2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Introducing the Entrepreneurial Mindset into Classes at [R1 University]

Introducing a new initiative at a large campus is challenging; key hurdles include rapidly introducing faculty to the new ideas, creating buy in, and providing an incentive for engagement. As a new member of the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), we needed to introduce the Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM) to faculty across the College of Engineering, provide guidance on how to apply those ideas in classroom content, and encourage rapid adoption of EM across the curriculum. The [R1 institution] Incubator was designed as a two-day, in-person workshop for small groups of faculty to learn about the main EM concepts: curiosity, connections, and creating value. To these, we added collaboration, communication, and character as the spine of our marketing strategy on campus. Each faculty participating in the Incubator was coached in creating a module for their classes over the following year. In addition, we incorporated a subset of these materials in the new faculty orientation for the College of Engineering and have developed other on-campus interactions (e.g. Book Club) to have continuous engagement with faculty outside the intensive workshop. Most recently, we have developed a microcredential program to promote, value and recognize faculty engagement with EM at different levels. This paper will describe these efforts (incubator, continuous engagement, microcredentials) and present the pre- and post-incubator survey results from faculty.

Authors

Dr. Anna K. T. Howard http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0207-6757 North Carolina State University at Raleigh [biography]

Anna Howard is a Teaching Professor at NC State University in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering where she has led the course redesign effort for Engineering Statics. She received her Ph.D. from the Rotorcraft Center of Excellence at Penn State University and is one of the campus leaders of Wolfpack Engineering Unleashed. She has launched and is currently chairing the College Teaching Committee for the NC State College of Engineering.
Katherine Saul North Carolina State University at Raleigh
Nathalie Lavoine http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8259-4070 North Carolina State University at Raleigh [biography]

Since 2018, Nathalie Lavoine has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest Biomaterials at NC State University (Raleigh, North Carolina, US). She received her PhD degree in 2013 from the Laboratory of Pulp & Paper Sciences, and Graphic Arts under the supervision of Dr. Julien Bras and Dr. Isabelle Desloges, in Grenoble, France. She then conducted two postdoctoral research experiences under the supervision of Prof. Akira Isogai at the University of Tokyo, Japan (2014-2016) and Prof. Lennart Bergström at Stockholm University, Sweden (2016-2018).
Her research activities center on the development and engineering of advanced sustainable
materials from biomass, particularly renewable nanomaterials. She has built a research-education integrated platform towards advancing the commercialization of sustainable packaging and renewable nanomaterials and tackle these important research challenges with the help of students, industrial partners, and researchers. This program fosters entrepreneurial thinking to boost outcomes in sustainable advanced materials meanwhile offering career opportunities and professional development support to undergraduate and graduate students.
Dr. Lavoine was recently awarded the 2022 TAPPI NanoDivision Mid-Career award and the 2022 Quanser Sustainability award; both awards recognizing her research and education activities in renewable nanomaterials, sustainability and innovation.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025