Ready to create a podcast, try 3D design or CNC fabrication? You’ll be in good company at The University of Scranton IDEA Center. Since the start of the 2025-26 academic year, the Center has welcomed hundreds of individuals and helped their ideas come to life.
The IDEA Center has assisted 185-plus students and counting with class or personal creative projects, using 3D design, CNC fabrication, graphic design or media production. The podcast studio alone has accommodated approximately 90 reservations.
Additionally, more than 400 community members have come through its doors, according to IDEA Center director Thomas Bryan, and it has served more than 200 of them with applied resources and programming.
"The Center has become a regional hub where educators, civic leaders, corporate teams and students collaborate through design-based learning, innovation and workforce-aligned experiences,” Bryan said.
Many school-age children have visited the IDEA Center as well, including students from the NEPA PAC After School Program who used the IDEA Center’s industry-level design and fabrication tools to create personal brand images that were engraved onto wooden plaques. Students also went home with custom NEPA PAC T-shirts that they personally hand-pressed.
The visit, which included five Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine students who volunteered to help, made for “an evening of creativity, innovation and hands-on learning,” Bryan said.
“Experiences like that embody the mission of the IDEA Center,” Bryan said. “Moving learners from consumers to creators and empowering young people across our region to see themselves as innovators, leaders and makers of their own future.”
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