Jon Leinonen stands outside the College of Business at Michigan Tech.

Jonathan Leinonen, principal lecturer in the Michigan Technological University College
of Business, is a 2021 Engineering Unleashed Fellow.

This year, 27 individuals from higher education institutions across the country have
been named fellows by Engineering Unleashed (EU). The designation recognizes leadership
in undergraduate engineering education. The honor, which encompasses research plus
funding, will go far in continuing to differentiate Michigan Tech’s business program
for its business-STEM interface.

In this Q&A, Leinonen describes the opportunity, his work and what the EU fellowship
means for business students, Michigan Tech and the region.

Engineering Unleashed

Engineering Unleashed (EU) is a community of 3,800 faculty members from 340 institutions
of higher education. It’s powered by the Kern Family Engineering Entrepreneurship
Network (KEEN), a 50-partner collaborative that shares a mission to graduate engineers
with entrepreneurial mindsets who are equipped to create societal, personal and economic
value. In 2019, Michigan Tech became the 42nd university accepted into KEEN, a great
honor for all of campus.

Q: Jon, congratulations on being named an Engineering Unleashed Fellow! How’d you
get involved in the EU community?

JL: Thanks! The seed for the fellowship process was planted as I worked with a group
of innovative faculty from across campus with a vision to promote an entrepreneurial
mindset throughout Michigan Tech. Once I learned what Engineering Unleashed is all
about, I began to realize that a lot of what we teach in the College of Business is
in line with KEEN.

In the process, I took Engineering Unleashed Faculty Development workshops that were
designed and delivered by a group of subject-matter experts who serve as faculty members
at more than 25 institutions. The workshops attract faculty participants from across
the country, focusing on the development and application of an entrepreneurial mindset
in teaching and learning, research, industry or leadership.

Q: What do you do in your day-to-day work?

JL: As a principal lecturer within the College of Business, my main focus is on teaching
business management courses. Prior to this, I worked in industry for about 20 years,
which sensitized me to the needs of businesses to develop a holistic view to problem-solving.
To complement my teaching, I also work with entrepreneurial and economic development
groups that include Michigan Tech’s entrepreneurial support programs, Michigan Small
Business Development Center, the Finnish American Chamber of Commerce for the Upper
Peninsula, MTEC SmartZone and Portage Health Foundation.

Q: What opportunities does this fellowship open up for you?

JL: Working in the midst of this ecosystem allows leverage across my roles for class
projects, research and community impact. The support from the KEEN fellowship has
materially advanced the under-resourced college student dialogue with stakeholders,
identified new research opportunities for students and is leading to material outcomes
that demonstrate our capabilities as a University and within the College of Business.
As we show success in these areas, students are eager to learn and be involved in
research, the community becomes more engaged and opportunities open up across the
board. I am one to look ahead and often ask what’s next. I’m eager to see this project
bring in more students and opportunities to engage the community with new value.

Q: What’s your project about?

JL: I applied the entrepreneurially minded learning (EML) framework from Engineering
Unleashed to work with students to submit a project to the Undergraduate Research
Internship Program (URIP) through the Pavlis Honors College. EML is the collective
process of instilling curiosity and discovery, developing insight and creating value
through experiential education. We secured funding to hire two students with additional
support from the Dean’s Advisory Council in the College of Business and the Portage
Health Foundation. Those students worked to prepare two reports that identified resource
needs specific to students in the western Upper Peninsula.

An example of the need we are addressing is the number of college students who have
been diagnosed with conditions such as anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Students
who lack the resources to handle these diagnoses face a much greater challenge to
learning. Another is the cost of college where students are not able to access available
grants or benefits they may be eligible for. Helping students to identify and access
the available resources is an ongoing need we are looking into.

Right now we’re completing our first cut of informational videos and a draft of the
regional scholarship program.

Jon Leinonen talks with students outside the College of Business

Leinonen works with students to identify resource needs specific to students in the
western Upper Peninsula. 

Q: Where did you get the idea?

JL: In my Introduction to Business course, some students expressed an interest in
research, so I attended the Engineering Unleashed workshop on entrepreneurially minded
student research. The focus of our project is to assist under-resourced college students,
which is related to a community-wide poverty assistance initiative being led by Portage
Health Foundation that I am also involved with.

Q: What challenges have you encountered?

JL: As I brought more students into working on the project, one of the challenges
was to maintain focus. We started to get into resource needs that include food security,
safe and affordable housing, various aspects and access to health care, communication
with stakeholders and more, in addition to finances.

In our fall class, we constrained our scope to communication with stakeholders through
informative videos to high schools and also community representatives. We also had
another group focused on researching and documenting a business model based on best
practices applicable to the western UP for a regional scholarship program.

Q: How will students benefit from this?

JL: Concepts discussed in the classroom have little value unless we can help someone
improve their life at the end of the day. Students are gaining hands-on experience
with a variety of business concepts with the promise of also helping future students
as a result of their work. Through this project, we followed students’ curiosity in
research and applied it to a regionally significant challenge.

I surveyed students from my class after exercising the entrepreneurial mindset. Eighty-five
percent of respondents indicated they either agreed or strongly agreed that they are
better prepared to handle a future complex project, they are more proficient with
skills and ability to conduct research, they can see how their work leads to broader
community and societal benefits, and their efforts will make a material benefit to
the lives of other people. Altogether, the students not only helped the project, but
are more capable to carry these skills forward for future impact.

The group interviewed high school and college students and administrators, community
representatives and government officials. They are working on videos for social media
to communicate the needs and ways for people to become more involved in supporting
students.

Another group of students prepared information to develop a regional scholarship program.
The students’ goal is to develop a plan to seed, build and operate a community-based
scholarship program for the western Upper Peninsula.

I anticipate that future student projects will be able to work on more specific facets
that were identified along the way, including resources to support students’ mental
and physical health, support for navigating the college administrative processes and
also further engagement with the scholarship program.

Q: You also serve as co-director of Husky Innovate and vice president of Superior
Innovations. How does EU coalesce with those initiatives?

JL: Michigan Tech has an amazing team of entrepreneurially minded people. As students
develop their entrepreneurial interests, Michigan Tech provides people and programs
to meet them at every step of the journey. Students shape and test their ideas, secure
development resources, build out their team and business model, and set themselves
on the path to entrepreneurship. I often say that success has a lot of people’s fingerprints
on it, and the team here is as good as anywhere to help dreams become reality.

About the College of Business

The Michigan Tech College of Business offers undergraduate majors in accounting, construction
management, economics, engineering management, finance, management, management information
systems and marketing, as well as a general business option. Graduate degrees include
the TechMBA®, a Master of Engineering Management, a Master of Science in Accounting
and a Master of Science in Applied Natural Resource Economics.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.

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