The Dream-Do Nexus
A university’s academic mission is traditionally dedicated to student success through academic excellence within individual courses taken in specific student degree plans. This session focuses on processes followed, insights gained, and lessons learned to date in creating and establishing a Dream-Do Nexus anchored in a long-standing learning experience that enables students to develop their imagination, creativity, innovation, design, and entrepreneurship skills and abilities to dream and envision futures and to define and take the necessary steps to make them happen.
A student-centered accelerator for business startups complements this nexus and transcends this mission. It also will create a culture, an environment, and an infrastructure for making dreams come true, serving as a place offering students (1) an applied creativity hub to generate ideas, (2) a business incubation center to make those ideas business realities, and (3) access to key stakeholders in evaluating marketplace challenges and opportunities for those potential businesses.
Participants will leave the session with an understanding of:
- How a framework for a learning experience takes students from initial baselines as individuals and as team members in the pursuit of imagination, creativity, innovation, design, and entrepreneurship; through daydreaming using “flow” and progressive relaxation exercises as key elements for generating ideas and knowledge; to general strategies, processes, tools, and principles for developing new products, processes, services, and business models.
- How to build a framework for a student-centered accelerator for business startups composed of an applied creativity hub to generate ideas, a business incubation center, and a physical space to support creative activities and interactions among students, former students, faculty researchers, technical and administrative staff specialists, and other interested stakeholders.
Rodney Hill is a professor in the Department of Architecture and a member of the board of directors of the Institute for Applied Creativity, College of Architecture at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
Jorge A. Vanegas is dean of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University and an international artist and sculptor, College Station, Texas, USA
