The proposal is for the Student Innovation Center, a hub on ISU’s campus intended to create a space dedicated to student collaboration.
“This building will be a maker place, a place where things are designed and conceived and fabricated,” said Gary Mirka, associate dean for ISU’s College of Engineering. “One of the characteristics of Iowa State students is the hands-on experience they get, and we want to enhance that as much as we can. The Student Innovation Center has the possibility of being a central point for that activity in our university.”
Mirka said a common response from ISU recruiters was student interest in a hands-on education. While Mirka said there are gathering places across campus for that experience, the university wanted a central location where students from all colleges could work together.
The conversation to create the center originated between the College of Design and the College of Engineering, but Mirka said it would be crucial to have students from other colleges involved.
“For instance, there’s a lot of business topics that need to be addressed whenever you’re doing innovative work,” he said. “If we want to do more than create inventions, if these are going to be true innovations, then we need to be considering the business aspect.”
The space would also be open to ISU student organizations, and Mirka said groups like the PrISUm Solar Car Team or the university’s branch of the Society of Automotive Engineers would have a new work space to further develop their products.
Mirka said the center could include three levels of activity: curricular, where students could focus on their class work; co-curricular, where student organizations could gather to work; and extracurricular, where the space would be open for students to develop their own projects.
“It’s just students working on interesting design problems and learning through that process,” Mirka said.
A proposed location for the center would be north of the Marston Water Tower on campus, in the space currently occupied by the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory. But Mirka said any solid planning for the center must wait until the proposal is approved by Gov. Branstad and the Iowa state budget is determined by the Legislature.
The center’s estimated budget would be $80 million, and half of the funding would come from the state while the other half would be raised through donations. An anonymous donation of $20 million has already been received for the project, but Mirka said the university must wait for official approval before seeking more funding.
“What we’ve done so far is to look at the space from a programming perspective, what we want in there and how much space it might take. Once the funding situation becomes a little clearer, we can take the next steps and start real design,” Mirka said. “We’ve got the support and commitment from the Legislature and we remain hopeful that Gov. Branstad will sign the bill, making the center a reality.”
©2015 the Ames Tribune, Iowa, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
