Bradley University Vision and Strategic Plan
We deliver an engaging education that transcends traditional boundaries through scholarly and practical experiences in a diverse, caring and inclusive environment to prepare purpose-driven leaders who achieve success and build a better world.
Bradley University: An investment in the life you want.
The world-class Business Engineering Convergence Center is home to both the Caterpillar College of Engineering and Technology and the Foster College of Business, which are served by a single dean. This model helps us empower students for sustained success through experiential learning opportunities, build an entrepreneurial mindset, and prepare them to tackle complex problems through interdisciplinary and convergence approaches. We provide a caring environment that fosters a sense of belonging and prepares students to be life-long learners and leaders in their professions and in their communities.
Why We're In KEEN
We recognize the value of connecting with like-minded faculty and institutions across the country to leverage our collective strengths to educate. The engineering students who will lead the nation in addressing the challenges we face. The educational resources available to us as a KEEN Partner institution will help us achieve our vision of convergence and educating our students with an entrepreneurial mindset (EM) approach.
As more of our faculty begin to adopt active learning practices and EM strategies and tools, our students will benefit immensely and become even more engaged in the dynamic process of learning. Our faculty are excited to create tools and practices that can be leveraged by their peers at other institutions.
Current Work
We recognize the value of connecting convergence and EM connections. Our convergence capstone course features several student projects between engineering, business, and computer science teams, which we created by re-imagining teamwork using EM to create value.
Our inaugural Capstone Day and Open House on April 28th, 2023 was an immense success, featuring more than 60 student projects within and across engineering and business disciplines. The second edition of this special day will be held on April 26th, 2024 and features 5 special convergence projects.
Our faculty are becoming more active in producing cards that can be used at other KEEN partner institutions.
Another upcoming activity is a lunch and learn workshop open to the entire university that will show how connecting cost with engineering creates value. When cost is considered then the optimum or best efficiency for an energy system can be determined. Since most people do not budget for the optimum efficiency then a return on investment analysis can be performed to persuade the owner to invest in the optimum efficiency.
Faculty will see how this is applied to the selection of a heating system. Finally, facilitators with backgrounds in economics will use the Jig Saw technique to help faculty connect cost to their discipline to create value. The results will shared with the group through a gallery walk.
Previous Work
We started the 2023-24 academic year with a great workshop over two days by Ranen McLanahan (The Kern Family Foundation), which was attended by 26 faculty from both colleges (engineering and business).
Dr. Yufeng Lu was recognized as one of the 2023 Engineering Unleashed Fellows. Yufeng completely redesigned his Signals and Systems course using EML, and the accompanying card is rich with content to share. He is interested in continuing to evolve his other courses to have more EML content.
On November 9, 2023, Dr. Kurt Paterson visited Bradley University to be part of a special workshop. The KEEN Mini-Workshop: Improving Student Learning Outcomes was organized by Dr. David Zietlow, a KEEN Leaders at Bradley University. We also initiated a mini-grant program to encourage faculty in at least two different disciplines to work together and produce modules and course materials with EML content.
Dr. David Zietlow presented "The 4Cs" at the Bradley University Spring 2024 forum on January 10, 2024. The presentation was attended by over 20 faculty and staff colleagues across the university and generated some great discussion and interest in the EM approach in different disciplines. Our goal is to engage our colleagues across campus in KEEN and build momentum for a transformational change.
Featured Cards
Dr. Yufeng Lu has initiated some excellent work, featured in his card: What You Learn Is More Than What You See: Signal Processing Education Using EML.
He has also helped bring more faculty into KEEN by inspiring them through his own work and his successes in the classroom. He is also working with colleagues from across the country (e.g., Georgia Tech) on Virtually Integrated Project sequence brings sophomores, juniors, and seniors together to work and learn from each other in the Electrical and Computer Engineering curriculum.
We deliver an engaging education that transcends traditional boundaries through scholarly and practical experiences in a diverse, caring and inclusive environment to prepare purpose-driven leaders who achieve success and build a better world.
