Bachelor of Innovation^TM Overview

The Program: The Bachelor of Innovation™ family of programs is an internationally unique interdisciplinary undergraduate program between the College of Engineering and Applied Science (EAS) and College of Business (COB). The Bachelor of Innovation™ (BI) is a family structure, much like a Bachelor of Science (BS) or a Bachelor of Arts (BA), in which particular majors are defined. Included degrees (in alphabetical order): BI in Business Administration, BI in Computer Science, BI in Computer Science Security, BI in Electrical Engineering, and BI in Game Design and Development. Each degree in the program is composed of an emphasis major, an innovation core, and one of 4 cross-discipline cores.

Student Outcomes:Beyond the already expected technical depth from a Bachelor's student from the University of Colorado, BI students will emerge with a unique set of experiential skills. This will include: Multi-year multi-discipline team experience working on real problems with local companies, an understanding and experience in the innovation process of transforming ideas into sustainable societal impact, an understanding of the basics of business, policy and intellectual property, and through their cross-discipline a deeper exploration of globalization issues, creative communication, technology impact or business. The program will benefit both the business and science/engineering students as they learn to work together to solve problems.

Student Competitiveness:

A common question is whether these new degrees will be competitive in the marketplace. In building the program we did a detailed formal survey of 50 companies, across Colorado. When asked if they would agree with the statement "I would generally choose a UCCS BI graduate over a BS/BA graduate from other schools such as CU Boulder," the hypothesis was accepted at the very significant 99.95% (p=0.0005) level and when asked to agree with the statement "I would be unlikely to hire a UCCS BI student" the hypothesis was rejected at the very significant 99.998% (p=0.00002) level. These and other questions in the survey strongly suggest that the new BI degree students will be more employable than our current UCCS graduates, and that the new degrees will be accepted by industry. And if there is a company that does not know what the BI degree is, it is still a formal "Bachelors" degree in either engineering or business, as we did not change the name of the major, just the family.

Meeting a National Need: The National Academy of Engineering report on “Educating the Engineer of 2020”, the Council on Competitiveness, and the Business Roundtable all conclude that teaching about the innovation process and changing the education process, especially for engineering, is critical. The NAE state.

“Innovation is key ……… there is an undercurrent of awareness that current complexities are so daunting that tinkering at the edges—reforming one course, one program, one department at a time, developing isolated instances of success here and there — is no longer a viable response if we are to build the kind of robust programs in research and education now needed to strengthen the U.S. engineering community by 2020.”

The need for a dramatic reform in engineering education is not something we are claiming, it is a nationally recognized need to which we are responding. The comprehensive nature of the proposed Bachelor of Innovation™ is directly in line with the NEA engineering 2020 guidelines. We are preparing students for the competitive environment in which they will explore their careers.

What is the Bachelor of Innovation™?

The Bachelor of Innovation™ family of programs is an interdisciplinary undergraduate program between the College of Engineering and College of Business. The Bachelors of Innovation™ is actually a family structure, much like a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts, in which particular majors are defined. Included Programs (in alphabetical order, click on any one to see its details)

• Bachelor of Innovation™ in Business Administration
• Bachelor of Innovation™ in Computer Science
• Bachelor of Innovation™ in Computer Science Security
• Bachelor of Innovation™ in Electrical Engineering
• Bachelor of Innovation™ in Games Design and Development

Each major in the BI family of programs is composed of an emphasis major, an innovation core, a cross-discipline core, and the general education requirements:

The Innovation Core is 27 Credits, geared toward innovation and entrepreneurship; a key component is multi-disciplinary long-term team activities over the sophomore, junior and senior years. Teams are expected to include students from all years, and may include graduate students. The teams will have dynamic membership and team member roles will change on a regular basis. The innovation core includes courses on innovation, entrepreneurship, business and IP law, and policy. The students will develop an "innovation portfolio" throughout the program to help document and highlight their roles and contributions in these various courses. This unique common core and experiential learning component are part of what makes the Bachelor of Innovation™ family so unique.

Each major also includes a per-student choice of a cross-discipline core, which is a coherent collection of 15 credits from one “cross over” area. The individual will choose this as early as possible in their program, but definitely before sophomore year.

Business Core (for non-business degrees) provides a broad coverage of business topics.

Creative Communication Core (for any BI major) provides coverage of a variety of communication modes. Courses include both traditional (e.g., oral communication) and non-traditional (e.g., visual arts) communication approaches.

Engineering Technology Core (for non-technology degrees) provides a broad coverage of engineering and technology.

Globalization Core (for any BI major) provides a selection of courses on globalization issues. It will have a language requirement (passing at the second year level) and a collection of international business/policy courses. Students in this option are encouraged to demonstrate at least 3 months residence in a non-English speaking country, which may be met by one-semester of study abroad. While abroad, involvements in the Innovation team projects will be “virtual," but will be required.

UCCS is an NCA accredited university. The BI degrees have been designed to be consistent with the appropriate specialized accreditation guidelines of AACSB or ABET. The College of Business is AACSB accredited so the BI in Business carries that automatically. However, no program can be ABET accredited until it graduates its first class of students and applies for ABET review. When that is granted it would be retroactive to the class reviewed.

Innovation and Cross Discipline Cores:

Innovation Core (27 Credits)

Cross Discipline Core - Business (15 Credits)

Cross Discipline Core - Creative Communication (15 Credits)

Cross Discipline Core - Engineering Technology (15 Credits)

Cross Discipline Core - Globalization (15 Credits)