Professor Terry Boult is the Force Behind the Innovation Degrees at UCCS
August 15, 2007 | 
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The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) has developed a new and exciting family of undergraduate majors called Bachelors of Innovation (BI) scheduled to begin in Fall, 2007. These new degrees combine elements of engineering and business to structure a unique curriculum that will prepare graduates as innovators and entrepreneurs who can work well in multi-disciplinary team environments. The programs of study are so unique that the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has trademarked the term “Bachelor of Innovation” to describe them. For more details on this program, please visit http://innovation.uccs.edu . For this article, we interviewed, Dr. Terrance Boult, Professor and El Pomar Chair of Computer Communications and Networking at UCCS.Professor Terry Boult is a class act. His rapid-fire speech bears witness to an ability to share information with lightning speed; his physical agility demonstrates strength of purpose. Terry Boult is an organizational thinker-athlete par excellence.
Transplanted from Columbia University and Lehigh University where he taught for the first decades of his academic career, Professor Boult has brought to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus academic energy and corporate expertise. His list of accomplishments in the private sector includes creation and development of three thriving national companies. His personal drive and acumen have allowed him to share his passion for cross-disciplinary innovation that thrives on group excellence.
One unique result of Professor Boult’s discipline building is the UCCS Bachelor of Innovation degree, now begun in a cohort model shared with the UCCS College of Business. Professor Boult stresses that innovation is not only about creativity; it involves ergonomics, putting in place a social networking framework together wherein students can adapt, give up control, innovate, and build within a team environment.
“Control is an illusion,” Professor Boult said. International partnering is an innovational team sport wherein personal financial partners engage in multidisciplinary, not interdisciplinary, activities. Each participant brings his/her strengths to the table.
“Give [students] a focus within the arena of service learning, and they will deliver,” Professor Boult added. He, together with Dean Jeremy Haefner (College of Engineering and Graduate School of Public Affairs). Professor Gary Klein (College of Business), Associate Dean Ramaswami Dandapani (College of Engineering) and others have constructed a team to bring about a successful Bachelor of Innovation degree formula.
Incoming Bachelor of Innovation students will begin their college career with courses that create a strong general base, but the bases can be concentrated in creative communication, globalization, or across disciplines. When they complete their first 21 credits, the Innovation undergraduates will proceed to areas of specific interest within the innovation model. Professor Boult and his team expect to achieve results through a unique mentoring model that endorses one-on-one faculty to student assistance and group mentoring as well.
“Remember,” Professor Boult said, “control is an illusion.” The secret in his program is sharing academic governance.
Over 40 students have been accepted into the Bachelor of Innovation program to date. If you are interested in learning more about it, please contact Professor Boult on his UCCS webpage.
We guarantee that you will find it a logistical phenomenon.
Here is the transcript of a short interview with Dr. Terrance Boult. The interview was conducted at Jazzman’s on the campus of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
What in your background that led to the development of the Bachelor of Innovation programs?
In addition to teaching at Columbia, Lehigh and UCCS, I am on my third start-up company. I also have been involved with a lot of other start-ups. I have observed that students usually don’t see the value of what each team member brings to a project. Even in the best schools, a lot of students take classes based on the time of day, the level of difficulty, and similar considerations. Many students don’t take classes that add value to their educational experience. I want to change all that.
What caused you to move to Colorado Springs and UCCS?
I had pretty much decided to leave my previous school. I had a range of choices, from top 20 schools to UCCS. Many big schools view their model of success very positively and don’t want to try new things. At UCCS, I knew I could change things. UCCS is open to new and innovative ideas unlike other schools. I came to UCCS to implement my ideas regarding an innovation curriculum I have been thinking for quite a while. I want to create a common innovation core across disciplines that can be adopted beyond UCCS.
What are the companies you have worked with?
The first company I worked with created 360-degree video images. The second company worked on port surveillance. Now, the company I am involved with is Securics. We work on developing biometrics that cannot be broken into by the Government. We are partnered with IBM for Phase I development of a product. We are also partnered with another global company under NDA.
Was there a moment of time when you came up with the idea of the Innovation degrees?
Not really. I tried to develop a program at Columbia, but couldn’t go anywhere. I developed a family of integrated degrees in Business and Engineering (IBE) but the degrees were not so integrated. There is a 4-year Computer Science and Business degree at Lehigh. It’s the only degree in the country accredited both in Computer Science and Business.Have you been already advising other universities regarding the Innovation and Innovation-like degrees?Not on this set of degrees, but I am talking to some schools about how we succeeded in breaking institutional barriers.
What kinds of courses do you have in the Innovation program?
The best and the brightest people will be innovators no matter what. But, others need to be trained to be innovators. I don’t know how to teach people to work hard. There must be “fire in the belly” to be an innovator.
What’s your definition of innovation?
Innovation refers to a sequence of activities that allows an idea to be transformed to have an impact on or be used by a subgroup of society. For example, large-scale vaccination had a profound impact on society. Another example is the iPod. Steve Jobs had a vision to create it, but he didn’t make it. A lot of people put the pieces together to make the iPod. Some innovations are planned, but others are not well planned. An example of an unplanned innovation is what’s happening with social networking on the Web. An essential hallmark of understanding innovation is to be able to predict and adapt to new realities in society, and to be able to see new opportunities in a rapidly changing society.In a perfect world what are you your best hopes and predictions about the Innovation program?In four years, we would like to graduate students who are well liked by industry. We would like students from around the world to flock to Colorado Springs and to UCCS. In four years, we want to have half a dozen international partners in our program.
How many students have been accepted in the first year?
We have accepted 42 students as of middle of June 2007. Eighteen have already enrolled. We will have between 4 and 6 faculty members devoted to the program in the first year.
Would you like to add anything?
Yes. In the Innovation program, we consider team-oriented activities as extremely important. The students in our program are going to be socially engaging. That’s a key to success. We want our students to be culturally competent. The students focusing on Globalization will study cultural competence in depth. The others will learn to appreciate that cultural competence is crucial as well. Ideally, we want to have 60:40 ratio between women and men in our program. This is because attrition rate after graduation for women is higher than for men. So, if we want to have 50:50 ratio five years after graduation, we should have more women in the program now.
Thanks for talking with us!
Thank you for inviting me!
- Jugal Kalita and Margaret Mistry
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