On the other hand, I do like the point that FuturePaths makes about selection bias. Olin may not be innovative enough, or even innovative, but a good portion of college is the environment, including the other students. By attracting a different type of student, Olin has created a unique environment from more “classic” institutions like MIT. The different environment, in turn, gives us a different educational experience, creating different engineers. Putting aside the debate of whether we were really created at olin to be different or came in different, perhaps Olin is doing enough innovation merely by marketing itself as innovative.

Still, I’d agree that we’re not revolutionary. Olin isn’t a whole new paradigm, as much as the Olin community (or at least much of it) wants it to be.

I think part of that is that that people also want the college to succeed. They want accreditation and acceptance and so on. Revolutionary changes can bring about spectacular things, but it can also bring about spectacular failures. There’s a lot of talk at Olin about learning from failure, but we don’t seem to be able to apply it to the college as a whole. And we can’t put too much on the line; learning from failure only works if you have the resources (and the will) to try, try again.