ExpLearn: Creative, Innovative, and Entrepreneurial

Examples of Creative, Innovative, and Entrepreneurial Activity

• OTHELLO: A Multilingual Production of Shakespeare's Tragedy

  In 2023, forty-seven students—the majority enrolled in the Hicks Honors College—worked with Instructor Will Pewitt (Honors Faculty Fellow) to create an original multilingual production of Shakespeare’s Othello. Beginning with initial concept meetings through Q&A talkbacks with hundreds of high school students who attended the final show at the Lazzara Performance Hall, UNF students studying in 21 separate majors were engaged in every phase of the theatrical process. Students gave their evenings, weekends, and rapt attention to work on various facets of showcraft, including script editing, translating, costuming, scheduling, designing, advertising, acting, stage managing, and set construction, among numerous other tasks—all of which came together in a production that earned the rare recognition of the Shakespeare Association of America, which invited the group to perform at its annual conference in April 2024.

  Working with Shakespeare’s most transcultural play, the unique premise of this UNF production put lines of the play’s dialogue into each character’s representative language, thereby making the play cross-culturally inclusive while also paying homage to historical accuracy. In bringing such an involved production from the page to the stage, the students practiced transferable skills they had learned in their various curricular fields—from Communications majors helping with social media campaigns to a Languages, Literatures, and Cultures major ensuring representational authenticity, to an Engineering major drawing up scenic schematics. In addition to an audience of over 500 high school attendees at the final on-campus show, performances also took place at venues including the Limelight Theatre, MOCA Jacksonville, and Friday Musicale, and a show for incarcerated persons was performed in partnership with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. In cultivating community both on and off campus through interdisciplinarity and Experiential Learning, the production aimed to enact the mission and vision espoused by Hicks Honors College, which proved vital in supporting students throughout the various multilayered phases of the project.

• Engineering Senior Design - Innovation Day

  One of the strongest aspects of engineering education at UNF is the Senior Design experience; it is the cornerstone of the engineering curriculum and ensures a never-ending pipeline of quality engineering students and faculty. Senior Design is a key component to infusing industry and community-engaged projects into the curriculum and directly contributes to our aspiration of having undergraduate engineering programs ranked among the best in the country.

  In early September, Senior Design students are assigned to teams and subsequently work together to develop multiple solutions to a design challenge. Nearly all projects come from the Jacksonville community: nonprofit organizations, local government, and industry partners including the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Saft Battery, and BMW. Students work diligently to develop the best solution to the problem presented by their client within the given constraints.

  Furthermore, the engineering teams receive direct feedback on their projects from professionals and experts in their respective disciplines. In Civil Engineering projects, a board of professional engineers from the Jacksonville engineering community scrutinizes the student designs. For Electrical and Mechanical Engineering teams, projects include design, build, and test requirements. Professors and community mentors review the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering projects and designs following a procedure that mimics design reviews in the industry.

  Each year, the graduating class of engineers generates posters to feature their work at Innovation Day. Industry/community partners, guests, fellow students, and experts are invited to attend and ask questions of the student engineering teams – the more challenging, the better. This event showcases ways that UNF is preparing the next generation of engineers to overcome engineering challenges, and how our engineering students will positively impact Northeast Florida. Innovation Day is also an opportunity for potential employers to find their next great employee.