Innovation and Impact

Innovation and Impact courses build on the experience of Creative Communities. Students will employ an entrepreneurial mindset to explore potential intersections between equity and innovation, and to generate ideas that can drive sustained social, economic, and cultural impact. One thread of continuity that runs throughout this course is the theme of 'futuring'. Using entrepreneurial thinking to generate ideas that imagine a more equitable future, students will learn to recognize and cultivate opportunities for a range of innovative projects such as business ventures, social and civic services, and creative projects in media, arts, and design. Designed as a transformative DEI educational experience, the class will offer structures for students to assess, leverage and add to their own skills sets through transdisciplinary collaboration and proactive self-evaluation practices. Beginning with the critical interrogation of case studies and sites, students will employ methodologies connected with business, technology and communications in order to create a proposal/portfolio deliverable for a new business, social venture, and/or speculative enterprise.

Each course has specific learning outcomes associated with the investigation of some aspect of Columbia College Chicago's diverse, urban setting and an introduction to community engagement and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. For Innovation and Impact, the courses all share learning outcomes, and the fourth learning outcome corresponds specifically to the course's topic as listed below the description. 

Spring 2020 Innovation and Impact Courses

  • Cultivating Food Equity (Section 01, Section 02, and Section 03)

    CCCX 399 Topics in Innovation and Impact
    Section 01, 02, and 03, Title: Cultivating Food Equity
    Taught by: Dana Connell, Fashion Studies, Greg Corness, Interactive Arts and Media, and Peg Murphy, Communication
    (All sections meet together in Building 1104, Room 813)

    Have you heard the phrase, “eating from the rainbow?” Nutrition experts say, the more colorful the food on your plate, the more nutrients in each meal. Loading up a plate with colorful foods isn’t always easy for many in Chicago and other urban areas who don’t have access to well-stocked, affordable, and accessible grocery stores. In this Innovation and Impact class, students will research a variety of food sources in Chicago and imagine how to cultivate a more equitable food supply chain in an urban market. Through site visits, research, interviews, and real-life role play, students will better understand the underlying causes of food deserts that impact health and wellness. What would food equity look like in the future for an urban city like Chicago? Students will deliver a solution-oriented final project that may address physical grocery needs, opportunities to grow food, programs to educate, or any other possible solution that addresses a root cause.

    Course-specific Learning Outcome:
    Create a proposal/portfolio deliverable that employs methodologies connected with business, technology and communications to explore what food equity would look like in the future in an urban city like Chicago.

  • A 21st Century World's Fair (Section 05, Section 06, and Section 07)

    CCCX 399 Topics in Innovation and Impact
    Section 05, 06, and 07 Title: A 21st Century World's Fair
    Taught by: Hilary Sarat-St. Peter, English and Creative Writing, and Jackie Spinner, Communication, and Ames Hawkins, English and Creative Writing
    (All sections meet together in Building 1104, Room 813)

    In A 21st Century World’s Fair students will utilize observational, archival and analytical research methods to explore world expositions as problematic cases of innovation and impact. Students will examine primary and secondary sources, including eyewitness accounts, artifacts and fictional works. These sources will assist students in understanding how world expositions have sparked and sustained innovative projects such as business ventures, social and civic services, and creative projects in arts, media, the sciences, and design. The course will equip students with concepts and resources for understanding how race, gender, sexuality, disability and difference construct our past and future experiences. In the final weeks, students will employ a range of methodologies drawn from the course experiences and their own disciplinary backgrounds to build a collective vision for an equitable and inclusive 21st Century World’s Fair.  

    Course-specific Learning Outcome:
    Create a proposal/portfolio deliverable that employs methodologies connected with business, technology and communications to build a collective vision for an equitable and inclusive 21st Century World’s Fair.

CCCX 300: Learning Outcomes

Although individual courses have course-specific learning outcomes associated with understanding Columbia College Chicago’s urban setting, all of the courses share the same expectations for the student learning experience. In the Innovation and Impact course, students will: