This paper describes the way innovation and entrepreneurship have been integrated into an engineering curriculum through a year-long liberal arts seminar. This three-course sequence has "The City" as its topical focus, and it incorporates principles of entrepreneurship and innovation through course content specifically centered on these concepts through experiential learning in a service project, and through critical thinking and rhetorical analysis of students' own research strategies using the Burkean parlor model of academic and professional conversation. In Fall Quarter, students read texts, view films, and study other cultural products related to the concept of "The City." They examine how depictions of entrepreneurs and industry illuminate our understanding of "City" and its connection to the American Dream-and the promises and perils associated with such a concept. In Winter Quarter, students study "The City" as an innovation center. The concept of creativity is examined as a social, collaborative idea, and students explore the history of the large city in which our institution is located. In Spring Quarter, students study the aesthetics of the city and analyze the rhetoric of public space. The relationship between art and commerce is explored, with historic and contemporary examples presented for analysis. Students also complete substantial, self-directed research projects that require them to become familiar with current issues and recent trends in academic and professional conversations regarding their selected topics. Learning how to enter a field, ask the right questions, and determine its key "players" and important issues are hallmarks of the critical thinking skills cultivated in the traditions of liberal education. These same abilities also characterize the practices of entrepreneurs and innovators outside the academy. Service-learning projects have allowed students to work with government officials, community groups, and non-profit organizations - all actors that they will inevitably interact with once they become professionals. Completed projects have included the design and build of a community garden and rainwater catchment system, the construction of a solar food dehydrator, and a proposal to better define the entrance to and enhance the usability of a new urban state trail. It is clear that the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math) are important at this critical juncture in America life. But, as Columbia University historian Alan Brinkley has recently argued, "we would be equally impoverished without humanistic knowledge as well. Science and technology teach us what we can do. Humanistic thinking can help us understand what we should do." A pedagogy based upon entrepreneurialism can help create a vibrant relationship between the liberal arts and engineering education, one that strengthens both disciplines as it better prepares students for the realities of 21 st century economic life.
