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Each of the following strategies is designed to significantly expose and educate students in the areas of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship.  Note that the strategies listed below are in no particular order of completion.

= Strategy #1: Creating a More Interdisciplinary Atmosphere =

== Tactic #1: Daily Interdisciplinary Sessions for Engineers ==

'''UPDATE: Reached out to departments. Still trying to implement this however.'''

= Strategy #2: Developing a Culture of Creativity =

== '''Tactic #1: A Maker Space''' ==

Union College needs to further develop innovation and entrepreneurship on campus. A course titled ICE (Innovation, Creativity, and the Entrepreneurial Mindset) will be implemented in the Spring of 2017, however this is merely the tip of the iceberg. We should now start to host more consistent seminars, workshops, and classes pertaining to innovation and entrepreneurship. These activities will all be interactive to allow students to start thinking and delving deeper into these topics. External speakers that are experts in these fields should be invited to talk to increase student attendance. Once these seminars and classes are well-established amongst the campus, this will likely increase overall innovation and entrepreneurship on campus, thus creating a general culture change. Since this is not immediately feasible, this can likely be implemented within a three year period. Gradually Union College can start to host seminars and workshops until they are a regular and consistent part of our community. Target date to start implementing more seminars and workshops: September, 2017

<div>-''Elina Davé''</div><div> </div>== Tactic#7: Makerspace ==<div>Union College strives to enrich their students and teach them how to be creative thinkers in every discipline and beyond. Classes offer a good range of interdisciplinary lessons that help with this, but they fall short in offering a physical extension of this. There are lectures and labs, but no available shared space for students to explore hands on with their ideas and tests them out. This is why I suggest Union uses one of its pre existing spaces, possibly in the library and converts it into a makerspace. This space would be large enough for many people to use it at once, everyone would have access, and it would be full of resources like computers with advances software programs, all types of printers, projectors, office supplies, and basic prototyping material (pipe cleaners, rubber bands etc.). If teachers could further incorporate usage of the space within their curriculum students would be more confident in their ability to not just learn, but apply what they learn and create things. As the document from Stanford’s EXTREME class showed many students, especially when academically successful, are not used to or okay with failing, but failing is learning and the only way to improve. Taking a leap towards physical constructing something helps with this learning process. ''- Emma Lee '' </div>= Strategy #3: Bridge the Professional and the Academic = =

