To the Editor:
We are writing to take issue with a provocative claim made in the recent essay by Matthew Wisnioski and Lee Vinsel (“The Campus Innovation Myth,” The Chronicle Review, June 11). While we believe the article raises intriguing points and considerations, we disagree with the idea that making innovators is a “myth.” While headline grabbing, this claim fails to engage any recent efforts aimed at considering more inclusive understandings of innovation, empirical research on the topic, or evidence of effective practices; instead the authors primarily cite a faculty development program, a computer science project, and the dictionary.
Let us try to bust this myth.
On the research front, evidence from own efforts, for example at measuring undergraduates’ innovation capacities and demonstrating the effectiveness of undergraduate curricula on helping students see themselves as innovative, runs contrary to claims that developing innovators is somehow a “myth.” Instead, we suggest that by associating innovation with a set of capacities that students can develop, we may indeed wind up with many more innovators from all disciplines and backgrounds. Not just programmers, not only engineers; a wide array of college graduates are capable of generating and executing contextually beneficial new ideas (our definition of innovation).
To find evidence of this myth being busted in practice, one need only look back to a story printed in this outlet only a few months ago (“No Textbooks, No Lectures, No Right Answers. Is This What Higher Education Needs?,” February 10). This article featured high-quality educational programming happening elsewhere in Virginia at JMU X-Labs. In rigorous problem-based courses, which bear titles such as “Community Innovations” and “Medical Innovations,” students actively engage challenging social problems while working on cross-disciplinary teams guided by learning partnership-minded faculty. In other words, they strive toward “empowering graduates with the expertise and confidence to create new technologies and address pressing societal needs,” which Wisnioski and Vinsel claim to be a “good thing” (we agree!).
So, why does this matter? Because bold-faced, unsubstantiated “myths” appearing in outlets such as The Chronicle can meaningfully, and negatively, inform stakeholder actions. In an era of soundbites and tweets, popularizing the idea that Universities cannot develop innovators will surely make it harder for effective innovator-developing programs such as X-Labs to commence and become sustainable. And if that becomes the case, then Universities will ultimately end up generating dramatically less, not more, of the public good the authors proclaim to desire.
Benjamin S. Selznick, James Madison University
Matthew J. Mayhew, The Ohio State University
Nick Swayne, James Madison University
