Created and enabled by the generosity of the Feigenbaum Foundation and spurred by
Armand & Donald Feigenbaum’s spirit and legacy of entrepreneurship and community development,
the Feigenbaum MCLA Leads Initiative is intended to promote the creation of new curricular
and co-curricular programming centered on innovation, entrepreneurship, community
development, and leadership.
In April, Feigenbaum MCLA Leads released a prototype version of its strategic plan. This prototype plan enumerates and describes thirteen projects that Feigenbaum MCLA Leads and its various campus and community partners intend to pilot throughout the course of the next three years.
Some of these projects were launched during the 2016-'17 academic year; including a downtown Design Lab, and an Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition.
MCLA Students Pitch Ideas, Compete for $10K Innovation Prize
MCLA Students Compete in Entrepreneurship Challenge
'Farm to Hand' Food Truck Wins MCLA's First Entrepreneur Challenge
Throughout the 2016-'17 Academic Year, MCLA piloted courses across the disciplines and in the core curriculum to integrate design thinking and community engagement. Students engaged in community-based problem solving using the design thinking methodology to develop solutions to challenges posed by professors and community stakeholders throughout the Berkshire region in such classes as Professor Lisa Donovan's Community Engagement in the Arts. Students in Professor David Eve's Entrepreneurship and Culture students will combine design thinking with Lean Launchpad principles to develop new business and/or social ventures. Also, in Professor Karen Cardozo's Introduction to Leadership, a First Year Experience course, students will combine the design thinking framework with leadership theory to develop a roadmap to personal goal attainment throughout their college experience.
