Students at Lehigh University will soon be able to make their ideas a reality — in two 120,000 square foot steel facilities overlooking the Lehigh valley.

After receiving a $20 million donation from Lehigh alumnus and co-founder of Urban Outfitters, Scott Belair, Lehigh University is in the process of renovating its two former steel research facilities into a new concept called the Mountaintop Experience, according to an Oct. 17 article on the university’s website.

The Mountaintop Experience program encourages students to step out of the classroom and pursue their own intellectual aspirations by providing them with an open space to work with, said Alice Gast, president of Lehigh.

Although the program is still in the process of being developed, students have already started their own projects, she added.

“It is really an opportunity to start exploring what would happen when you let students do something totally under their own direction with just guidance from faculty,” she said.

For example, a group of students created a documentary on the first four women in the English department to attend the university, whereas other students created a design for sustainable refugee housing, she said.

Jordan Reese, director of media relations, said despite his past experiences at other universities, this project is the biggest he has seen.  He described the student’s projects as “long-term, imaginative, and interdisciplinary.”

“You’ll have the resources you need to tackle a problem — not a math or exam problem — but to make a difference, to help,” he added.

Katie Zabronsky, a junior journalism major at Lehigh, said she thinks the Mountaintop Experience could be great, depending on each student’s project.

“I like the idea of letting students run free with their creativity and ideas,” she said in an email. “What could be bad about providing students the resources to explore their own concepts for innovation?”

Zabronsky also said the concept of the Mountaintop Experience complements a traditional education because it makes for a well-rounded experience.

Students need to take more “intellectual risks,” since the project that they have in mind may not always turn out how it is expected to, Gast, the Lehigh president, said.

But the program is still being developed and is expected to finish by 2015. In addition to the $20 million donation, Gast predicts the university will need another $100 to $200 million to cover costs ranging from faculty to improvements in the facility.

Similar concepts to Lehigh’s Mountaintop Experience are found at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University, Reese said in an email.

Reese said the Mountaintop Experience is not the same as a business incubator, although he has received feedback thinking otherwise.

“A business incubator is where I take my brand new twist on the old fashioned light bulb and try to get it to market,” he said.  “This place is when you say, ‘light bulbs burn too quickly, and they give off too much heat, so let’s start from scratch and try again.’”

Published on October 24, 2013 at 1:07 am