Innovation College

Transformative Education 2.0 Vision: Purdue will be the most innovative residential learning program in the US among large research universities.

The Innovation College at Purdue University is part of the Transformative Education 2.0 Purdue Move, which sets a vision that Purdue will be the most innovative residential learning program in the US among large research universities.  The Innovation College is funded by the Lilly Endowment Charting the Future Grant and by TE 2.0 university investment, and is in direct response to the call from campus to

• Create a Hub for Teaching and Learning Innovation, Translation, and Scale-Up,
• Facilitate Meaningful, Flexible, and Cross-Disciplinary, and
• Leverage Characteristics of a Residential Campus to Increase Engagement Curricula

as articulated in The Purdue Roadmap for Transformative Education.

Innovation College Vision: Create an ecosystem to support innovation in teaching and learning and to disseminate and sustain innovation and transdisciplinary programs that will transform higher education teaching and learning. 

Innovation College Mission: Address rapidly changing needs in higher education and the workforce through two important roles:

First, Innovation College is an incubator and accelerator for innovation in pedagogy and transdisciplinary program development. 

Second, Innovation College is a crucial part of the Road Map for Transformative Undergraduate Education to systemically enhance teaching and learning across the entire campus and student experience.  

Overarching Objective:

Innovation College Vision: Create an ecosystem to support innovation in teaching and learning and to disseminate and sustain innovation, transdisciplinary programs, and experiential education to will transform higher education teaching and learning.

Objective 1: Challenge and support students and faculty to create and engage in innovative learning programs, courses, and classroom pedagogy that will improve the student learning experience and increase the number of innovative new courses and transdisciplinary degree programs offered at Purdue.

Objective 2: Lower institutional barriers in higher education that prevent faculty from developing and implementing teaching and learning innovations.  

Objective 3: Actively promote the dissemination and adoption of innovative teaching and learning models at Purdue and raise awareness across Indiana higher education institutions.

Objective 4: Support, enhance, and expand experiential education for undergraduate students 

Structure and Methods

The launch structure and methodology of the Innovation College initially focuses on strategically expanding Experiential Education and creating an Innovation Hub for Teaching and Learning. (creating parallel structure: expanding – creating)

The Innovation Hub:

• Creates project funding mechanisms by which innovators (teams of faculty, staff, and students) can pursue projects to explore scalability both in size and across disciplines/settings
• Emphasizes transdisciplinary experiences for students
• Builds a network of experts and partners (“innovation fellows”) to embed considerations of assessment, equity, student acceptance, and many other dimensions into each innovation project
• Engages in Innovation Hub–level evaluation, data collection, and comparison against target metrics for participants, engagement, and outcomes
• Focuses on development and expansion of innovations, with a secondary outcome on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL)

Office of Experiential Education:

• Increase the quantity, quality, and equity of experiential education opportunities
• Boosts the value of a Purdue education by tracking, enhancing, and scaling experiential education at Purdue through a campus-wide focus on experiential education and an individualized approach to program development
• Facilitates an Experiential Education Community of Practice to support faculty and staff providing experiential opportunities