San Marcos,
05
March
2020
|
08:00 AM
America/Los_Angeles

New Home for Innovation Hosts First Event

By Eric Breier

It’s hard to believe it was only about five months ago that Cal State San Marcos President Ellen Neufeldt asked physics professor Chuck De Leone and psychology professor Sharon Hamill to co-chair a faculty advisory committee to consider how to create an on-campus hub for innovation and entrepreneurship.

The 11-member committee, which included representatives from all four colleges and the library, met every Monday for eight weeks and submitted a report to Neufeldt before campus closed for winter break in December.

While the Innovation Hub is continuing to take shape, it has already hosted its first event.

“The purpose of the Innovation Hub is to connect students, faculty and community to the resources and support they need to make innovative ideas come to life,” business professor Sam Clarke told a group of about 100 people who attended the inaugural hour-long event on Feb. 27. “One of our first steps in doing that is introducing you to some of the concepts that are important for innovative activities.”

Clarke and De Leone serve as co-faculty directors of the Innovation Hub, which is located on the first floor of the Extended Learning building. Plans call for one event a month to be held in the Innovation Hub throughout the spring semester while the space continues to get built out.

Alex Waters, program director for CONNECT ALL @ the Jacobs Center, had the distinction of leading the first workshop in the new space. Waters’ presentation, “Solving Other People’s Problems,” focused on customer discovery, how people should be thinking about their customers and understanding how to get information from them.

Neufeldt touted the Innovation Hub’s importance during her Report to the Community address last month.

“While we aren’t the first to establish an innovation hub or to think about how we can teach our students to be innovative and socially aware, we are among the first in the nation to consider how we might launch something of this nature at the intersection of inclusion, diversity and student success,” she told nearly 600 attendees.

“It’s exciting to talk about this because it’s reflective of who we are and the qualities we have exhibited since our founding.”

Visit the Innovation Hub website for more information.

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314