=== Tactic #1: Broadening Target Industries ===

== Idea Pitch YouTube Video Project ==

{{#Widget:Youtube|id=xsZWQMqGvsI}}{{#Widget:Youtube|id=G1l15BjYVGo}}{{#Widget:Youtube|id=Loyoz916208}}[https://~~youtu~~www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBd3qvPEhzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBd3qvPEhzM]= Strategy #4: Building Connections, Entrepreneurial Spirit, and Innovative Improvements = Final Poject to bepitched: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OUVukaHo397JsRO4-VonyIiKFu3LL1GjkvgHWqSLwxg/~~EBd3qvPEhzM~~ edit?usp=sharing https://~~youtu~~docs.google.com/document/d/1OUVukaHo397JsRO4-VonyIiKFu3LL1GjkvgHWqSLwxg/edit?usp=sharing] == Tactic #1: Mock Humanities, Arts, and Music classes (and other classes that are under-represented) == This week I prototype my idea for a series of mock classes in the arts and humanities in order to promote disciplines other than STEM in Union. During my testing phase, I learned a lot of new perspective on my idea and changed my plan radically. I also gained fresh insights after meeting with my mentor - Jonathan. The power of prototyping and testing really amazes me, since I presumptuously thought the original idea I had was good enough, I failed to see what others could. People also have much more diverse experiences than I do, so that helped tremendously.<div>- An Nguyen -</div>== Tactic #2: Declining Balance Use Expansion == Many students on campus seem eager to for stronger relationships with the surrounding community. The use of food excites students and is a very good incentive for students to engage with the community. Students also brought up very good questions that I would need to consider as I continue to build upon this project.      - Marina DeLuca - == Tactic #3: Library Innovative Renovation == Students really like the idea of modernizing work spaces to be more collaborative. A more defined structure to the Schaffer library is preferred and sometimes confusing presently. We would like to try shifting the entire function of the library. The Basement = loudest floor/large collaborative space with unique designs, art, and furnishings to fit the theme of collaboration. As you go higher in floors in the library, the quieter it should be. The loud basement is separated by the main/entrance floor so the quieter floors above have no way to be bothered by even the noisiest of projects downstairs. We could potentially implement the 150 feet from food guideline that originated from Google. The Basement would become a flexible workspace with tables on wheels, walls and tables to write on, and power outlets hang from ceilings etc. - JP Elmblad - == Tactic #4: Campus Room Availability Texting Service  ==<div> </div><div>The idea of a texting service actually came about amidst a discussion with several of my housemates. I initiated the topic of how students do not know even half of the spaces available to them, and together my housemates and I attempted to figure out a solution to this problem that would be the absolute fastest, easiest, and simplest. </div><div> </div><div>The solution we chose to prototype for this problem was a campus-wide texting service. When in use, this service allows students to see what rooms are available at a moment’s notice, without having to download an app or go through any extra time-consuming research. This solves two problems, the first being that students will have an easier time finding available study environments, especially during midterm/finals weeks. The second and most important to the initiative, students will be given a better idea of what kinds of spaces are available, and what they have access to in these spaces.This will give students a better idea of the resources they have at their disposal on an everyday basis, and will give them the information they need to innovate and becreative within these spaces. </~~EBd3qvPEhzM~~div><div> </div><div>- Samantha Kruzshak - </div>== Tactic #5: UPitch - Annual Entrepreneurial Pitch Competition == Every January, Union students come back from their winter breaks for a school-wide pitch competition with real investors in the crowd judging. The winner(s) (teams permitted) is allowed to connect with investors if they really want to go through with their ideas and is awarded a prestigious “Winner of UPitch 20xx” each year and the runner up could gain something similar. This promotes our school as an entrepreneurial hub and gives students a chance to show what they got. The winner could also win cash prize. We worked with student body to figure out what ways students could participate to produce a unique product and how they would display their work, this is what we came up with. - Team -  = Strategy #5: Expanding Academic Resources Outside of the Classroom = == Streamlining the I&E Ecosystem Video == [https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfIKfc79LoY https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfIKfc79LoY]" == Tactic#1: Pop-Up Practicum Class ==<div>Union College has great academic programs in many disciplines yet it fails to offer any student-led learning. The students on this campus have bountiful knowledge and diverse academic passions with no platform to share them. I propose the creation of a program which allows students to form their own pop-up class series for practicum credit. It is scientifically proven that teaching is a fantastic way to deepen one’s own understanding and allowing students to teach one another will diversify the content available on our campus. This benefits both the teachers and the learners while providing an opportunity for students to gain experience in public speaking and organization. The students wishing to lead a series could be from a department and would require an advisor to assist in logistics and authenticate their practicum credit. -Tyler Greenwood == Tactic #2: Streamlined Funding and Research Grants ==</div><div>Union’s motto is, “Under the laws of Wisdom, we all become brothers and sisters.” In this spirit, Union strives to create an on-campus culture of curiosity and analytical thinking; as one of the first institutions in the nation to directly involve undergraduate students in STEM research, Union prides itself on its long-standing tradition of student-faculty collaboration. To this end, Union offers a plethora of student research grants/funding opportunities. However, in my experience as an undergraduate, many students experience frustration in the process of pursuing their research interests. Sophomore/Scholar’s Research Seminar (SRS) courses have the potential to directly address this issue - if they are taught in a standardized, entrepreneurially-minded way. By integrating the teaching of both hard research skills and the skills necessary to procure funding and network with mentors into the SRS curriculum, Union will stand to produce more analytical, inquisitive students. Indeed, the development of a more innovation and entrepreneurship-based SRS curriculum would better prepare Union students to contextualize and articulate the importance of their research projects on an exponentially broader scale.   - Nathan Gillespie == Tactic #3: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab == There are a lot of entrepreneurial efforts on campus.However, there is no office or committee to connect them.The creation of an office that connects all the entrepreneurial opportunities on campus will make these resources more accessible to students and will even encourage the creation of new ones. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab should be composed of three committees: the events committee, the  online resources committee, and the initiatives committees. The events committee will be responsible for planning and hosting short-term events while the initiatives committee will be responsible for sponsoring or planning long-term entrepreneurship related projects.The online resources committee will be in charge of updating the lab’s web page with all the information about the upcoming events and all the entrepreneurship and innovation related resources on campus.  - Abdelrahman Mohamed (Amin) </div>== Tactic #4: Makerspace == </div><div>Union College strives to enrich their students and teach them how to be creative thinkers in every discipline and beyond. Classes offer a good range of interdisciplinary lessons that help with this, but they fall short in offering a physical extension of this. There are lectures and labs, but no available shared space for students to explore hands on with their ideas and tests them out. This is why I suggest Union uses one of its pre existing spaces, possibly in the library and converts it into a makerspace. This space would be large enough for many people to use it at once, everyone would have access, and it would be full of resources like computers with advances software programs, all types of printers, projectors, office supplies, and basic prototyping material (pipe cleaners, rubber bands etc.). If teachers could further incorporate usage of the space within their curriculum students would be more confident in their ability to not just learn, but apply what they learn and create things. As the document from Stanford’s EXTREME class showed many students, especially when academically successful, are not used to or okay with failing, but failing is learning and the only way to improve. Taking a leap towards physical constructing something helps with this learning process. - Emma Lee </div> = Strategy #6: Connecting, Diversifying, and Reinvigorating the Campus Spirit (Fall 2019) =<div> == '''Tactic #1: Solving the Campus Event App''' == I believe that the first step to make the campus more innovative and entrepreneural is the improvement of interconnectivity. In order to achieve that, my idea targets a specific problem that the campus has experienced throughout the years of digital communication, which is campus event emails. Therefore, the solution is to create an app that integrates functions from the original Union College app, but engages better with the users by having the newsfeed showing the most recent events and annoncements from clubs, departments, and communities around campus without having your email clustered with random messages. So the app will not only show what is happening around campus, but also show you your class schedules, class location, grades, dining schedules, and so much more that the original app has.<div>In order to achieve this, I will work closely with Yu Ellen (the chair of the IT department at the college) to first create a muse website powered by wordPress, which would allow users to input their message to the campus. I believe this would work because Union College has a subscription to wordPress and the creation of a simple website wouldn't require high maintenance. Furthermore, creating an app is of higher maintenance, but by using the same original app, we would just work on styling and designing; and adding a the newsfeed function within the app to show the events or announcements posted from the muse website through their API. Laslty, we would also work with the student forum to strategically iterate the design of the product. Thus, this solution would be low cost, realistic, and it would definately change the way our campus gets informed. Therefore, this project not only serves as an exciting example of what innovation and entrepreneurship does, but also reinvigorates campus interconnectivity and motivates other students. - ''Sai Lyon Ho'' <div></div>== '''Tactic #2: Entrepreneurs of the Nott (EON)''' == <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With this idea comes a complicated history. Far from an original concept of this cohort, entrepreneurial activity at Union and the greater Schenectady/Albany/Capital Region areas is alive and humming. The problem is Union boasts no organized structure to further student ventures in entrepreneurship when there is clearly a population who would benefit. As discussed in other content on this page, there used to be an entrepreneurship club named Union College Entrepreneurial Organization. We decided it would be most effective to completely rebrand and (almost) start again from scratch. At the same time that it is important to implement some of what the old club used to provide, this is a time where Union looks to move forward with its new president, new strategic plan and hone in on a refreshed set of values. <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EON is in