university innovation fellows – The Hilltop Monitor

Jewell student leads high school students in workshop about innovative leadership

Sofia Arthurs-Schoppe — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 14:02:57 +0000

Eighteen students from Orrick High School’s student council were hosted at William Jewell College for a day of leadership and innovation training Aug. 30.

The students started the day at the Tucker Leadership Lab, where they were encouraged to take pride in being leaders and use their positions on the student council to encourage others despite obstacles.

In the afternoon, students were led in an ideation session by University Innovation Fellow (UIF) and senior biochemistry major, Sam Fulte. Ideation is a process of collective problem solving by empathizing with people, identifying the issues they face and then developing detailed plans to address them.

Fulte, who attended Orrick High School, commented that knowing about the ideation process would have added value to her experience there.

“When I went through UIF training I found the ideation process really interesting and it made me think about being in student council back in high school. I wish that I had known about it then because I had a lot of opportunities to apply it,” said Fulte.

Students were encouraged to explore solutions to problems they face without worrying about barriers typically faced by student organizations, such as budgetary, policy or time constraints.

With these guidelines the students were able to identify solutions to issues on their campus, including limited student engagement, use of offensive language and a lack of school spirit.

Orrick High School students ideate ways to increase student engagement in school sponsored activities and events.

Fulte, who approached the sponsors of Orrick High School’s student council in April 2018 about the workshop, believes that understanding the ideation process will help the students beyond their high school years.

“I was impressed by the maturity of the students and the ideas that they came up with, especially the way they spoke about creating change by addressing their school’s culture,” said Fulte. “Now that they know about ideation they can use it for the rest of their lives.”

Following the ideation session, Admissions Counselor Troy Williams spoke to the students about the prospect of studying at Jewell in the future.

University Innovation Fellows members announce five projects to promote positive change at Jewell

Alyssa Young — Sat, 21 Nov 2015 03:30:01 +0000

University Innovation Fellows (UIF) is a program that trains college students to foster creativity and change at their schools. The program has trained students on over 100 campuses across the nation. Fellows hope to create a lasting impact on their campuses.

At William Jewell College, there are UIF members ranging in year and discipline. Landon Young is the overseeing faculty of Jewell’s Fellows. They are all working on different projects to promote positive change on our campus, utilizing the training they have received as members of the program.

“I joined UIF to make the connections and learn to think through a different lens,” said Gretchen Mayes, junior accounting and communication major.

Mayes and the rest of the UIF team are working to expand the entrepreneurial and innovative mindset on campus.

Macy Tush, sophomore physics major, is focusing on the connections between students and faculty. She hopes to highlight the passions that WJC faculty have and share them with students so we can be more informed about what goes on in their lives outside of Jewell.

“We have some incredible professors here at Jewell. However, there is a disconnect between professors and the success they are having outside of the classroom and the students that are not in their discipline,” said Tush.

Tush’s project is to implement a way to bridge the communication gap in order for students in all disciplines to be familiar with the faculty and feel comfortable going to them for help.

Ben Shinogle, junior English and political science major, has geared his project toward solving the programming miscommunications between student leaders and the rest of campus. Shinogle has found that, in his experience, a very small percentage of the student body consistently shows up to scheduled events on campus.

“This is concerning to me; after all, social activities and celebrations are a central component to college life,” said Shinogle.

Through some thorough analysis, Shinogle has come up with ideas as to why this problem continues to occur.

“After dozens of interviews, my thinking regarding the problem has evolved significantly and I have several ideas of varying sophistication in mind,” said Shinogle.

Shinogle believes the problem may stem from student apathy towards programming or overbooking students with too many events. He plans to put these hypotheses to action in order to try to solve the issue.

Alex Holden, junior economics, communication, psychology, philosophy major and ACT-In major, has chosen to perform quantitative psychology research on student happiness at the College.

“I’m happy at Jewell, and I want everyone else to be happy,” said Holden.

Holden is looking at possible causes for student unhappiness and wants to know what keeps students happy at Jewell. He will use this information to come up with a solution to increase happiness at the College.

Trevor Nicks, senior biochemistry major, is interested in the way that WJC prepares its students for the world and how students are taught during their time at the College.

“I originally joined UIF because I thought it would provide me a platform on which I could speak about public education inequality in the state of Missouri, something I’m very passionate about,” said Nicks.

For his project, Nicks is utilizing edx.org, an online learning platform created by Harvard and Massachusetts Institution of Technology. He is going to use this program to create specialized learning experiences for Jewell students who take part in independent studies.

“[edx.org] is a way for people to gain an in-depth understanding of their degrees’ content but also have a broad knowledge base and skill set,” said Nicks.

So what is the point of becoming a fellow?

Fellows at Jewell find that UIF pushes them out of their disciplines and requires them to interact with students and faculty with whom they would not otherwise be involved. This is not limited to on-campus interactions.

“We went to Virginia for a meet up with the other fellows, and I met people from Portland, Canada, South Dakota and the East Coast. Instead of knowing people regionally, I am meeting people from around the continent,” said Holden.

Fellows also look at our campus in a new light in order to make sustainable change at our school.

“We are trained to look at campus in a new and innovative way. This gives us the ability to find creative ways to make our campus better,” said Tush.

UIF provides students with opportunities for progress and the chance to meet other people who share their passions.

