W.S. Lee College of Engineering Joins Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network

Partnership is dedicated to advancing the engineering education ecosystem

UNC Charlotte’s William States Lee College of Engineering has become a member of KEEN: The Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network, a national partnership of 65+ higher education institutions across the country. As defined by KEEN, the network’s mission is to graduate “engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset so they can create personal, economic, and societal value through a lifetime of meaningful work.”

KEEN defines entrepreneurial mindset differently from entrepreneurship. Rather than founding companies, KEEN focuses on changing students’ mindsets.  The entrepreneurial mindset amplifies the technical skills engineers already have. By combining it with these skills, students are equipped to:

• Recognize and identify opportunities
• Focus their impact
• Create value in any context

This cultivates the ability to solve societal problems and create an environment for flourishing. As a partner in this network, Charlotte can better equip future generations of engineers to more successfully address these growing challenges.

“We are excited to welcome UNC Charlotte to the KEEN network,” said Ranen McLanahan, program director with the Kern Family Foundation. “Their efforts in developing a Common First Year curriculum embedded with an entrepreneurial mindset demonstrate a forward-thinking approach that will impact students across all engineering disciplines.

At its core, KEEN is a critical connection point for a select group of higher education institutions, or “partners.” These partners share carefully curated resources including best practices and adaptable activities that can train engineering students to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. Grounded in the foundational components of curiosity, connections and creation of value, this approach facilitates the engineers’ ability to make an impact through meaningful work.

“Innovation education and research are key goals on my ‘vision board’ for the college since innovators have a significant impact on our society,” said Rob Keynton, dean of the W.S. Lee College of Engineering, who drove the intention to join KEEN. “This KEEN partnership will enable us to achieve this aspect of our vision. It is critical for our students to possess the entrepreneurial and innovative thinking skills necessary for successful engineering careers in industry as well as academia.”

With this partnership in the KEEN national platform, the engineering faculty will draw inspiration from the content modules, hands-on activities and pedagogical innovation. Likewise, faculty will also share their own innovative practices with the other partners.

“KEEN’s Entrepreneurial Mindset shapes a unique approach to problem solving and innovation,” said Meg Harkins, Associate Professor of Practice and KEEN Leader.  “Niner engineers will combine the entrepreneurial mindset with their engineering skills to drive their education and creativity.”

Charlotte’s engineering college has long taken an entrepreneurial approach to developing the education experience for its students. As an example, the leaders took the traditional senior design program model and expanded it to provide an immersion into experiential learning. A typical senior design program provides the student a single semester in mono-disciplined teams designing solutions to department-constructed engineering problems. 

At Charlotte, engineering students dive into two full semesters of senior design projects, 86% of which are industry sponsored. The partners bring in actual engineering problems and mentor multi-disciplinary student teams throughout the design-build-test process. Each of the 90 teams works through the year, many visiting their sponsor’s facilities and meeting the professionals needing the solution. Occasionally, the students’ prototypes are even put into production, allowing the students even more ownership of their experiential learning.

This senior design structure often serves as a year-long, hands-on interview with the industry partners, with many students landing permanent job offers before graduation.  Students not only learn to apply their technical skills to a real world problem, they experience the 3 C’s of an entrepreneurial mindset; curiosity, connection and creating value.

Partnering with KEEN will help fuel the college mission of empowering students to tackle complex challenges, create innovative solutions and drive positive change in their communities.