A pilot program at Stevens Institute of Technology is described to integrate senior-year capstone engineering design with a two-semester course sequence that addresses innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E), these topics representing an evolving core thread in the curriculum to address the demands of 21st Century careers. The pilot has specifically addressed the challenges of doing this with multidisciplinary design projects. The pilot team comprised experienced capstone design coordinators from several disciplines together with faculty members who teach entrepreneurship. Separate multidisciplinary sections of the two-semester senior capstone design course had a lead faculty coordinator with other faculty advisers as consultants where appropriate from the disciplines involved in each of the projects. The two-course I&E sequence was integrated with the capstone design courses. Most importantly the senior project teams were scheduled into an I&E course section as a team to facilitate the capstone project integration with these courses. The courses strived to directly develop the relevant I&E concepts in the context of each design project. The paper discusses the significant challenges in implementing a coordinated approach, especially in the multidisciplinary context, including the need to meet program capstone outcomes and more recently achieve consistency across core outcomes in addition to those that are program specific. Student and faculty assessment of the pilot to date show good progress made but challenges remaining. A significant feature of this initiative is its goal to scale the approach to all engineering programs at the university.
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