Changes

As the Spring 2016 UIF leadership circle for Tennessee Technological University, we hope to increase and expand innovative and entrepreneurial mindsets across campus. In 5 to 10 years we want to come back to see engineers working with artists, chemists creating alongside social scientists, and business professionals collaborating with human ecologists. We hope to see greater and stronger student-faculty relationships, students pursuing their innovative ideas from day 1 of freshman year, and a greater use of campus and regional resources to help students and faculty bring their ambitions to life. Above all, we hope to see innovative thinking become the standard, not the exception.

<span style="font-size: small;">With the addition of the iCube and iMakerspace to Tennessee Technological University's campus, a key resource for innovation and entrepreneurship is available for all students to utilize. The iCube hosts a virtual reality lab, brainstorming area and classroom, and an iMakerspace loaded with machines like 3-D printers and lab space.&nbsp;Currently, the space is primarily used by engineering students, as well as a small proportion of business students. To introduce students of all majors to entrepreneurship and innovation both on campus and within this new resource, specialized pop-ups should be held which represent the interests of various underrepresented majors in the iCube. For example, a pop-up class which showed wildlife and fisheries students how to 3-D print fish hooks would bring students of other majors into the space and increase exposure to interdisciplinary work with engineering students. Specialized pop-up classes will be open to all students, increasing the likelihood of involving more majors in the iCube and iMakerspace.&nbsp;</span>

<span style="font-size: small;">Everyone has a need for innovation in their degree, and these specialized pop-ups are a way to introduce more students to invaluable resources on campus.</span>

Available Resources

#<span style="font-size: small;">'''Spark interest early''': Targeting students during freshman year is a tactic universities deploy across the country to increase student discovery of I&E and promote its continued pursuit. If we can teach students to look for the I&E opportunities around them in their UNIV 1010 Freshman Connections course (see Strategic Priority #3) the proposed program will provide a guided opportunity to pursue these ideas long-term.</span>

Through our investigation of the I&E ecosystem on our campus, a dichotomy began to emerge in which I saw a divergence between those who viewed the design thinking process as valuable in itself and those who viewed&nbsp;it as a means to developing technology. Tennessee Tech has done an admirable job &nbsp;building out the infrastructure which could support creating technology or a company, but has room to grow in terms of developing an I&E culture.

The most important part of advancing the campus is to uplift the students first. By making them interested, and then giving them the opportunity to act on that interest, Tennessee Tech will become an amazing place for innovation.

[[Ashlin Wildun|Ashlin Wildun]]

[[Nicholas Russell|Nicholas Russell]]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Jonathan_Abbotoy Jonathan Abbotoy]

[http://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Abigail_Collins Abigail Collins]

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