KEEN 2020 Annual Report

20 SPOTLIGHT ON FUNDING COFFEE with KEEN: Local Funding Opportunities Help Attract Students and Sustain Entrepreneurially Minded Learning (EML) The University of Toledo (UT) has leveraged state scholar- ship funding to help attract the brightest graduates from Ohio high schools into UT’s KEEN EML-imbued engineer- ing entrepreneurship minor programs: Entrepreneurship, Family and Small Business, and Professional Sales. The program enables implementation efforts of EML concepts in the first-year student engineering experience. The local funding seems the perfect complement to KEEN. The COFFEE Scholarship (“Choose Ohio First for Engineer- ing Entrepreneurship”) pairs engineering with entrepre- neurship and hands-on business experience, so graduates excel with technical skills and a minor in much-needed business expertise. The COFFEE scholarship is funded by the State of Ohio’s Choose Ohio First (COF) program, which seeks to address Ohio’s STEM workforce needs and grow the Ohio and U.S. economies. The program has curricular and extra-curricular compo- nents. In addition, public and private employers provide advice, entrepreneur-mentors, and co-op employment to scholarship recipients. The outcome aligns with what STEM companies need - engineers who can relate to and sell to their customers. UT leadership ensures the program embodies EML and the 3C’s (curiosity, connections, and creating value) by introducing these concepts from day one in the students’ First-year COFFEE scholars with keynote speaker Tyler Oberly, Director of Analytics for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, at the COF Scholar Showcase in Feb 2019. Lt. Gov Husted with first-year Information Technology student Rida Ali and her poster at the COF Scholar Showcase in Feb 2020. Dr. Scott Molitor https://engineeringunleashed.com/profile/view/2632 Dr. Norman Rapino https://engineeringunleashed.com/profile/view/2206 first year. Dr. Scott Molitor, Sr. Associate Dean for Aca- demic Affairs, believes what KEEN enables is a competi- tive edge for students in both their engineering course- work and their co-op experiences. He states, “We’ve augmented the first-year experience so students focus on identifying the right problem to solve and understand how their work creates value. The framework around the 3C’s will help students grow as lifelong learners.” Dr. Norman Rapino, Professor of Practice of Entrepre- neurship and Entrepreneurially Minded Learning, be- lieves that every engineer starts out being curious. The trick is to show them how curiosity translates to lifelong learning through the process of creating value—both for themselves and for their employers. He shares, “Creating value means understanding the business realities of the company and its customers. We talk about these things regularly so it’s not a foreign topic. Staying current in the knowledge base of your field, paying attention, and being proactive are essential to create value for your employer as well as for yourself through job satisfaction and personal success. There’s a conscious effort to infuse the higher-level KEEN ideals in every assignment, with a practical-minded emphasis on what engineers will do in their everyday work. The goal is to make these students more employable, more successful, and more personally fulfilled.” In forging strong relevant connections with its state fund- ing agencies, the University of Toledo has amplified its KEEN EML capabilities, aided the community’s industrial needs, increased the future value of its graduates, and helped establish EML as part of the academic culture.