As an academic program within the School for Interdisciplinary Arts, the Lemelson Center has had the opportunity contribute to the academic offerings and those of the college overall. It has also served to strengthen the college’s collaborative efforts with local, national, and international communities.

The Lemelson program embodies the School for Interdisciplinary Arts’ central tenets of interdisciplinarity, art and social action, and art and technology, by taking an interdisciplinary approach to the design process and addressing the impact of design on social needs. The Lemelson Center’s project-based academic courses allow students to design and build innovative solutions to real-world problems. They encourage students to learn critical thinking skills and applied design methods, while honing entrepreneurial skills and creating social change.

The program’s pedagogy fosters students’ acquisition of technological literacy through a liberal arts perspective. Assistive technology and universal design problem-solving grounds students in the social relevance of technology and serves as a platform for the program’s educational methodology.