‘Inspiring student leadership and team work': expanding the horizon of the curriculum and enhancing the student experience
Renske Oldenboom, Hans van Drongelen and Günther Sturms, partners at ‘MoTiv’ from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Wednesday 06 November 2013
Huxley 311
Huxley Building
South Kensington campus
‘MoTiv’ is a consultancy working at Delft University of Technology. For over twenty years they have been successfully mentoring and coaching students from engineering and science courses in team-working and leadership. They work primarily with student unions and student society committees. Other clients have included university departments, local government and businesses.
In their presentation they shared their consultancy work inspiring leadership among students and student societies in a technical university context similar to Imperial. They offered reflections on ideas that have been of practical use in their work that enhances both the student experience and the curriculum. These include the German concept of ‘Bildung’ - of education as a process of formation which sets technical knowledge alongside personal, social and cultural development, and critical thinking. And in their work on team building they drew on the practical observations of work place teams by US sociologist and philosopher Professor Richard Sennett.
The ‘MoTiv’ consultancy originally grew out of work by the student chaplaincy service mediating in conflict between students and teaching staff on issues of educational quality. The partners of ‘MoTiv’ are theologians who operate entirely in the technical workplace helping professional people explore the wider values and meanings of their work.
While at Imperial, the ‘MoTiv’ team also led an event in Civil Engineering giving students and staff the chance to talk together about ‘what inspires me as an engineer?’