Ball State’s Center for Innovation and Collaboration Brings Ideas and Partners Together
Director Bette Smith discusses how Ball State’s new Center for Innovation and Collaboration connects campus and community partners through technology, creativity, entrepreneurship, and shared problem-solving.
Natural light and flexible seating define one of the Center for Innovation and Collaboration’s gathering spaces, designed to support creative work and collaboration across disciplines.
This Fall, as part of the Village revitalization plan, Ball State University opened the Center for Innovation and Collaboration, a new campus hub designed to bring students, faculty, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and community organizations together around creative problem-solving, emerging technology, and regional impact.
Led by Director Bette Smith, the center brings together flexible labs, studios, meeting spaces, immersive technology, and regional partners in one place. The goal is to give people across campus and the region a place to test ideas, build projects, and share their work.
Here, Ms. Smith discusses the building, the center’s first projects, and her vision for what the Center for Innovation and Collaboration can become:
The new center was designed to encourage collaboration among students, faculty, and community partners. Walk us through the building and how it accomplishes those goals.
The building was designed with collaboration in mind. The centerpiece of the first floor is a 2,300-square-foot Showcase Lab anchored by a curved LED wall, digital displays, and touchscreens, with large windows that invite passersby to see the work happening inside. It will highlight student and community projects and serve as a flexible event space.
There is a Prototyping Lab equipped with large worktables and hands-on tools such as Lego® and cardboard for building and testing ideas; an XR Lab; and our nationally and internationally recognized IDIA Lab, which creates augmented, virtual, and mixed reality experiences. I also love thinking about projection mapping on the exterior of the center. It’s a wonderful use of the center’s gorgeous glass front.
On the second floor, which is also the new home of Digital Corps, there is a collaboration café with a terrace overlooking Alderdice Gates, video editing and podcast studios, meeting and focus rooms, and an open work area. The third floor houses leadership offices; Emerging Media, Design, and Development; and offices for the Center for Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute.
We also welcomed the Muncie-Delaware County Black Chamber of Commerce and the East Central Indiana Small Business Development Center to the space, further strengthening connections between the University and the region.
The Center for Innovation and Collaboration launched with six projects spanning multiple colleges and departments. What does that cross-disciplinary reach say about the center’s vision for Ball State?
Designed by RATIO Architects, the center’s contemporary palette of glass, stone, and dark metal establishes a welcoming gateway to The Village.
We are thrilled that these projects represent so many colleges and departments across campus. This was the hope when we issued the call for proposals this past Spring. The message is that the center is for the entire University, and the vision is to encourage even more cross-disciplinary collaboration in the future.
We know that these project teams, working in the center and near one another, will create new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. That is the beauty of having a dedicated space for people to come together.
The initial projects reflect that vision in different ways. They include initiatives that empower students as authors and digital creators, engage participants in sustainability-focused game design, tell the story of Muncie’s public art, develop immersive multimedia experiences tied to local history and culture, and bring interactive art installations and augmented reality experiences to campus and downtown Muncie.
Why is community connection such an important part of what the center is trying to do?
Community connection is central to the Center for Innovation and Collaboration’s mission. Ball State already does this in many ways through the Office of Community Engagement and Immersive Learning, to name just two examples. Through the center, we hope to build on that work by sharing our expertise in media, technology, design, and art with community collaborators and the public.
The projects are one part of that. Another will be the workshops, training, and events that take place at the center. We also hope the community will see the center as a resource for starting a business, exploring new technology, and meeting like-minded people.
As the center’s first director, what does it mean to you to be in this role, and what are you most looking forward to?
Serving as the inaugural director of the Center for Innovation and Collaboration feels like the culmination of many threads throughout my career. I’ve had the opportunity to work in higher education, which has always been a passion of mine, as well as in corporate environments, including with a global software company, and as the owner of a management consultancy partnering with Fortune 500 organizations.
Across all of those experiences, the common themes have been connection, curiosity, and bringing people together to address meaningful challenges.
What excites me most about the center is that it brings all of those worlds together in one place. We’re already seeing the building come alive, with students, faculty, community collaborators, and business partners working side by side—sharing ideas, building projects, and learning from one another.
