Project Mentor: Khanjan Mehta, Creative Inquiry
2027 Impact Fellows:
Project Description:
Why does some of the most creative work at Lehigh remain hidden in labs, studios, classrooms, clubs, kitchens, rehearsal spaces…and students’ heads? What if we could bring it all together, break down the boundaries between disciplines, and make Lehigh’s creative energy impossible to miss?
Lehigh FORGE is a new campus-wide celebration of making: real people making real things, in real time. Culminating in an immersive three-day festival on Mountaintop Campus in Spring 2027, FORGE will bring together invention, engineering, entrepreneurship, art, music, performance, food, design, storytelling, research, and forms of making we haven’t imagined yet. Think less “project expo,” more Lehigh comes alive—hundreds of makers building, experimenting, performing, teaching, collaborating, and creating alongside one another. Imagine a place where an engineering prototype sits alongside an art installation, a scientific experiment becomes a participatory experience, musicians collaborate with coders, and someone cooks up something extraordinary. All wrapped in food, music, community, and a spectacular culminating Soar. More than a festival, FORGE aims to spark a campus culture where curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and the courage to make things are celebrated every day.
As a Campus Social Impact Fellow, you won't just help organize FORGE. You'll help invent it, build it, and bring it to life. During Spring 2027, the FORGE team will transform Mountaintop into a vibrant playground for creativity, recruit and inspire makers from every corner of campus, seed and support student-led “makes,” build partnerships across colleges and organizations, dream up unexpected experiences, and develop the traditions, rituals, and creative energy that could make FORGE a signature Lehigh experience for years to come. This is part festival design, part community organizing, part creative experimentation, and part cultural movement-building. We're looking for builders, artists, organizers, storytellers, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, researchers, instigators, and wonderfully curious humans who love making things happen.
Come help us make the thing that helps Lehigh make things!