CHALLENGE
The world's next generation of students are going to be asked to solve some of the world's most wicked problems. Higher education curriculum must reflect this change.
The College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame was looking for a strategic identity from which to revitalize its tradition-rich curriculum and to activate its next generation of innovative problem-solvers. I was hired by the SAP University Alliances to design the future of engineering education at Notre Dame.
INSIGHT
My ethnographic study of students, faculty, decision-makers, employers, and leading design firms brought empathy and insight to the future framework for engineering students in Catholic higher education.
Notre Dame's engineering students have big aspirations, but the current framework of higher ed does not offer a productive language for students to realize those aspirations.
What if we stopped asking studnets what major or job they wanted, and instead asked students
[what problems do you want to solve in the world?]
PROCESS
To find a better language for students and to build empathy, I joined their clubs. While building robots and off-road vehicles with them, I saw how students were talking about and finding the problems they cared about through minors and concentrations, which begged the question -- is a minor enough to solve the most pressing global challenges?
I set out to design a framework which helped engineering professors have a more productive structure for equipping students with the skills and real-world experience they need to take on modern, dynamic engineering challenges. This framework shifted the paradigm of education from choosing majors to choosing problems, and using a student's major as a means to tackle it.
I designed, prototyped, tested, and refined a set of program and space concepts with students, professors, and employers to create a program structure which activated global problem-solvers, including the staffing layers and physical space to let it all unfold.
IMPACT
The strategic identity I designed for Notre Dame Engineering was grounded on Global Challenges, the themes of which created a more productive conversation for the "ND Engineer" and existed at the intersection of the Grand Challenges for Engineering, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and Catholic Social Teaching: human health, environment, energy, security, and economic development.
The framework launched a new programmatic initiative with the College of Engineering including a Director-level position within the Dean's office to implement the program recommendations to focus students on solving meaningful problems in innovative ways.
