The Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) is a collaboration of 20 universities around the U.S. that strive to instill an entrepreneurial mindset in undergraduate engineering and technology students. Our mission is to graduate engineers who will contribute to business success; and in doing so, transform the American workforce.
The KEEN universities include:
- Baylor University (TX)
- Boston University (MA)
- Bucknell University (PA)
- Gonzaga University (WA)
- Illinois Institute of Technology (IL)
- Kettering University (MI)
- Lawrence Technological University (MI)
- Mercer University (GA)
- Milwaukee School of Engineering (WI)
- Ohio Northern University (OH)
- St. Louis University (MO)
- Santa Clara University (CA)
- Union College (NY)
- University of Dayton (OH)
- University of Detroit-Mercy (MI)
- University of Evansville (IN)
- University of New Haven (CT)
- Villanova University (PA)
- Western New England University (MA)
- Widener University (PA)
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute (MA)
KEEN is a network of engineering schools that are willing to change their engineering pedagogy in order to instill a more entrepreneurial mindset in their students. Graduates of KEEN schools will be prepared to identify new business opportunities in their engineering discipline that are based upon technology. Organizing a network of colleges such as KEEN creates synergy between member institutions that takes advantage of the network’s collective faculty in a manner that transcends an individual university’s status. For more on the philosophy of KEEN see Instilling the Entrepreneurial Mindset in Engineering Undergraduates published in the Journal of Engineering Entrepreneurship (JEEN).
The mission of the KEEN institutions is further described by the KEEN Student Outcomes (KSOs, listed below) and a Theory of Change model that characterizes a process for institutional change aimed at instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in graduates.
KEEN Student Outcomes
A student should be able to:
-
Effectively collaborate in a team setting
- Apply critical & creative thinking to ambiguous problems
- Construct & effectively communicate a customer-appropriate value proposition
- Persist through, and learn from failure (to learn what is needed to succeed)
- Effectively manage projects and apply the commercialization process (within respective disciplines)
- Demonstrate voluntary social responsibility
- Relate personal liberties and free enterprise to entrepreneurship
