Lilly Endowment grant to support “Innovation College” hub for transforming learning

Purdue students work through research projects in a campus lab. A new partnership between Purdue and Butler University is focused on education innovation, including creation of new curriculum between fields of research. (Purdue University photo)

A new transdisciplinary program at Purdue will help students prepare for jobs that do not yet exist.

Made possible by a $5 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc., a centralized, virtual hub called “Innovation College” will be created to develop and disseminate novel educational practices that can be used throughout Purdue’s colleges. The effort will encourage faculty and staff to move outside of specific fields of study and experiment with innovative teaching methods and create transdisciplinary learning programs and courses.

“Innovation College will give us the opportunity to really experiment with and try out very progressive kinds of programs that higher education needs in the 21st century,” said Gary Bertoline, dean of Purdue Polytechnic and co-coordinator of the program. “We’ve learned that we have to reinvent ourselves and try new things. This will create new curriculum opportunities that involve all disciplines to develop better teaching methods that will enhance learning for the students’ benefit.”

Innovation College will be launched in fall 2021, and pre-launch planning is underway.

Read the full Purdue News article by Brian Huchel.

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