The School of Sustainable Engineering (SSE) of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) has held a day’s entrepreneurial engineering workshop for faculty and students of the school.
Themed, “Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset in Engineering Classrooms”, the workshop had two resource persons from the University of Bucknell in the United States of America; Prof Joseph Tranquillo and Prof. Brad Putman facilitating.
Opening the workshop, the Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences (CANS), Prof. Moses Jojo Eghan, mentioned it was important for the SSE and, indeed, the University of Cape Coast to learn from the Bucknell University since it had made great gains as an entrepreneurial university. He noted this was towards realising the Vice-Chancellor of UCC, Prof. Johnson Nyarko Boampong’s vision of making UCC an entrepreneurial university.
Prof. Moses Jojo Eghan, Provost of CANS-UCC
Prof. Eghan was optimistic the workshop would resource the participants with the necessary skills to adopt and apply 21st-century teaching methods necessary to holistically prepare students for the world.
Prof. Joseph Tranquillo, associate Dean for Transformative Teaching and Learning at Bucknell University, while speaking on the theme outlined the essence of entrepreneurship as the engine of innovation, societal transformation, and economic advancement. Further, it stimulates economic growth, generates employment, and aids in societal adaptation to changing possibilities and challenges. He added that the drive to be an entrepreneur was innate and only required some effort to realise it.
Addressing faculty members of the school, Prof. Tranquillo mentioned the need for teachers to make the lectures lively and sustain the interest of students through the inculcation of 21st-century teaching and learning into their curricula. He highlighted how out-of-classroom teaching strategies could also enable students to appreciate what they were being taught better.
Prof. Joseph Tranquillo facilitating a session at the workshop
Prof. Tranquillo whilst encouraging faculty members to adopt the effectual thinking approach, which is more eventful and allows students to explore, also indicated that using the problem-based learning approach during lectures allowed students to appreciate issues within their communities better and fashion out strategies to address identified challenges.
He also noted that instituting a reward system that would appreciate members of faculty who are excelling at their approaches to teaching which better expose students to developing trends will be important to spur others on.
On his part, the Dean of the College of Engineering, Bucknell University, Prof. Brad Putman, addressed participants on the topic, “Preparing Engineers for Equitable and Inclusive Future”.
He pointed out that it was important for the competencies of students to be built through the perspective of talent, social consciousness, multicultural, entrepreneurship and interdisciplinarity.
Prof. Brad Putman addressing participants
Prof. Putman extensively discussed the essence of Collaborative Online International Exchange (COIL) which provides an equitable and partnership-based learning format that effectively uses technological tools. Teachers under this format collaboratively design joint sessions that attend to different learning styles which lead to an equitable intercultural experience.
He mentioned that COIL enables increased student involvement and by this, students were more involved in the course material and projects because of the distinctive course design which emphasises purposeful cross-cultural encounters. This cross-cultural collaboration encourages student ownership of learning processes making the classroom experience better for every person.
Prof. Putman added that it was essential to integrate sustainability principles and practices into engineering education and training.
He noted that engineering programmes should include courses and modules that cover topics related to sustainability, environmental conservation, social equity, and economic development.
This would help students understand the importance of sustainable development and how engineering could contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Founding Dean of the SSE-UCC, Prof. Robert Sarpong Amoah
The founding Dean of the SSE-UCC, Prof. Robert Sarpong Amoah, was grateful to the facilitators for the workshop and called on the benefitting faculty members and students to put the knowledge gained to good use.
Present at the workshop were Prof. L. K. Sam Amoah, a former Provost of CANS; Rev. Prof. Owusu Sekyere, Former Vice-Chancellor of Cape Coast Technical University; the Director of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, Prof. Daniel Agyapong and other officers of the University. Also, with the team from Bucknell University was Stephen Appiah-Padi, Director of the Office of Global and Off-Campus Education.
The Bucknell University team was presented with souvenirs from the University of Cape Coast.
Source: Documentation and Information Section-UCC