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Montana State University
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The Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering is at the core of MSU's land-grant mission, providing an inclusive, hands-on learning environment that supports academic excellence, strives for innovation in research and serves the community in Montana and beyond.

With nearly 4,000 students we are the second largest college at MSU and one of the largest engineering programs in the Northwest. We strive to empower students to be tomorrow's leaders through degree programs in 14 undergraduate majors, 14 minors, 14 master's degree options and 10 Ph.D. options. We actively leverage shared interests and talents among faculty and students in order to create knowledge across disciplinary lines resulting in 2018 research expenditures of $15 million. Our research entities include world-class centers and laboratories. Our outreach includes annual events for K-12 Montana youth, public events such as the Design Fair, and the Empower program.

Why We're In KEEN
The core of why MSU values membership in the KEEN network can be summarized in two words: mission alignment. The engineering, engineering technology, and computer science programs of the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering are at the core of MSU's land-grant mission as we seek to develop and deploy novel approaches to educating engineers and empower students to be tomorrow’s leaders.

Current Work
A key focus of these educational approaches is to foster interdisciplinary engagement and collaboration among students and faculty and facilitate increased creativity and innovation among both students and faculty.

These outcomes are perfectly aligned with the three C’s of the entrepreneurial mindset and membership in the network gives us access to a powerful group of other like-minded educators who also place a high value on educational outcomes beyond technical expertise.

Through our "Bobcats Unleashed" Faculty Learning Community, we learn new, exciting, and effective tools that improve the education of MSU engineers, improving their ability to make a difference. Additionally, through our "KEEN Korner" monthly newsletter, we are able to disseminate information about KEEN, upcoming activities, and highlight what faculty are doing in the classroom.

At the National level, we are engaging with other KEEN institutions and sharing our expertise with other members we increase our own impact and improve engineering education beyond the walls of MSU. Together with other members of the network, we are broadly impacting engineering education, putting more engineers who recognize how to creatively create value into the workforce. These changes can bring a massive benefit to our world – which is the heart of why higher education is so important to our society.

Featured Cards

  • Crags to Riches - a hands-on activity where students create climbing holds from clay with special attention to the customer's needs.

  • Statistics and Entrepreneurial Mindset - bringing in real estate and other real world examples to create curious statistics students.

  • Yes/No Detector - a project to engage students in signal processing in an electrical engineering course.


In the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering at MSU we seek to empower students to be tomorrow’s leaders through the integration of learning and discovery. To fulfill this mission, we must provide students an engineering skillset while developing a mindset that seeks out new opportunities and wants to make a difference in the world. KEEN membership gives us a powerful network of other like-minded educators who also value the combined power of skillset and mindset and want to develop both in students.
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Jeffrey Kinkaid
published a card
Start groups analyzing an interesting design immediately; explore alternate solution paths as content is presented.

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Durward Sobek
published a card
Course was adapted to encourage students to learn how to learn from each other and build informal leadership skills