By Вen Li
Innovation will be both the subject and style of two new courses offered at the U of C starting in January 2003. The courses were approved at the Oct. 24 General Faculties Council meeting and will be available to all students as open options.
“These are university-wide, innovative courses in innovation,” said Kathleen Scherf, Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Culture which administers the program. “Our aim is to get undergrads to think about how innovation works in a socio-historical, economic, and cultural points of view.”
INNO 321, Issues of Innovation will be followed in Fall 2003 by INNO 323, The Practice of Innovation. Both courses, capped at 70 students, offer hands-on learning from professors and graduate students from disciplines that range from Engineering to International Relations.
“There’s a great level of interest in innovation,” said Scherf. “We’re hoping to appeal to a whole range of students who have an interest beyond a limited discipline.”
Principal lecturer Dr. Jeremy Hall from the Haskayne School of Business brings a current perspective to innovation. He and four other lecturers will cover innovation from many perspectives.
“This is a course about the big picture, not a highly specialized-narrowly focused course,” said Hall. “It’s a chance to see how bigger things fit together.”
Hall in particular will discuss the importance of innovation to business success.
“Innovation is a primary source of competitive advantage for firms and the primary challenge for management,” he said. “By possessing scarce resources like innovation you will make money.”
Greek and Roman Studies Professor John Humphrey from the Faculty of Humanities will examine the role of innovation in ancient times.
“What Herb [Emerg from Social Sciences] and I are doing is stepping into the past to look at it as a historical, social concept,” said Humphrey. “We’re using the ancient Greek and Roman world as a case study that doesn’t have contemporary baggage. Also, we know the outcome of the conflict between innovation and society.”
In addition to learning about innovation, examining ancient events offers students insight into problems we face today, according to Humphrey.
“In the first century AD, the Mediterranean society was very similar to our own,” he said. “It was a time of technological innovation and research funded by states. It was also a time of social dislocation. The poor became poorer, the rich richer as they had different access to technology. The Mediterranean fell apart because not everyone felt the benefits of innovation.”
Hall will offer a contemporary view of how innovation affects society today.
“When innovation hits society, who is to blame?” asked Hall. “Social benefits trickle up and down. In Japan, skills learned from making video games and golf clubs have applications in aerospace.”
Hall noted that the foundations of the information age were laid about 50 years ago, and benefits trickled down in North America. The modern semiconductor industry, he said, is largely derived from Fairchild Semiconductor, a company that provided electronics to the United States military after World War II. Fairchild spun off companies and individuals who would later establish technology companies of their own.
Humphrey concurred.
“All the important technological innovations happened for military reasons. Sobering, isn’t it?”