PD2030: Inquiry to Innovation

If you want an experience shaping the workplace of the future, this honors seminar is for you! Students from all disciplines needed! 

Inquiry to Innovation: The Future of Work is an industry-sponsored, trans-disciplinary UC Forward honors seminar offered in collaboration with Cincinnati-based architecture and design research firm BHDP (www.bhdp.com). This highly experiential course challenges students to investigate and predict how and where the next generation workforce will “work” by examining the influence of societal trends and their impacts on human behavior. By exploring the influences of an ever-changing economy, technology advancements, and a culture of rapid innovation, students will look beyond workplace or office design to larger questions of culture, mindset, productivity, and what unities us as people who work. Students will work closely with faculty and BHDP’s leadership to leverage ethnographic research, trend forecasting, and rapid ideation techniques to study and report findings as the project evolves in real-time.  Much of the class will be structured as workshops and collaborative working sessions with BHDP’s team, both on campus and at BHDP’s downtown Cincinnati headquarters.

Past offerings:

• Fall 2019
• Spring 2019

If you love animals and want to invent things or make things that improve their environment, this honors seminar is for you! Students from all disciplines needed! 

In this course, students will partner with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden to develop animal enrichment opportunities to modify surroundings and/or provide products, tools, games, or, instruments for stimulation of or use by Zoo animals. Environmental enrichment serves to create physical and cognitive development, and it can also stimulate unique species-specific behaviors, provide opportunities for choice and control, and offer educational and enjoyable experiences for the Zoo’s visitors. This collaboration is intended to bring a unique set of knowledge, skills, and fresh perspectives to enrichment proposals, particularly those related to engineering, technology, programming, and design. CZBG mentors will work with multi-disciplinary student teams to develop and fabricate product prototypes for testing on-site. Best projects will be eligible for awards and further implementation at the Zoo. Led by Zoo Animal Enrichment Expert David Orban and Architect Frank Russell.

All disciplines, all levels welcome; 3 Credits, fulfills BOK requirements. Contact frank.russell@uc.edu with questions.

Past offerings:

• Spring 2019

This course will provide students with an opportunity to address the issue of Hunger and Food Insecurity in our region.

Inquiry to Innovation: Zero Hunger/Zero Waste is a trans-disciplinary UC Forward honors seminar that is offered in partnership with the Kroger Corporation Zero Hunger/Zero Waste Foundation. In this course students will work in interdisciplinary teams to address this challenging problem of how we can enhance food access for all populations of our region and ameliorate the impact of hunger on families and children. Students will work alongside Kroger collaborators to understand this issue and the populations it effects. Multiple points of view are sought on this issue from the student perspective with the intention of developing proposals to address hunger in practical terms throughout the Greater Cincinnati Area.

Past offerings:

• Fall 2019