Stonehill 2020: Bold Ideas for Academic Innovation and Excellence

Purpose and Goals  

The Campaign for Stonehill College has made a significant commitment to raising funds to advance academic initiatives that will transform the Stonehill educational experience. This investment in academic innovation and excellence will enhance the learning outcomes for our students.

Our donors seek impactful and compelling ideas for their philanthropic investments. We are asking our faculty and staff to think big and be bold — to invite the very best in creative and compelling projects that will transform our campus, leverage our existing knowledge and expertise, and promote the discovery of solutions for pressing issues that we face as a community.

Stonehill 2020: Bold Ideas for Academic Innovation and Excellence - Through a competitive proposal process, faculty and staff submitted their very best creative and compelling projects designed to transform our campus, leverage our existing knowledge and expertise, and promote the discovery of solutions for pressing issues that we face as a community. Through the Campaign for Stonehill, the College will match donor investors with selected Bold Ideas to implement these innovative, transformative projects.

As the College embarks on a new capital campaign, $10 million will be earmarked for the Stonehill 2020: Bold Ideas for Academic Innovation and Excellence Initiative. Below are short descriptions of initiatives that leverage the strengths of faculty and staff and allow for increased engagement in teaching and learning in a changing world. Through the Campaign for Stonehill, the College will match donor investors with selected Bold Ideas to implement these innovative, transformative projects.  

Bold Ideas in the Thomas and Donna May School of Arts and Sciences:

• Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice will be a home for innovative and interdisciplinary teaching, research, and public dialogue. The Center’s strategic plan includes diversifying the faculty, infusing the study of race and ethnicity into the curriculum, recruiting and retaining more students of color, improving the campus climate, and creating opportunities for interdisciplinary work, to name just a few.  
• Integrated Photonics, especially in quantum mechanics, optics, lasers, and other relevant topics, has developed at the College along with a strengthening profile in STEM fields. Committed to cultivating a culture of collaboration, innovation, and assessment, science faculty are eager to expand and enhance  curriculum and resources to position Stonehill as a bona fide leader in the burgeoning field of integrated photonics. The College will establish a program within the Department of Physics and Astronomy for educating students in optics/photonics/integrated photonics. Stonehill would become the third institution in the U.S. to house an AIM Photonics LEAP facility with state-of-the-art equipment for integrated photonics manufacturing. 
• Frantic Assembly/Stonehill College New Works Collaboration will develop a collaboration between the theater program at Stonehill and Frantic Assembly, a world-renowned, London-based theater company, annually for a three-week residency to create an original piece of theater. 
• Pathways to Careers is a three-part-program specifically designed for students who are passionate about studying academic fields in the traditional liberal arts while simultaneously seeking to hone their career readiness skills. Through Pathways, students will be able to articulate the value of their major while giving them additional transferable skills that will increase their marketability with employers.

Bold Ideas in the Leo J. Meehan School of Business

• Center for Experiential Learning and Engaged Research will provide research support to faculty and students engaging in experiential learning assignments for for-profit and non-profit organizations. The Center will be the hub for team projects and will manage the assignments as they come in from outside organizations. 
• Financial Technology (FinTech), a fast-growing sector that encompasses the use of digital technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence in the financial services industry, fits squarely into the social justice mission of Stonehill. These new tools directly benefit the “unbankable” population that has traditionally been left out of the capital markets, by reducing transaction costs, removing entry barriers, and mitigating information asymmetry.