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 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.

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

In the Innovation and Impact course, students will:

Understand and utilize/employ an entrepreneurial mindset to identify opportunities and generate creative solutions to engage with those opportunities
Engage with methods, methodologies, and tools used to assess and understand the impact of how ideas and outcomes address issues of systemic inequity
Develop an understanding of transdisciplinary collaboration as a reflexive practice to challenge biased views, share diverse perspectives and move toward equity
Create a proposal/portfolio deliverable that employs methodologies connected with business, technology and communications…[see below]

Spring 2026 CCCX 300 - Innovation and Impact Courses

CCCX 315: Media & Social Justice
Section 01
Taught by: Betsy Edgerton (Communication and Culture)
Wednesdays 9:00-11:50am, 618, #LL01

#marchforourlives #blacklivesmatter #metoo #climatechangeisreal are just a few examples of many social justice issues vying for the attention of the masses. Why do some rise to the top of the public consciousness while others struggle? It’s all about effective use of media, from strategy to messaging to content. Our focus will be on the strategic use of media to fight inequalities and prejudice using entrepreneurial thinking, communication skills and technology. In this Innovation and Impact course, students will learn how a community can use media to steer conversations, grab attention, deconstruct power and, ultimately, gain resources to have an equitable impact on a specific issue of social justice. Through interviews, case studies, archival research, and weekly journal entries, students will develop a baseline understanding of media outreach practices that foreground community agency. The semester-long collaborative inquiry will conclude with group presentations of strategic, equity-focused media developed in dialogue with community leaders.
CCCX 399: Innovation and Impact
Section 01: Leveraging GenAI Collaboration
Taught by: Rojhat Avsar (Communication and Culture)
Tuesdays 12:30-3:20pm, 618, #LL01
This is a project-based course where creatives learn in teams how to collaborate with generative AI as a co-producer rather than a mere tool. Students explore algorithmic literacy, prompt design, data ethics, and aesthetic control through real projects in design, writing, sound, and media. Working in interdisciplinary teams, they prototype workflows that amplify human imagination, speed production, and expand creative range. By the end, students will not just use AI—they will direct, critique, and shape it as part of their creative process.

Fall 2025 CCCX 300 - Innovation and Impact Courses

CCCX 316: Equitable Futures
Section 01: Internet Culture & Open Access
Taught by: David Gerding (Design)
Mondays 9:00-11:50am, 33, #302

This course will consider the tensions and overlaps between open access and contemporary capitalist property regimes and the way digital platforms have allowed for greater access to the creation, distribution and consumption of culture. Looking at the social and technological innovations that have allowed the open web to flourish, the class will evaluate the impact cultures of open access and online collaboration have had on global information inequality. Students will also consider this impact as they create an innovative and collaborative development of open access resources.