Entering the Chace Multipurpose Activities Center for the Innovation and Design Thinking for All (IDEA) opening ceremony on the morning of January 22, students received an immediate wake-up call from The Killers as the sound system pounded out “Mr. Brightside.” Plastic handclappers, distributed by green-clad IDEA volunteers, added to the cacophony, and the room’s energy level rose alongside a countdown to the program’s start.  

IDEA, a required first-year course at Bryant, is based on the principles of design thinking, a non-linear iterative process that creates solutions to problems on the fly. Over the course of 72 hours, the Class of 2028 teamed up to address real-world issues, including increasing adoption rates at animal rescue facilities, improving students’ financial literacy, and encouraging equal pay for female athletes.  

“You will use design thinking to move from insights to impact, generating creative solutions that will make a real difference in people’s lives,” said IDEA Program Director and Psychology Professor Allison Butler, Ph.D.  

Here were the program’s highlights:

Wednesday, 10:15 a.m.

For students in Cohort 6, the first IDEA work session began with an ice-breaking “speed dating” exercise where students paired off for prompted chats on subjects ranging from sports to the title of their own life story.

Then, things got real when the balloons came out. The cohort was instructed to break into small groups and design a functional piece of furniture made entirely from masking tape and the kind of balloons you’d find at a child’s birthday party.

“Who here considers themselves a perfectionist?” asked cohort leader and College of Business Dean Todd Alessandri, Ph.D., before quickly adding, “Try not to do that. Failing is OK.”

The design challenge included choosing a client for the product, designing furniture based on their needs, developing a mission statement, and building something practical and sturdy enough to withstand the client sitting on it for 10 seconds without touching the floor.

Wednesday, 3 p.m.

Twenty-five students from Cohort 12 squeezed around several tables within Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s Partial Hospital Program late Wednesday afternoon. The group of first-years, led by Assistant Professor of Psychology Melanie Maimon, Ph.D., were tasked with considering how to support young adults struggling with mental health issues. Together, they listened to healthcare professionals share how Hasbro’s day and afternoon partial programs offer alternatives to hospitalizations and traditional outpatient services for youth with serious emotional, behavioral, or relationship issues.  

From emphasizing the importance of day-to-day structure and the significant role family members play in the effectiveness of care to elevating the value of having a care team that encompasses a range of experts, healthcare professionals gave Bryant students a peek into the program’s activities and desired outcomes. As first-years jotted notes to inform their projects, they asked the Hasbro staff how they manage the varying dynamics between kids/caregivers and adolescents/caregivers and what they wish they could add/change about the program.

Wednesday, 7:15 p.m.

Alumni mentor Frank Stasiowski ’75MBA flew from his home in Vail, Colorado, to share a simple message with the members of Cohort 21 who were helping a local ski and snowboard shop increase customer satisfaction: customers need to feel like people, not transactions.

The cohort’s empathy interview was students’ first steps toward carving the feedback gained from an afternoon site visit to Alpine Ski and Snowboard in Warwick, Rhode Island, into recommendations. Students described the shop as “homey” and catering to young families but lacking a strong social media presence and struggling to compete with online sellers. 

A flurry of ideas followed on improving engagement by creating a sense of belonging among the niche community of Rhode Island skiers, like offering hot cocoa to shoppers and hosting social or educational events. Stasiowski, a business owner, Bryant trustee, former surf shop owner, and current senior-level competitive skier, advised: “Do things that nobody else is doing to wrap yourself around your customers.”  

Thursday, 9 a.m.

Working with the Providence Convention and Visitors Bureau, the students from Cohort 39 spent the morning of day two sketching ways to make a visit to the city more inclusive and reflective of Providence’s diversity.

Posing a series of “how might we” questions, topics proposed for consideration by the cohort’s small working groups included how to create more attractions that highlight the area’s rich history, show off the city’s ethnic food scene, and differentiate Providence from regional competitors like Boston.  

Thursday, 2:30 p.m.

Logan Moison ’28 couldn’t help but be impressed as he surveyed his cohort’s nearly 500 ideas on how to get patrons and potential patrons involved in local theater. Taking the form of a galaxy of multicolored Post-it notes, some ideas were more plausible — local excursions to schools in character, for instance, — and others more out there: Ejector seats for disruptive audience members seemed a tough sell for insurance purposes.

But, arranged like this, the constellation was breathtaking.

“You can’t get in your own way when you’re having great ideas,” noted Moison as he took in the results of the brainstorming session. “You can never tell when something that seems like a bad idea at first could lead to something amazing.”  

Soon they would start choosing their favorite notions and begin refining them. But for now, the focus was on considering every possibility.  

Thursday, 4:30 p.m.

Madison Lonshine ’28, a member of Cohort 30, had a moment of inspiration when she began drawing out her storyboard. Her group was charged with improving product sustainability while retaining customer appeal. But translating Post-it note ideas to full-fledged world-savers is proving to be a tough ask.

That’s the magic of a storyboard, Sarah Griffith, a process owner at SynQor, an IDEA sponsor, advised the group. A storyboard doesn’t just help you share a user journey with others, she suggested; it also helps you better envision it for yourself.

As Lonshine plotted out her idea, depicting a shower gauge that tells you how much water you’re using, she also developed a backstory for the people using it: a young family who wanted to help the environment but might need a little nudge. That insight led her to add a cost counter and timer to the unit to remind people of other benefits of conservation.  

“It’s different to see it right in front of you,” she noted.

Thursday, 7 p.m.

As the students of Cohort 23 pitched their plans for promoting equality for female athletes, they couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. After all, this was the first time they’d shared their ideas beyond their groups.  

Their new audience was two mentors drawn from Bryant’s 50,000-strong alumni network: Elena Grigelevich-Iacobucci ’18, ’20MBA — a data analyst at ebbo — and Erica Colonero ’98 — co-founder, DEI consultant, and trainer at VisionSpring.

Over the course of an hour, the cohort shared creative strategies ranging from forging strategic partnerships with sports-betting sites to developing wrestling-style storylines to “dual ticketing” partnerships. Throughout the presentations, Colonero helped the students hone their pitches while Grigelevich-Iacobucci focused on the big picture, encouraging them to take their ideas and make them even more impressive.

When the pair checked on Kerin Birch '28’s group after the pitch session, they found the students had already re-imagined, and expanded, their initial plans.

“You kind of inspired us,” Burch admitted happily.

Friday, 4 p.m.

The MAC gymnasium was abuzz as first-years took out their phones and voted for their favorite IDEA project, two choices honed from a pool of 40 by a group of Bryant judges. After a suspenseful few minutes, Allison Butler revealed that Cohort 35 won the audience vote with their Canvas Coach – a vehicle that would travel around the community and engage youth and their families in various art mediums; the prototype sought to eliminate transportation barriers and limited access to arts supplies.

Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking Kristie DeJesus, who was one of the three judges, noted that it was clear that first-years applied design thinking principles throughout their journeys. “Participating in Bryant's IDEA program for the first time, I was most impressed by the students. Their innovative approaches to their design challenges were truly remarkable,” said DeJesus.