University of Dayton
IN-25: Innovation B

Spring 2019: This semester's theme for the interdisciplinary creative collaboration experiential course focuses on creating Just and Resilient Food Systems in Dayton. This semester 14 classes and 350 students including students from nearly all disciplines on campus ranging from sophomore to graduate students are engaging in this fundamental question: "How can we help to create a more just and resilient food system in Dayton?" While the different courses are addressing this theme from their own disciplinary perspectives (or course perspectives for classes which include students from multiple majors), the space used for the course (called the GEMnasium) offers a means for the sharing of ideas and thinking between courses. Thus, for example engineering students can see how a Sustainability, Energy, and Environment course are helping to frame environmental sustainability. Students can see how Environmental Ethics students have considered which aspects of sustainability can be viewed from an economic perspective. Students can see how Faith and Justice students are thinking about the role of churches in the food justice problem and solutions. The rest can see the potential solutions that the engineering students are developing which link to real assets in the community. Necessarily all efforts are being informed by community engagement, primarily with leaders in Dayton working for the cause of food justice. At the semester's concluding event, termed the Summit Slam, students will present their final contributions. Peer students, faculty, and community members will be sourcing which ideas/solutions/opportunities move into the summer Institute for Applied Creativity Collaborator Accelerator, where the idea/design will be matured - ideally leading to some form of implementable solution in our community.