Massey is director of outreach and engagement for The Kendal Corporation, a federal model of affiliated senior living communities and care services with 10 residential communities across eight states, that also has at-home care and charitable arms.

“The main goal was to open students’ eyes to what a career working in a place with a positive perspective on aging could look like, while gathering market research insights to understand whether a university-based senior living community would thrive near the University of Delaware campus,” said Massey, who operates out of Kendal’s corporate office, housed within the FinTech Innovation Hub on UD’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research Campus (STAR Campus).

The Kendal student team’s task: assess whether alumni and community members in Delaware and the broader region would be interested in a senior-living community situated within an academic learning community.

“As a marketing specialist, I looked at the demographic interested in this project through the University’s alumni association and, with my team, surveyed alums to gauge their interest,” explained Velazquez. “When we began talking with alums from the University it was intriguing. Although these people had graduated decades ago, their love for UD remains intact…. It was neat to get to know what the alums would be interested in, in terms of shaping such a development.”

Students meet weekly, alongside their entrepreneurial mentors to discuss progress and present decision points for the company to keep the project moving forward. UD alumnus Joshua Artis participated in two Spin In projects during his college career. In 2023, he was involved in a project for a company called X-Biomedical, which focused on the development of a medical technology device. That experience gave him hands-on engagement with the company’s chief technology officer, something he never expected to have as a student.

Artis also served as the business financial analyst on the 2024 Kendal Corporation team, which conducted alumni surveys, interviews and other foundational market research, as part of the feasibility study. The work included considering how potential Kendal residents—retired artists, engineers, doctors, teachers—might interact with students, specifically through mentorship and career advice, to help them form a better understanding of the career paths in front of them.

Artis, who earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science with a minor in management information systems in May, called the opportunity to work with different advisors, mentors and company leadership “inspiring.” 

“Spin In is definitely a hands-on learning experience that helps you to actualize [knowledge from] the classroom and bring it to real life,” he said. “It helps you understand different perspectives within the company and see if there’s a pivot or change within your own career or professional goals that might pertain to you.”

This kind of self-inquiry can lead to some unexpected places. Over the summer, Artis furthered his knowledge in evidence-based entrepreneurship and began building out an idea for a startup company through Horn Entrepreneurship’s Summer Founds program. He plans to continue developing this startup, even as he begins full-time work as a technology consultant in security and privacy. 

Experiential learning can serve as a huge advantage for students entering the workforce—developing in them the skills to quickly contribute on the job. It’s not just the hard skills, either. Sometimes participants learn where they excel—or what they have to learn—in terms of soft skills, like how to communicate with new people who have no exposure to what they have been working on. 

“This experience pushed me out of my comfort zone,” said Velazquez. “It was my first time sitting in a room with company executives, and I had some challenging moments getting out there and contacting people from the University to help us do our market research. Getting to know and create connections with these executives and members of UD’s alumni association was incredible.”

And the work goes on

The students working with Kendal were one of three teams that presented their work during the annual Spin In Showcase last spring. The other two student teams worked on a health care training device and precision health care-related solutions for business mentors from InsiteHub and Innovative Precision Health, respectively.

For the InsiteHub team, the project didn’t progress as originally intended. 

“Their big ‘aha!’ moment at the end of this phase was the team’s decision to not move in the direction they expected,” said Rassias. “Knowing when to pivot can be a critical part of success, and they did it earlier rather than later.”

In other words, changing course can be a good thing. 

Smart entrepreneurs are nimble. They know that not every idea or invention succeeds as it is originally conceived. It’s a good lesson for students, too. Plans grow and evolve as research, market exploration and other information comes to light. This fall, the InsiteHub and Innovative Precision Health Spin In teams will regroup for another semester with new faces joining previous team members to carry the projects forward. With interdisciplinary teams of Blue Hen brainpower aimed at these and other business problems, solutions are sure to be found.

Now in its thirteenth year, the Spin In program has delivered more than 44 projects across the finish line for sponsoring partners and trained more than 250 students. Some entrepreneurs have turned Spin In solutions into actionable business ideas that have since spun back out into growing success stories.

Just one example: Avkin is a leading manufacturer of sensor-enabled, high-fidelity, wearable technology for health care simulation education established by Amy Cowperthwait, former co-director of the Healthcare Theatre for UD’s College of Health Sciences. The company’s first product, a wearable tracheostomy simulator, grew out of a joint project between engineering senior design students, Spin In business students and Cowperthwait in 2014. Today, Avkin offers nine health care education simulators, as well as other products, training and certificate opportunities.

About Spin In

Spin In is a unique UD offering funded by the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s University Center Economic Development program to advance workforce development in the state and region. This program was made possible by the National Science Foundation EPSCoR Grant No. 1757353 and the State of Delaware.