing entrepreneurial mindsets in college students to come participate in workshops.
- As students need to get Service Learning and Professional Development hours to maintain their scholarships, we could also provide Service Learning and Professional Development hours to students who attend to encourage student participation.
Strategy #2:Increase number of resource persons that come to Fisk to talk about I&E (Chibuikem Iheagwaram)
During our interviews with students and faculty, we also found that:
Fisk University's innovation and entrepreneurship atmosphere could be improved by having more companies, alumni, or current students give talks on innovation as well as holding competitions that foster I&E, personal branding, design thinking, and improvement of students' marketability in the corporate world.
Sub-strategies include:
- Reaching out to alumni that are in graduate school or working at companies to come to inspire Fisk students about innovation & entrepreneurship. Hearing someone's story can inspire students to believe they can also achieve greatness. Having more current students and partner companies host design thinking workshops or share professional advice can also boost innovative and entrepreneurial thinking among students.
- Innovation week at Fisk University to include elevator pitch competitions, design thinking workshops, hackathons for different majors, business pitch challenges, public speaking seminars, resume & interview workshops, and other personal & professional branding events. Also having a student organization for innovation and entrepreneurship will help to train Fisk students.
- Working towards organizing first TED talk at Fisk University to talk about I&E topic that cuts across different majors.
Strategy #3: Increase number of mental health workshops and leaders (Aayush Bhatta)
After interviewing with students, we came to know that the students at Fisk university student's mental health can be improved by doing workshops and calling alumni to come and share their experience and how they coped when they were in college.
- Reach out to the alumni to come back to Fisk and help the students with their experience of mental health.
- Student leaders can make sure they are speaking for their fellow friends to point out the major issue students are having with mental health.
- Faculty can conduct various workshops to empower students regarding mental health.
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