The University of Indianapolis launched the UIndy Innovation Studio, leading into the 2025-26 academic year, allowing marketing students to take on projects with real clients as a student job.
The studio currently has two project managers, Marina Agapios and Grace Trump, according to Assistant Professor of Practice in Marketing and Director of the Innovation Studio Carissa Newton. The studio had its first client over the summer, with Agapios being the sole project manager, but Trump joined this semester.
“I try to bring real-world experiences into all of my classes,” Newton said. “I am always looking for partners and I am looking for people who will let us do projects for them in our classes.”
Newton explained that the class projects with a partner or client are nice in the context of a semester, but may not necessarily work with the schedule a business has in mind. She said a way to resolve time frame constraints is to accept work via the UIndy Innovation Studio, so the partner has a dedicated student who can do the work in their time frame.
“I am typically the one out there prospecting, meeting with potential clients, trying to help scope out the project and make sure it’s a fit for the team,” Newton said. “If it’s not a fit for the team, I may make intros to other professors that could do the applied learning in their classes… From there, [if approved,] the assignments go to the project managers.”
The studio’s first client was Athens on 86th, a Greek restaurant that received updated menus, according to Agapios. She knew the restaurant owner and decided to bring them on as a client over the summer.
“The owner came to me and asked me to redo some menus for her,” Agapios said. “I was like, this is a perfect opportunity for the Innovation Studio. I emailed Newton, saying, ‘Hey, they want me to redo their menus. I think this would be a really good opportunity.’”
One of the challenges that came from the project was dealing with the translations from English to Greek and vice versa on the original menus. Fortunately, Apagios knows Greek, so she was able to correct anything that was lost in translation on the original menus.
Currently, the studio is working on a video project for FNEX, according to Agapios. The focus is on smaller projects right now, but she hopes that once more people get added to the studio, they will have the capacity to handle larger projects.
The studio is on the lookout for new projects, according to Newton. The students have access to faculty to coach them through each project as well.
