The Forum develops students in the cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal domains by specifically engaging the following skills during semester-long individual and group-based assignments:
Interdisciplinarity: Forum teams are composed of students from varied majors, schools, and perspectives, and they are required to produce a novel and socially innovative idea connecting two or more United Nations-Sustainable Development Goals.
Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving: Central to the Forum's purpose and team-based projects is the charge to identify and propose creative, socially innovative solutions to complex global issues.
Logical Reasoning and Communication: Forum students tackle global problems and produce effective responses and plans within local contexts, requiring them to utilize logical reasoning and refined communication skills (both written and oral).
Team Based Collaboration: Working together demands that diverse student teams engage in modeling collaborative and constructive behavior.
Systems and Design Thinking: Students have to innovate new solutions based on "bottom-up" human-centered approaches to major issues, while also being mindful of overall systemic and theoretical thinking.