Bradley University: An investment in the life you want.
The world-class Business Engineering Convergence Center is home to both the Caterpillar College of Engineering and Technology and the Foster College of Business, which are served by a single dean. This model helps us empower students for sustained success through experiential learning opportunities, build an entrepreneurial mindset, and prepare them to tackle complex problems through interdisciplinary and convergence approaches. We provide a caring environment that fosters a sense of belonging and prepares students to be life-long learners and leaders in their professions and in their communities.
Why We're In KEEN
We recognize the value of connecting with like-minded faculty and institutions across the country to leverage our collective strengths to educate. The engineering students who will lead the nation in addressing the challenges we face. The educational resources available to us as a KEEN Partner institution will help us achieve our vision of convergence and educating our students with an entrepreneurial mindset (EM) approach.
As more of our faculty begin to adopt active learning practices and EM strategies and tools, our students will benefit immensely and become even more engaged in the dynamic process of learning. Our faculty are excited to create tools and practices that can be leveraged by their peers at other institutions.
Current Work
We recognize the value of connecting convergence and EM connections. Our convergence capstone course features several student projects between engineering, business, and computer science teams, which we created by re-imagining teamwork using EM to create value.
Our inaugural Capstone Day and Open House on April 28th, 2023 was an immense success, featuring more than 60 student projects within and across engineering and business disciplines. The second edition of this special day will be held on April 26th, 2024 and features 5 special convergence projects.
Our faculty are becoming more active in producing cards that can be used at other KEEN partner institutions.
Another upcoming activity is a lunch and learn workshop open to the entire university that will show how connecting cost with engineering creates value. When cost is considered then the optimum or best efficiency for an energy system can be determined. Since most people do not budget for the optimum efficiency then a return on investment analysis can be performed to persuade the owner to invest in the optimum efficiency.
Faculty will see how this is applied to the selection of a heating system. Finally, facilitators with backgrounds in economics will use the Jig Saw technique to help faculty connect cost to their discipline to create value. The results will shared with the group through a gallery walk.
Previous Work
We started the 2023-24 academic year with a great workshop over two days by Ranen McLanahan (The Kern Family Foundation), which was attended by 26 faculty from both colleges (engineering and business).
Dr. Yufeng Lu was recognized as one of the 2023 Engineering Unleashed Fellows. Yufeng completely redesigned his Signals and Systems course using EML, and the accompanying card is rich with content to share. He is interested in continuing to evolve his other courses to have more EML content.
On November 9, 2023, Dr. Kurt Paterson visited Bradley University to be part of a special workshop. The KEEN Mini-Workshop: Improving Student Learning Outcomes was organized by Dr. David Zietlow, a KEEN Leaders at Bradley University. We also initiated a mini-grant program to encourage faculty in at least two different disciplines to work together and produce modules and course materials with EML content.
Dr. David Zietlow presented "The 4Cs" at the Bradley University Spring 2024 forum on January 10, 2024. The presentation was attended by over 20 faculty and staff colleagues across the university and generated some great discussion and interest in the EM approach in different disciplines. Our goal is to engage our colleagues across campus in KEEN and build momentum for a transformational change.
Featured Cards
Dr. Yufeng Lu has initiated some excellent work, featured in his card: What You Learn Is More Than What You See: Signal Processing Education Using EML.
He has also helped bring more faculty into KEEN by inspiring them through his own work and his successes in the classroom. He is also working with colleagues from across the country (e.g., Georgia Tech) on Virtually Integrated Project sequence brings sophomores, juniors, and seniors together to work and learn from each other in the Electrical and Computer Engineering curriculum.
At Bradley University, we seek to cultivate character and curiosity in our students to help them forge connections to create solutions for the complex challenges that we face today. We prepare our next generation of leaders to recognize opportunities and design impactful boundary-spanning solutions that benefit society.
