2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The [redacted] Library is located in the heart of the campus of [redacted]. As part of a new strategic plan to transform [redacted], the role of the [redacted] Library will become even more important to the university community, including nearly 23,000 students and 1,500 faculty members. This work will specifically focus on the process behind formulating a strategic plan at a land grant university and how it created institutional opportunities for the Bagley College of Engineering to support the institution’s strategic goals on improving the state, regional and national economy.

Consider the following illustrative examples where the College of Engineering at [redacted] is looking to expand experiential learning opportunities for students:

- Engineering students have for about two decades had inexpensive access to the Library’s Digital Media Center. This facility provides spaces for collaboration, concept creation, and 3D printing, all within the scope and theme of innovation and creation. In the advent of additive manufacturing, demand for these resources is at an all-time high.

- The Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach is primarily housed in the College of Business, offering support to students wanting to explore intellectual property and patent development. With 1/3rd of their total engagement with engineering students, there is a lot of interaction with the E-Center. However, spaces for students to develop these ideas is somewhat limited, which leads to lost opportunities.

- The College of Engineering, as part of its educational mission and internal strategic plan, desires to foster ways to engage more closely and collaboratively in partnership with industry with the intent on working side by side on relevant, real-world projects. The college is working on unit-level renovation plans to open up spaces in academic buildings for these activities.

- As part of outreach activities, the College of Engineering aims to host a series of hands-on summer day camps and other programming activities to grow the pipeline to meet the high demand for a diverse, prepared engineering workforce.

Despite these plans, there still is not enough space available to fully advance the university mission. As part of a series of strategic planning exercises, the Dean of Libraries offered unparalleled access to resources and facilities in the [redacted] Library. Engineering was very interested to foster incubator spaces to support departmental design and capstone courses, interdisciplinary projects between engineering departments, and cross-college collaborations in fields such as cross laminated timber (a large industry in the Southeastern United States, involving the College of Architecture, Art and Design; the College of Forest Resources; and the College of Engineering). Broader opportunities beyond experiential learning for the campus community described above include spaces to improving student retention and success; offering spaces for public dialogue; resources to maintain excellent undergraduate and graduate programs, while growing new interdisciplinary pathways to badges, credentials, and certificates; extended reality; data science; digital humanities; a culture of reading; student engagement, etc. Several examples and success stories will be presented in this venue.