its early stages, but has received very encouraging support from people of all disciplines. Always evolving, we hope to put in place an environment that connects students, alumni, faculty, and community members around the goal of creatively solving societal problems. Even if this kind of “end product” is not a goal for some students, we want to provide education about design thinking to anyone that will listen. Hopefully there will be updates to come <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blake Newcomer <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div> == '''Tactic #3: Religeous Representation Rooms (R Cube)''' == Union lauds itself for its diversity in many areas. Across socioeconomic, religious, social, and political divides, Union tries its hardest in order to ensure that as many people as possible can be as comfortable as possible. However, I’ve noticed an alarming lack of representation for other religions besides Christianity with small groups being created for major religions such as Islam and Hinduism with others, such as Buddhism, Sikhism, and so on not having any representation on campus whatsoever. These are all religions with incredibly rich cultures and practices and these religions are not properly represented on campus with the current resources allocated to them. That is why I propose that we convert some of our Idea Labs on Union’s campus into prayer and meditation rooms for people who follow any of these religions! For example, if you follow the Islamic faith and it’s time for midday prayer, one might be hard pressed to find a private and quiet place to pray, especially if they have to travel far from home. That is where the Religious Representation Room (or R Cube) comes into play! Within the room, there will be a plethora of materials for people to read and view such as prayer books of these different religions, how to properly pray according to the customs of each religion, and more. These rooms will be a hub for both enlightenment as well as cultural diversity and enrichment as people from any background are capable of walking into the room and meditating or learning about the religion by actively, and correctly, participating in their religious practices. What my current prototype lacks in artistic creativity, it makes up for it in its efficiency. Many of the materials required to create these rooms are quite cheap and the product of such a small amount of expenditure would greatly outweigh the negatives and could lead to a more connected campus, both interpersonally as well as spiritually. I have rooms for Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and Judaic prayer with many more on the way depending on the access to rooms! I’ve shown many compatriots my rather lackluster artpiece of the potential layout of the R.R.R and I have been inundated with amazing ideas on how to improve it and on how to push it even further to represent more people. Many people are excited about the concept, even the people whose religion is properly represented by Union. The tests also allowed me to open my mind to the resources already available on Union’s campus and how I can work with those already existing resources to create something better. This project is feasible, not only due to the lack of monetary cost within it, but also because of the guidance of other students and faculty members on campus who have a more personal connection to these religions and know how to properly represent them within the RRR. By contacting and working with other religious figures on the campus such as the leaders of our Chabad house, Shmuly and Laiky Rubin, as well as the Muslim student Adviser, Genghis Khan, the planning behind creating these rooms becomes significantly easier and it also allows for us to build connections between the different religious groups on campus. <span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- <span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Madison Holley<div><div></div><div></div> == '''Tactic #4: Encourage more Women in Computer Science''' == </div><div>Not many women in computer science is a phenomenon that I noticed at Union. My aim is to encourage more women to get involved. Knowing how to code is an essential skill and innovation is interconnected with coding. Creative ideas can grow and be developed through computer science. But yet not many women are pursuing a computer science or computer engineering major. That might occur because of stereotypes making women unwelcomed, lack of technological education and even because people think that tech careers are antisocial, or computer science is hard or the work environment is hostile to women. We do not highlight enough role models of women in computer science. For all these reasons I thought of some possible solutions and according to the feedback I received from my fellow students we agreed that if we could bring successful women of computer science to present their experience they could further motivate students and promote more women. To organize Coding Competitions (Hackathons) with good prizes and for professors to assign team projects outside of the classroom to increase the diversity of the field and make it a fun learning process are two great ideas to get this done. In general a good step would be to offer students the chance to attend conferences, workshops, career fairs and seminars on that field.<div> </div><div><span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- <span style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; background-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aikaterini Petridou</div></div>

= Related Links =

''''''Union College Student Priorities''''''

'''''Fall 2018: '''''

[[Tyler Greenwood|Tyler Greenwood]]

[[Emma Lee|Emma Lee]]

[[Nate Gillespie|Nate Gillespie]]

[[Amin|Amin Abd]][[AbdelRahman Mohamed (Amin)|elrahman]]

'''''Spring 2018: '''''

[[Laurent JP Treguier|Laurent_JP_Treguier]]

[[Haan.nguyen304|Haan.nguyen304]]

[[Samantha Kruzshak|Samantha_Kruzshak]]

[[Marina DeLuca|Marina_DeLuca]]

'''Spring 2017:'''

[[Category:Student Priorities|u]]

[[Category:Student Priorities]]

[[Category:Union_College]]

[[Category:Student_Priorities]]

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