This post is a follow-on to last week’s post: “Synopsis of an Ethnography Situated at an Ivy.” The wide toolbox metaphor is core to my argument that a broad approach is necessary to prepare leaders for the 21st century knowledge workforce: learning that combines STEM’s focus on feasibility, the liberal arts’ focus on human intention, and business’ focus on viability. The wide toolbox concept expands the narrow lens through which students who major in humanities fields and STEM disciplines see the world; it provides students an enhanced perspective though which to perceive and interpret real world problems, and a skill-set to innovate solutions to human needs and pressing global challenges. Also, the experiential nature of entrepreneurship is an important component because through the process of ideation to product or service launch, students develop a mind-set about how to discover ways to implement their original insights and ideas.

An e-mail I received concerning last week’s post raised an important question: Are any of the Yale elements, or are the ensemble of Yale elements, unique (and valuable) and if so, in what way? Just to recap the five key elements of the Yale wide toolbox learning model (the “Elements”) are as follows:

• Student-oriented infrastructure that covers entrepreneurship pedagogy, academic maker spaces, venture creation, and for profit and social entrepreneurship.
• Mentors for students from academia, business, government, and not-for-profit sectors.
• Alumni engagement and active participation.
• Championing led by the institution’s governing Board, administration, and faculty.
• Encourage learning that develops a wide toolbox: critical thinking skills, history, design thinking, an ability to work with and interpret numbers and statistics, access to the insights of great writers and artists, a willingness to experiment, the ability to navigate ambiguity, basic understanding of technology, science and engineering.

The short answer to the question posed in the e-mail is that the Elements are not necessarily unique to Yale, but how the Elements are combined or weighted will vary depending on an institution’s learning culture. “Learning culture,” says Richard K. Miller, President of Olin College of Engineering, “is not about the courses.” In his speech at UC Berkeley, Miller further stated that learning culture is about how students think about who is responsible for what they learn, the meaning and purpose of what they are doing in the classroom and in extracurricular activities, and how faculty think about their role in the institution. Yale controls all aspects of the Elements, whereas Olin, which only offers a degree in engineering, has partnered with Babson College to offer its students access to the business component of the Elements and it has partnered with Wellesley College to offer its students access to the liberal arts component. Because of these partnerships Olin is able to treat engineering as a holistic discipline and enable its students to develop the wide toolbox skill-set. This trio of colleges creates “a virtual university.”

During the spring 2014 semester, several professors and students from Olin visited Yale to tour the Center for Engineering, Innovation and Design (“CEID”) and to meet with CEID staff. (I attended a luncheon meeting with the Olin contingent.) Their stated goal for the visit was to gather information about how to design and configure an academic maker space. CEID, among educators at all levels, is considered one of the premier undergraduate maker spaces in the country.

Olin is an interesting comparative case study because it was founded with the mission to change how undergraduate engineering is taught. It was intended to be a laboratory for experimenting with various pedagogic methodologies. Olin approaches engineering education from an interdisciplinary perspective. It focuses on engineering as a creative discipline and prepares students to be engineering innovators. For instance, a senior capstone project must be in the arts, the humanities or entrepreneurship. The Olin learning model has design thinking as a core principle: everything begins with people. Olin’s holistic view of what it means to be an engineer is not just about applied science. This viewpoint sees engineering education at the intersection of engineering, business, and liberal arts.

The wide toolbox is central to how I am interpreting the relevance of my work in the present. Moreover, I hope to make a contribution to a larger debate about the role of the humanities in secondary education. Or alternatively, to make a contribution to the debate about how to educate students for an uncertain future due to the rapidity of technological changes and their impacts on all aspects of our lives. Both debates share a common view that there is a need to foster a holistic approach to producing a new creative mind-set regardless of whether students aspire to work in the fields of medicine, law, business, education, science, or engineering. Ultimately, I want to make a contribution to the advancement of teaching, mentoring and coaching future leaders of 21st century knowledge workers.