Davidson College is a prestigious liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. It enrolls approximately 1,800 students from 48 states and 47 countries. In 2017, led by Kristen Eshleman, Director of Innovation Initiatives, the college decided that although they had a way to collect and implement incremental improvements, they lacked a parallel transparent process that supports experimentation on riskier, more transformational ideas. Under her leadership, Davidson developed an innovation process that could intake and launch as many ideas as possible, both transparently and democratically and tracked their program using IdeaScale software. They called their crowdsourced ideas community IdeaTrek.
What’s Inside
Learn how Davidson College
- Used two parallel processes to deliver on ideas
- Defined roles for every member of the innovation process
- Utilized their process to adapt to changes during COVID
Davidson’s innovation process is mission-aligned, transparent, and cost-efficient. It allows us to maximize the exploration and creativity of new ideas while minimizing costs and long-term commitment.”
-Kristen Eshleman, Director of Innovation Initiatives, Davidson College
