“Entrepreneurship is that real-world experience. It is taking what you’re doing in the classroom and extending it both in terms of opportunities and problem solving. And interestingly, it’s the student entrepreneurs who are telling us that it has to be interdisciplinary because the problems they see and that they’re working on can’t be accomplished alone.
“Four students came up to me over the weekend and showed me a prosthetic hand for children, and they made it on a 3-D printer. I realized I was talking to engineering students and architecture students working together to try to solve a problem. Students today are self-organizing by figuring out what it takes to solve a problem, not by staying in their disciplinary silos. It’s a fascinating part of the evolution of higher education that we’re getting to witness, and we need to encourage it.”
— Penn State President Eric Barron, speaking as part of a panel of university presidents at the 2015 Engagement Scholarship Consortium Conference at Penn State, held in the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. The panel also included James Madison University President Jonathan Alger and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University President Timothy Sands. The presidents discussed different aspects of Engaged Scholarship on their campuses, including entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary work, assessment, online education and their visions for the future.