The Habbershon Family Innovation Zone

Staley Hall of Arts and Letters | Room 202

The Habbershon Family Innovation Zone is E+I’s physical space at Grove City College. It is located within the Staley Hall of Arts and Letters (HAL), room 202, on upper campus. The Zone is designed to be a highly collaborative space for students of all majors to utilize for a variety of purposes. The tables and chairs in the Center can be arranged in any formation to meet a variety of needs. In addition there are six double-sided whiteboards that can be utilized and moved to any part of the room.

In the room you will also find the office of Professor Yvonne J. English, the Executive Director of the Center for E+I.

Human-Centered Design

E+I is dedicated to educating and equipping students in the concept of Human-Centered Design:

The discipline of developing solutions in the service of people.

LUMA Institute

In classes such as Innovation for Impact, students get the opportunity to learn a variety of design thinking methods. These are REAL techniques many businesses and startups are using TODAY to ideate and solve problems.

The Center equips students to practice design thinking through supplying the materials and the space necessary to grow in this area. Want to learn about design thinking? Stop by the Center and check out the materials with have from the LUMA Institute – A Leader in Design Thinking Methods or visit Ideo U.

Are you ready for a challenge? Once you think that you have the design thinking know-how and are ready to flex that new muscle, try your hand at designing solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems at Open Ideo.

THE HISTORY

Entrepreneurship is part of the family legacy that Tim Habbershon ’81 is building. It’s a legacy that is tied up with Grove City College, where he, his sister and his four children all earned degrees.

The College provided Habbershon a foundation upon which he built a successful career and fostered an entrepreneurial spirit that suffuses his work and his family’s. Currently a managing director of Fidelity Investments, one of the largest private family companies in the U.S., Habbershon has been an advisor, consultant and coach to ownership and management teams of large family-controlled firms and family offices worldwide and built three university institutes in family enterprising.

Recognizing the College’s influence and desiring to give something back to their alma mater, the Habbershon family generously invested in The Center for Entrepreneurship + Innovation (E+I) at Grove City College.

In May, E+I honored that support by naming its space in the Hall of Arts and Letters on campus the Habbershon Family Innovation Zone. The distinction recognizes Tim Habbershon and his children: Grant ’06 and Amanda Habbershon; Jonathan ’09 and Melissa Habbershon; Meredith (Habbershon ’07) and David Nastasi; and Natalie (Habbershon ’11) and Joshua Holmes.

Opened in fall 2018, E+I’s center is designed to be a highly collaborative space for students of all majors to utilize for a variety of purposes. The former classroom is like a blank slate. Within its white walls, tables and chairs can be arranged in any formation to meet a variety of needs, double-sided, mobile whiteboards wait for the next big idea and staff is on hand to assist, advise and encourage budding entrepreneurs.

“Space is an important indicator of one’s learning philosophy,” Tim Habbershon said. The space E+I calls home is meant to encourage collaboration, integrate different disciplines and inform “how we want to be thinkers,” he said.