Hey everyone!

If you didn’t already know, I was the STEAM Factories’ summer intern and I have been putting together this small article to hopefully use for the grant proposal or just generally for other faculty and staff to get them interested in joining STEAM or potentially helping to fund it. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on the article as a whole, feel free to reach out to me at schetter.12@buckeyemail.osu.edu and I will gladly talk a little bit more about it and my time here at the STEAM Factory.

As a side project, I have been compiling some quotes from our STEAM Spotlights that I have been working on during the semester about what “community” means to our STEAM Factory members. Here is what a couple of them had to say;

“One of the things that I’ve missed in my highly specialized role has been interactions with others further outside of my discipline. When I first found out about STEAM, I was drawn to the opportunity to learn from others in the Ohio State community. I’m a strong believer in some of these random collisions leading to inspiration in tackling novel or challenging problems in ways we may not have previously considered. Even if I don’t personally have a serendipitous eureka moment like that, I find those interactions to be intellectually rewarding.” – Austin Faught

“I’m struggling to think of a good, clean definition. I think it depends some on context. In academia we can think of community as a group engaging in the open sharing of ideas and knowledge. In a neighborhood it may be defined by geographic proximity and social connections. Or even a gym community could be built around shared goals in improving physical fitness. I guess in all of these it’s a group of people that are sharing something, goals, knowledge, space, etc.” – Austin Faught

“Perhaps my favorite thing about being an academic is the opportunities it provides to join in conversation with other curious people. I am always delighted to learn how researchers and teachers in other disciplines approach tricky questions in their fields or address familiar problems in new ways. We talk a lot in the humanities about interdisciplinarity and collaboration, but only rarely is this kind of work actually encouraged or rewarded. An intellectual community like STEAM Factory makes possible and even productive such interactions.” – Dr. Zachary Hines

“For me, community is about showing up for others, making authentic connections, and working collaboratively in service of a shared goal.” – Courtney Price

“Talk about a loaded question! Community means many things to me! Community can mean a geographically confined space with some degree of shared identity, like a neighborhood, school district, or municipality. Community can also mean shared interests or passions, like my Star Trek community that can be found all over the globe or like the community we have built at the STEAM Factory. I am a member of many different communities, some defined by geographic boundaries and others transcending them. I love community and am grateful for the communities that I am a part of, especially my STEAM community!” – Glennon Sweeney

Not only does the STEAM Factory provide a space for people to do work within, but it also provides a sense of community for those involved in higher education. Being a student working at the STEAM Factory for these last 13 weeks has felt like a blessing. I was granted the ability to meet and work with all of these amazing people on issues that we were facing like writing grants and proposing new event ideas to help expand our ever-growing community here at the STEAM Factory. I believe that it is an extremely important aspect of the Ohio State university and that it embodies every aspect of what OSU wants to do as an organization.

• Educating students through a comprehensive array of distinguished academic programs: By having the STEAM Factory offer student internships throughout the entire year, students are granted to opportunity to work closer with the staff and faculty at the Ohio State University as well as develop skills and create opportunities for individuals that are looking for work in this field in the future.
• Preparing a diverse student body to be leaders and engaged citizens: Everything that the STEAM Factory does is to encourage our faculty and staff here at Ohio State to be better prepared and more well equipped to teach our next generation. Offering a free space to present, hold meetings, and use as a cultivated learning environment is essential to any university, and having this available for free for anyone that is considered a member is infinitely valuable and a great way to give back to those who dedicate their time and energy to help better the university.
• Fostering a culture of engagement and service: The STEAM Factory makes an active effort to not only be a place for events and meetings, but also to actively engage with the community around them. They are known for their outreach events in the Franklinton area, with their name known well within the area because of all the events that the STEAM Factory has held to try and help the area around the 400 West Rich space they’ve called home for over a decade now. Being a branch out to local businesses and people in an area off campus is an amazing opportunity for Ohio State to reach out as well.

With all this said, I believe that the STEAM Factory does not only deserve to continue to be funded by this university, but it needs to be. Having a community where your staff can learn and grow is not only wanted, but needed to be successful and to keep them happy, and the STEAM Factory has been and always will be the place for that very thing.