RUSTON, La. – Junior Abigail Hildenbrand was the first Louisiana Tech student-athlete named a University Innovation Fellow, a program sponsored by Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
 
Hildenbrand, a setter from Parker, Colorado, is just one of 198 students worldwide to be named to this year's program. In total, the program has trained 2,399 students at 270 institutions across the world.
 
Three other LA Tech students also join Hildenbrand as University Innovation Fellows, which is the first time more than one Louisiana Tech student has earned the honor in a single year.
 
"What an amazing honor for Abbey, her whole group and our entire university to receive such a prestigious honor awarded to so few," head coach Amber McCray said. "For the past few months, we have watched Abbey work tirelessly on this project while also still balancing the role of being a collegiate student-athlete. Much like she does with so many other challenges she has faced, she attacked it with the same focus, work ethic and drive to succeed, which I know played an integral role in her group's success.
 
"We are all so proud of Abbey, and we can't wait to see what she does next."
 
Hildenbrand's academic adviser in athletics, Taylor McFall, recommended her for the program. The application process begins on each student's campus before they formally apply to the program at Stanford. Hildenbrand interviewed with Debbie Inman, who is the director of the Louisiana Tech Center for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology.
 
The junior made the first cut on campus before formally applying and interviewing for the Stanford program. After a month of waiting, Inman shared with Hildenbrand that she was one of four Tech students selected for the prestigious honor. The other three students come from different majors, comprising sociology, supply chain management and industrial engineering.
 
Once an individual or a "team" of students at a college is selected, they will participate in a six-week online training seminar. Hildenbrand started in August, balancing preseason volleyball activities with the University Innovations Fellows' program.
 
The goal of the program is to teach and inspire fellows ways to improve their respective campuses with new, creative opportunities for their fellow classmates. After Hildenbrand and her team finished training, they began working on three projects to better Louisiana Tech's campus. The first project would be an organization expo, which would encourage students to come together to learn more about different schools, clubs and other extracurricular activities.
 
Hildenbrand said the team's final two options, however, are more likely to become their primary focuses. A "design-think program" would mirror a class taught at Stanford, which has piqued the interest of Hildenbrand and her teammates.
 
"They have this class at Stanford where they put you into different group and send you to a different country," Hildenbrand said. "They find an important medical issue, and then they bring it back to campus to try to make it more economically stable.
 
"We were thinking about doing something like that. It'd be a capstone project for all ages."
 
The team's final project idea would be an "undecided major program," which was an idea they came up with after talking with Tech's career center. As of now, the team is working collectively on all three projects, but Hildenbrand said the undecided major program is the most likely project that will be implemented on LA Tech's campus.
 
Throughout the process, Hildenbrand has received support from across campus, including from her 19 volleyball teammates and Lady Techsters' coaching staff.
 
"Overall, everybody that's come into my repertoire here in general, my teammates and my coaching staff, have both been incredibly supportive," Hildenbrand said. "They've been with me the whole time. They came and watched my final presentation.
 
"The academic center, my biology professors and more have also been incredibly supportive. Just seeing how many resources we have here on campus can benefit everybody."
 
Hildenbrand played in a team-high 103 sets as the team's primary setter during the 2019 season. The junior and her team will hit the court once again in the spring.

About the University Innovation Fellows
 

The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. The Fellows are a global community leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the attitudes, skills and knowledge required to navigate a complex world. These student leaders from schools around the world create opportunities to help their peers build the creative confidence, agency, and entrepreneurial mindset needed to address global challenges and to build a better future. 

Fellows create student innovation spaces, start entrepreneurship organizations, facilitate experiential workshops, work with faculty and administrators to develop new courses, and much more. They serve as advocates for lasting institutional change with academic leaders, lending the much-needed student voice to the conversations about the future of higher education. 
 
In addition to the student program, the University Innovation Fellows team offers a faculty workshop, the Teaching and Learning Studio. This in-person experience helps higher education teachers and administrators use design thinking to create student-centric learning experiences.
 
The University Innovation Fellows is a program of Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). The program was created as part of the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), a five-year National Science Foundation grant.