Igniting the Spirit of Innovation: WeatherTech Innovation Lab, Recording Studio Offer DU Community New Pathways to Discovery
For generations of students, Dominican University has long been a gateway to exploration and learning.
Guided by Rosary College’s progressive history of cutting-edge research spaces, students who call Dominican home have routinely unearthed new avenues to pursue their passions in innovative ways. Today, healthcare simulation labs, modern art studios and state-of-the-art spaces adorn campus, allowing students unique opportunities to connect their academic goals and creative interests.
Dominican’s WeatherTech Innovation Lab and Recording Studio, born out of the creation of the Learning Commons, are two of the latest spaces continuing this forward-thinking history.
The WeatherTech Innovation Lab (WIL) was made possible through a generous donation from David MacNeil, founder and CEO of Bolingbrook-based WeatherTech. them come to life.
The WIL serves as a resource for students to experiment with new ideas using a variety of technology. Students use state-of-the-art 3D printers to design digital objects on a computer and then watch them come to life.
Beyond the printers, sewing and embroidery machines help students discover a talent for fashion design, while a drone allows students to experiment with video and photography high above campus. An augmented reality cube teaches STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) concepts by turning everyday objects into virtual 3D images that students can closely examine through their phone.
Meanwhile, in the Recording Studio, students learn how to leverage new software and recording equipment to create and edit podcasts for course projects, produce their own original music, and make short videos using a green screen.
Three years in, the spaces, with their emerging technologies, have steadily become focal points of creativity, innovation and hands-on learning—the evolution of more than a century of Dominican University meeting the needs of students to elevate their futures.
Advancing Skills for the Workplace
Undergraduate students are looking to the WIL to take their academic endeavors to the next level.
Student Pablo Cesar Bedolla Ortiz and his team used one of the space’s 3D printers this semester to print prototypes of a plastic lithium battery container for a device they are building that will be capable of collecting data from the surface of the moon. The project is funded through NASA’s Minority University Research Program (MUREP) Innovative New Designs for Space, also known as NASA MINDS. It encourages students to think about scientific projects that could potentially be used in the Artemis moon exploration program.
For Bedolla Ortiz, a junior majoring in aerospace engineering and mathematics, this was his first time learning to use a 3D printer and 3D modeling. “Being able to use the lab—and just knowing we have an innovation lab with 3D printers at Dominican—opened up a whole new range of options for us,” he said.
“In the future, if we want to make gears or rotating systems for devices, the 3D printer will be the best option.”
For graduate students studying library and information science, the WIL also serves as hands-on job preparation.
As one of the first student workers in the lab, Alex Lorenz ’19, MLIS ’23 learned how to troubleshoot the 3D printers, and planned programming—important skills in a professional library setting. He also worked closely with students who used the lab’s portable sound recording equipment to make a documentary film for a class, helped business students design a logo for marketing the WIL, and hosted creative workshops for university clubs.
Lorenz also used the lab’s camera drone to capture images of Lewis Hall, which he then used to turn into a plastic model using one of the 3D printers. The model was featured on flyers that promoted the WIL.
“Mentorship and helping people brainstorm and workshop their ideas for things they wanted to make was always a rewarding experience for me,” Lorenz said.
When Lorenz created an online 3D printing resource guide for lab users, it was noticed beyond Dominican. The Lyndhurst STEM Club for girls in New Jersey ended up using the guide for their school’s beginner 3D printing program. In a note, teacher Denise Goodwin thanked Lorenz for the guide’s “treasure trove of information for the girls to learn from.”
“That’s still one of my proudest moments,” said Lorenz, who now works for Chicago’s Newberry Library. “It was nice to have an effect outside Dominican and give other groups resources I felt were important.”
Podcasts and (Educational) Parody
The popularity of podcasts has made the Recording Studio a sought-after space for student projects.
