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Campbell University
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Campbell University is a private, Christian institution with a strong focus on professions (engineering, law, medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy).

Located in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, the mission of Campbell University is to graduate students with exemplary academic and professional skills who are prepared for purposeful lives and meaningful service. While the institution is over 130 years old, Campbell School of Engineering opened in Fall of 2015, with the first class admitted in Fall of 2016, our first graduates in Spring of 2020, and our inaugural ABET accreditation in Fall of 2022.

The mission of the School of Engineering is to provide transformational learning experiences for a diverse community of future leaders through an integrated and experiential approach to engineering education, grounded in meaningful service and Christian principles. Our vision of the School of Engineering is to be the leader in faith-based experiential engineering education serving diverse students and communities.

Our School of Engineering Values - Community, Ethics, Excellence, Ownership, Professionalism, Relevance, Resilience, Service - are intentionally woven throughout both our curricular and extra curricular experiences and offerings. KEEN’s vision of promoting EM to create value that benefits the world resonates with these values, especially the values of “community,” “relevance” and “service”.

Creating a superior educational experience requires that we embrace an entrepreneurial mindset open to learning and innovation. By teaching the entrepreneurial mindset in our courses for the benefit of students, we also learn and embed the entrepreneurial mindset into the fabric of how our School operates. From inception, we wanted Campbell Engineering to be a model that others can learn from. KEEN partnerships have extended our impact and ensure that we remain a learning organization that continues to innovate.

Why We're In KEEN
Campbell School of Engineering is a member of KEEN because EM and the 3 C's - curiosity, connections, and creating value - meld with our innovative hands-on, project-based approach to engineering education.

Students take four full years of engineering courses, taught in classlabs that integrate lecture and lab in the same room, at the same time, taught by the same professor. Our classes are small (a max of 24 students per class) and we weave in small, medium, and large projects into every class. Students have access to fab labs and a maker space, with $6M worth of equipment, in addition to all of the equipment in their classlabs.

We work hard to weave students into engineering (any student can declare engineering as a major, no matter their math preparation), so we offer multiple pathways into the program and utilize a suite of evidence-based practices designed to support retention, sense of belonging, and student success of diverse communities of students.

Showcase
Our first-year engineering seminar and two-course design sequence starts building the EM/3C's mindset in our students and supports student success from day 1 utilizing a number of evidence-based practices (from peer mentors, a living-learning community, building community and sense of belonging, and teaching organizational/study/time management/self-motivational skills to encouraging question-asking and formation of study groups, building excitement and awareness of opportunities in engineering, and engaging students in professional development training and service activities outside of class).

Our innovative classlabs support our implementation of EM and the 3 C's as unique learning spaces that enable the hands-on, team-based project learning for which we are known. The projects, use of teams, training on communication, and other curricular threads are a key part of what helps us create industry-ready graduates who are in demand by a range of Fortune 100, 200, and 500 companies, state and federal agencies, and startups both in the Research Triangle Region and around the country.

Our faculty use a variety of projects in their classes, many built on or inspired by KEEN cards and KEEN Partner Institutions. These activities - spread across all four years of our curriculum - help build EM in our students and highlight the 3C's - how they can create value, make connections, and pique their curiosity - through projects will provide students with choice and the ability to work on solving problems that intersect with their world, their experiences, and their interests.

Current Work
Campbell Engineering is using EM to build bridges with other STEM departments on campus. Non-engineering faculty have attended KEEN workshops both on and off-campus. We award mini-grants to faculty to support EM infused course development activities. A 3C discussion group consisting of STEM faculty meets monthly to learn and share ideas. We are beginning to work with non-STEM faculty to design faculty development EM offerings that will be relevant to an even broader community.

Campbell University is part of the Research 4 All grant, collaborating with UNC Chapel Hill and NC A&T on the URSkilled sub-group. Campbell is leading the undergraduate research mentor training component of the project. We have presented workshops for graduate students at NC A&T and UNC Chapel Hill and for faculty at ASEE in addition to presenting our initial framework at FiE. Through this project, we have developed templates that graduate student, postdoctoral scholar, and faculty mentors can use to create stronger mentoring relationships with their undergraduate mentees. These templates can be used for mentors who are new to mentoring undergraduate researchers or those who are looking to improve their mentoring skills. The templates include ways to recruit, onboard, and support mentee growth during a project. Currently, we are finishing a systematic literature review on mentoring triads in undergraduate research and working towards a community of practice guidebook to help develop high-quality mentoring relationships to support undergraduate researchers.

We are starting to look at ways to infuse sustainability throughout our curriculum. A key part of creating value (and a key interest among both industry and economic development experts in our state), finding natural ways to embed sustainability topics into projects and courses will help prepare our graduates to meet workforce demands.

Building off of successful work with first-generation college students, we are starting to look at building better transfer pathways and support for community college students within Campbell Engineering. Using a suite of evidence-based approaches, that include professional development training and financial support, as well as building partnerships with community colleges in the region, we want to maximize the ways in which we create value for transfer students.

Featured Cards



Campbell University’s School of Engineering embodies EM and the 3C's with our hands-on, project-based approach to engineering education that seeks to weave students into engineering, versus weed them out. KEEN is, therefore, a natural fit for us and one that helps us continue to innovate and improve the education that we provide and the quality of our graduates - prepared to be the engineering leaders of tomorrow, equipped to solve 21st century problems, and inspired to make the world a better place.
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Jenna Carpenter 1 other  
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Discussion of leaders on ways to recruit, develop, and retain great faculty focused on the entrepreneurial mindset.

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Anastasia Rynearson 1 other  
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Improv game that encourages Curiosity during brainstorming