The students join a global community of Fellows charged with creating opportunities to help their peers build the creative confidence, agency and entrepreneurial mindset needed to address global challenges.
Seven Elon University students have been named University Innovation Fellows (UIF) by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattnew Institute of Design (d.school).
Jane Ragland ‘23, a finance and accounting double major; Christina Wyatt ‘23, a finance and economic consulting double major; Margaret Cox ’23, an engineering major; Zoe Rein ‘23, a math with teacher licensure major; Jakob Reuter ’23, an entrepreneurship major; Haydn Stucker ‘23, a mechanical engineering and computer science double major; and Riley Corvin ‘23, an economic consulting major; are among the 198 students selected from 45 higher education institutions in 14 countries.
“Higher education needs to change faster to meet the needs of students and industry today,” said Humera Fasihuddin, co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program. “In traditional education systems, students have to wait until they graduate to make a difference. We don’t believe that. As the key stakeholders of higher education, students should be active participants in a change process that helps them learn the skills and mindsets necessary to create the future. The students who participate in our program are ideally poised to help accelerate the pace of change at their schools.”
Following acceptance into the program, students participate in a six-week online training experience, where they learn to analyze their campus ecosystems and identify opportunities for change related to innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking, and creativity. Fellows work to understand the needs of peers across disciplines and the perspectives of faculty and administrators. They apply this new knowledge and perspective to design new educational opportunities for their peers, implementing the projects they crafted.
“We’ve trained these new Fellows to identify opportunities for change at their schools and to design experiences that help all students learn skills and mindsets necessary to shape the future,” said Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, co-director of the University Innovation Fellows program. “These Fellows are giving back to their school communities, and at the same time they’re also learning strategies that will help them serve as leaders in their careers after graduation.”
Elon’s University Innovation Fellows are supported by the Doherty Center for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, with Alyssa Martina, director of the Doherty Center, serving as their UIF faculty champion.
Ragland, Wyatt, Cox, Rein, Reuter, Stucker and Corvin join Regan O’Donnell ’21, Gillian Hook ’21, Samual Gans ’22, Julia Perline ’22, Lilly Rothschild ’22, and Alaa Suleiman ’22 as University Innovation Fellows at Elon. Current Elon UIF projects include organizing the annual Business + STEM speaker’s program and launching Igniting Innovation, a podcast focusing on entrepreneurial ideas and processes as well as young innovators and entrepreneurs.