Greenway Visits Olin College Of Engineering

Greenway Visits Olin College of Engineering

Greenway Institute is running an experiment this semester to see if we can answer the question of how to educate current and future generations to engineer our equitable and sustainable future. The experimental nature of our approach to education aligns closely with Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA. Olin has earned many accolades in the few decades of their existence because of their emphasis on innovation in the classroom. The Greenway team traveled to Olin this week to learn from faculty and students who are grappling with similar questions and challenges.

Greenway students spent their time on campus shadowing first and second year Olin students. They attended classes with their hosts and discussed what it’s like to experience an experimental approach to education firsthand. A big takeaway for our students was the fact that many of the Olin students they met were clearly intrinsically motivated in their studies. They seemed to be learning for the sake of learning, instead of chasing a grade or fancy internship. This pursuit is supported in Olin classrooms by the thoughtful work of Olin faculty.

Greenway faculty and staff spent time in classrooms chatting with students and in roundtable discussions with faculty. A highlight of the trip was to pick the brains of faculty who had been at Olin since the early years of the experiment. We asked these thoughtful practitioners to share their thoughts on how to build an educational system that can continually evolve. Impressively, this was a topic that these faculty were clearly grappling with on a daily basis. How interesting to have two groups of people engaged in the same process, but about two decades apart in experience.

Greenway is about halfway through its pilot semester, where we are constantly building the track as the train rumbles along. There is an astonishing amount of experimentation and iteration happening everyday at our humble campus in Montpelier. We all benefitted from a brief intermission to reflect with other colleagues on the groundbreaking work we’re all doing.