The Waves of Innovation Committee received approximately 100 proposals containing innovative ideas from students, faculty and staff by the Oct. 15 deadline, according to Vice Provost for Research and Strategic Initiatives Lee Kats, who heads the committee.
The deadline for proposal submission was the first step in the program, which is an initiative for which “members of the Pepperdine community can propose ways to improve the university, and by the end of the process, the best proposals will be given grants to make them a reality,” according to Sasha Stillman, the graduate student representative on the committee.
Waves of Innovation began last year with a total of 150 applicants, according to Kats, who said he believes that this year’s submissions are “a very nice representation of students, faculty and staff and all five schools.”
“It’s still a very strong number and I’m very pleased that the [Pepperdine] community participated so enthusiastically and so broadly,” he said.
According to senior Clark Cashion, who holds the only Seaver student position on the committee, the next step requires all committee members to review each proposal and narrow the pool down to a smaller number that will be reviewed by President Andrew K. Benton.
Benton will work with the committee to decide which proposals will move on to phase two of the program. The second phase is very selective, with only eight proposals making the cut last year, according to Kats.
He said that the committee is looking for how well the proposal fits with the program guidelines, which are to enhance reputation and involvement in the community.
Each proposal that moves on to phase two will have access to $5,000 to flesh out their proposal and prepare a presentation to show at a campus-wide event on Feb. 5 in Smothers Theatre.
Cashion said the presentations themselves are unique and exciting. “To be in the audience is kind of like … Pepperdine’s version of Shark Tank,” he said.
Last year, audience members were invited to vote for a people’s choice award using their cellphones, a feature which Kats said will likely be incorporated again.
Kats said the presentations act as the “final bit of data” in the decision of the awards, which are announced that night. Awards range up to $150,000, but the number of awards and amount of funding can vary depending on the quality of the proposal and the size of the budget. All awards are internally funded within the university through reallocations and savings within the budget.
The Eden project, which received the full $150,000 last year, will “transition an existing residence hall into a sustainable or ‘green’ residence hall with sustainable retrofits and a comprehensive educational campaign wherein students learn by example and through peer-to-peer modeling,” according to a list of phase one finalists in Benton’s online Waves of Innovation archives.
Kats said this project is a good example of what the Waves of Innovation program aims to do.
“That one really illustrates what I like about this program, [because] it really involves students, staff and faculty on a joint project to make the university better,” he said.
Other winners from last year’s program include a project that designed curriculum to enhance Pepperdine’s executive management and business administration program, a project that sought to develop a gameful learning center at Pepperdine, a project to replace plastics with more biodegradable versions, a project to help inner city students apply for college and a proposal to create a Great Books-like preceptorial for professionals and alumni.
Kats said each of last year’s winners recently turned in midterm reports and will be meeting with him soon to discuss each project’s progress.
As for the future of Waves of Innovation, Kats said the number of years it will run is unknown.
“I think it’s kind of a wait and see … how it is turning out after a couple years, what kind of ideas [and] what quality of ideas are being generated,” he said. “I think it’s a really exciting program because if you look at innovation programs at universities, many of them are either limited to technology or limited to business or limited to faculty members, and this is one of the only innovation programs that I’m aware of that is very broad … I don’t know of any other program that is this inviting to the community.”
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