“What I really enjoy about UIF is the opportunities it provides me with. Already I’ve met students from around the world and employers from all over the country that are passionate about innovation. The conversations I’ve had with them and the resulting projects and thoughts have been my favorite part of UIF,” said Nicks.

In order to become a fellow, an application and faculty recommendation are required. After the applications are reviewed, certain applicants will move onto an interview round. To learn more about UIF and the opportunities it can provide, go to universityinnovationfellows.org.

Jewell students innovate at #OneDayKC

Brianna Steiert — Fri, 08 May 2015 22:00:55 +0000

On Apr. 24, 2015, undergraduate and graduate students from around the Midwest came together for the 12-hour innovation workshop #OneDayKC.

Kansas City is experiencing many technological and infrastructural developments, including Cisco’s Smart City initiative, the KC Streetcar and Google Fiber. #OneDayKC organized students into groups and introduced them to civic challenges in the KC area, such as sustainability, transit, municipal services, healthcare, education, recreation and public spaces. Each team was responsible for creating a “big-picture” solution similar to those already being developed in KC to the problem of their choosing.

30 students from seven universities, including William Jewell College, Rockhurst University, UMKC, Missouri S&T, Kansas University, St. Louis University and Blue Valley CAPS, participated in #OneDayKC. William Jewell College was represented by six students: Macy Tush, first-year physics major, Kristen Agar, first-year accounting and interactive digital media major, Brianna Steiert, first-year Oxbridge molecular biology major, Alex Holden, sophomore international economics, communication, philosophy and ACT-In major, Kyle Ainge, sophomore international relations and political science major, and Trevor Nicks, junior biochemistry major.

“[I wanted] to learn about entrepreneurship and expand my network outside of the Jewell bubble,” said Tush.

Nicks found out about the event through fellow Jewell student Bradley Dice, junior physics, chemistry, mathematics and ACT-In major and wanted to participate because he is interested in entrepreneurial business.

The event was organized by Dice along with University of Missouri-KC student Zach Pettet and Rockhurst University student Sarah Jones. This group spent four months preparing for the innovation workshop. They had to reserve venues, recruit speakers, invite participants, find mentors and judges and decide how to fit it all into 12 hours.

“I worked as curriculum director for the day. I helped design our experiments and methods, put together resources to teach about new technology and organized a schedule that would keep participants engaged in the design process,” Dice said.

Several mentors with specialties in areas such as mobile technology, service design, architecture and urban planning contributed their knowledge to the event and its participants.The day began at the UMKC Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation with multiple presentations from distinguished guests, including Jewell Director of Creativity and Innovation Landon Young.

Students were then given time to work on and develop their projects at Think Big Partners and Spring Accelerator, businesses dedicated to helping entrepreneurs.

The day ended at Union Station with all the teams pitching their ideas to a panel of judges. The judges included Chancellor Leo Morton of UMKC; Tom Gerend, executive director of the KC Streetcar Authority; Diana Kander, best-selling author; Sam Meers of Meers Advertising and Bob Regnier, founder of Blue Valley Bank.

Ideas were judged on three criteria: experiments & evidence, concept & creativity and impact & inclusion. The panel was looking for something new, well-thought out and feasible.

The winner of the #OneDayKC was given the opportunity to attend GigHacks May 1-3 in KC to see their idea come to life. The winning team is also being given a spot at One Million Cups to pitch its idea in front of investors who could potentially invest in the idea.

The winning team, which included Jewell students Ainge and Steiert, along with four other students from various universities, pitched “Bopp,” a crowd-sourcing method for streetcar users to find trending places in real time. This project would work with the KC streetcar authority to incorporate the already planned kiosks at all streetcar stops. The app would allow visitors and natives to find the most “boppin” places.

“At a surface level, I gained an insight of the entrepreneurial world. But moreover, I gained an insight as to how some people see the world as an oyster, where others see nothing, which allowed me the time to appreciate the ingenuity of people with purposeful actions,” said Ainge.

The runner-up idea was “Flash Foods,” a mobile farmers market.

“It’s a platform that would allow farmers to connect with those living in food deserts,” said Tush.

Farmers would be able to post about their leftover food and meet up with citizens living in food deserts, providing them with access to fresh food. Other projects included “Walkcom,” a smart sidewalk; “Park Shark,” an app to help relieve the frustrations of parking through GPS and smart sensors; “2AM,” a service to help people get home safely at night if they lose their phone and “KC Air,” smart sensors assisting in the follow-through of 311 reports.

“[Walkcom is] a solar powered sidewalk that would enable data collection through pressure sensors, while simultaneously interacting with pedestrians through a LED display,” said Nicks, who worked on the project.

In 12 hours, students learned to work with a team to launch an idea to shape the future of KC.

“The whole day was great, but in general, I just enjoyed meeting new people and networking,” said Nicks.

Dice, Jones and Pettet made sure the day was not all work and no play by hosting entertaining, engaging speakers, switching up the location frequently, allowing students to interview the public and providing lots of free food.

“[My favorite part was] Bradley Dice’s sick cover of ‘Ice Ice Baby,’” said Tush.

Two members from the “Bopp” team, as well as Dice, Jones and Pettet, attended GigHacks and were able to start the development of “Bopp.” The team plans to pitch its idea at One Million Cups May 13th.