The studio was incorporated into some Critical Reading, Writing and Speaking courses last fall. Adjunct Professor Megan Chesney developed the “Power of Language Podcast” and assigned students to create a podcast of their choosing using the studio’s recording equipment and editing technology.
Themes included a discussion on the use of Latinx as an identifier of people of Latin American descent; the power of positive affirmations; a discussion among nursing students about language barriers in the medical field; and using music to spread awareness of Indigenous languages, among other topics.
This “alternative to an essay” allowed students to practice both writing and speaking skills, Chesney noted.
“I think there’s so much potential,” she said of the studio’s use for classroom work. “At Dominican, we have a lot of students who know at least a little bit of Indigenous languages, and having the recording studio is a great way to record some of those languages and teach other students about them. I think there’s a lot of possibilities to add to the educational environment.”
During the fall semester, students in Dr. Clodagh Weldon’s honors course Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? wrote and recorded a parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas called The Twelve Books of BK, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the course’s core text.
“I helped them record that in a very We Are the World style,” said Phil Skurski MLIS ’22, the new user experience librarian. “I’m sure that plenty of those students are going to remember a lot more about the Brothers K than if they hadn’t had to sing the song they wrote about it!”
Isabela Flores, a junior majoring in mathematics and Spanish, admits she knew little about creating a podcast when she learned her Introduction to Spanish America course required one for the final project. At the advice of Brisa Ruiz ’23, Flores reached out to the Recording Studio and became trained and certified in using the equipment, including Audacy, a platform frequently used for publishing a podcast.
Ruiz learned how to use the technology when she created a series of Spanish and English-language podcasts for her Mazzuchelli Honors Program practicum during her senior year. She conducted a series of interviews with students, exploring topics important to the Latine community on campus, like identity, immigration and the experience of being first-generation college students.
Flores herself went on to create three podcasts, each in Spanish, for three different courses. One explored U.S.-Latin America politics in the 1970s, another analyzed how college students can combat burnout, and the third featured an interview with her uncle, a mechanical engineer.
“My experience with the recording studio keeps growing and growing—not just because of the wonderful equipment they have, but the effort I put into it,” Flores said. “I now have a goal in mind of creating a podcast with my mom. She has a very unique take on life and I’d like the world to hear it.”
Cultivating Cultural Connectivity
True to the vision of the Sinsinawa Sisters, the WIL connects students from all backgrounds. As an Hispanic- Serving Institution, cultural events are a key part of this tradition, and the WIL offers ways to connect celebration and hands-on learning with technology during these important occasions.
In 2021, students put forward a creative twist on Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, when they made customized calaveras, the colorful skulls that adorn altars, with the lab’s 3D printer, rather than utilizing the traditional means of sugar. The initiative, using the new innovative technology, also taught the students about the Mexican tradition and the symbols associated with it. It even made its way to a conference of library professionals in Mexico City last year, where representatives of Rebecca Crown Library presented the project as an example of how the university celebrates student identities and age-old cultural practices—while using modern technology to do it.
“I’ve always found that kind of programming, which is culturally relevant to the Dominican community, to be some of the most successful programs that we did in the Innovation Lab,” said Lorenz, the former grad student lab worker.
'It's Only a Sign of Things to Come'
As Dominican’s enrollment continues to grow and more students learn about the technology and experiences that the WIL and Recording Studio have to offer, enhancement of the spaces is inevitable.
The lab and studio’s technologies are already incorporated into the classroom and the university’s curriculum. Skurski is tasked with furthering progress.
A significant aspect of Skurski’s role involves faculty and student outreach to identify new academic opportunities for the recording studio and lab.
“There’s great potential to help enhance the curriculum,” Skurski said.
“I want the community to help guide me in the new directions this space should go,” they added.
Skurski believes the trailblazing work students are already pioneering in the spaces is only a small preview of the inventive study that’s ahead.
“As happy as I am with how the space has developed so far, I think it’s only a sign of things to come,” Skurski said.