Innovation Trimester

I-Tri students step away from their regular classes and daily schedule in their senior spring term to tackle real-world challenges and offer innovative solutions to problems faced by local businesses and non-profit organizations. Through the program they practice human-centered design and learn project management techniques and skills. They also study topics in communications, rhetoric theory and practice, humanities research, social entrepreneurship, and quantitative research and statistical analysis.

When designing each year’s I-Tri, faculty strive to plan a program that meets the students’ interests, that will be meaningful to them, and through which they will see themselves in their partners and projects. To meet these aims, faculty start to get to know students through conversations a year before the students begin their program. As a result, the theme of the I-Tri and partners the students work with change every year.

During their work with each other and on their various projects, students develop a greater sense of awareness of their strengths and weaknesses and learn how they can bring their unique skills and abilities to projects in a valuable way.