What is iFoundry?

The Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry) is a cross-disciplinary curriculum incubator in the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dedicated to the transformation of engineering education in ways appropriate to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. iFoundry adopts the view that educational transformation requires organizational, conceptual, and aspirational change, that effective reform requires (1) deep reflection about and attention to the complex system in which engineering education is embedded, (2) multiple change modes to promote collective learning and doing among the complex system’s elements and constituents, and (3) the honoring and support of student aspirations, choices, and engagement in the educational process.

iFoundry History

iFoundry began in the summer of 2007 as a grassroots effort among five departments in the College: Aerospace Engineering, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering, and Materials Science & Engineering. Growing out of the Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois (ETSI) initiative, iFoundry was co-founded by Professors Andreas Cangellaris and David E. Goldberg. Summer 2007 meetings led to academic year 2007-2008 activities as well as a study of the undergraduate curriculum by the College Executive Committee. A report favorable to the establishment of a curriculum incubator was released in Spring 2008 and iFoundry was elevated to a College-supported activity by Dean Ilesanmi Adesida in August 2008.

iFoundry Principles

iFoundry is committed to (1) principled, effective, and piloted change, (2) respect for faculty governance, (3) the honoring and support of student aspirations, choice, and engagement, (4) active corporate, alumni, and friend involvement and consultation, and (5) open, viral dissemination and gathering of feedback on iFoundry transformative efforts.

iFoundry First Class: Fall 2009

iFoundry admitted its first class of freshmen (the class of 2013) in Fall 2009 as part of the iFoundry freshmen experience. Those students enrolled in participating College of Engineering departments and many of the courses they took were the same as non-iFoundry students; however, new classes were developed on a pilot basis for iFoundry freshmen. The Dean’s signatory authority and departmental permission allowed these courses to count in the student’s home curriculum, thus enabling iFoundry students to receive ABET-accredited degrees in their home departments.

In particular, the 2009 iFoundry freshmen experience integrated coursework in critical and creative thinking skills (the missing basics) with hands-on projects (video) and a student-run learning community (iCommunity).  Together these different activities combined in ways that respected and supported student aspirations and choice, leading to a celebration of the joys of engineering, community, and learning. Data collected in Fall 2009 showed that the experience was a transformative one, helping students build a strong sense of engineering identity at the same time it enabled them to adjust to the social challenges of the first year of college.

Current Initiatives

The success of the 2009 iFoundry freshmen pilot is leading to a Fall 2010 roll out of the experience to a larger number of students.  Specifically, the Illinois Engineering Freshmen Experience (iEFX) is being offered to freshmen admitted in 2010 (the class of 2014).  More information about iEFX and the scale up of the 2009 pilot can be found on the admissions page (here).

iFoundry is also actively creating new courses at the University of Illinois to put in place experiences in the sophomore year in 2010 for the freshmen admitted in 2009.  Chief among these are two courses being piloted in Spring 2010 for launch the following year.  Foundations of Business and Entrepreneurship and User-Oriented Collaborative Design were developed at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (information on the Olin-Illinois Partnership or OIP here), and iFoundry faculty are working with their Olin colleagues to carry those courses over to Illinois in a manner that scales to a large public university. A paper on the Olin curriculum is available here.

A number of early initiatives are continuing.  These include the institution of HAPI themes (human artifacts, processes, and interactions) in the humanities and social science requirements, and the aggressive use of digital and social media in 3SpaceStudios to (1) gesture at possible directions of change, (2) promote collective learning and curriculum conversation, and (3) provide immediately useful and possibly viral new content and curriculum materials.