The Enterprise Program awards the Enterprise Distinguished Service Awards to recognize the dedication and exceptional contributions of advisors and champions who have played pivotal roles in shaping the program’s success. Each of the award winners has more than 15 years of service within Enterprise, dedicating their time and expertise to guiding teams, ensuring student success, and advancing the program’s discovery-based learning mission.
The recipients of the Enterprise Distinguished Service Award are Jim DeClerck, Scott Kuhl, Erin Smith, Mary Raber, and Ruth Archer. This five-part series highlights the contributions of each award recipient.
Ruth Archer, director of Continuous Improvement at Michigan Tech, has spent more than a decade helping Enterprise students develop the mindsets and methods that shape effective engineers, scientists, and professionals. She began teaching her first Enterprise course in 2011 and gradually expanded her involvement, eventually developing and teaching two classes focused on lean principles and the culture of continuous improvement.
Her work with Enterprise has influenced not only her students but also her own approach to teaching. “The program has shaped my thinking about instruction,” Archer says. “I’ve learned how to better support students — how to interact with them, how to design assignments, what works and what doesn’t. It’s really helped me learn how to teach.” That learning, she notes, has carried over into her broader continuous improvement work across campus.
Today, Archer teaches ENT 3982: Continuous Improvement Using Lean Principles and ENT 3983: Culture of Continuous Improvement, courses that give students tools they can apply immediately to their Enterprise projects.
Helping Students Become Who They’re Meant to Be
For Archer, the most rewarding part of working with Enterprise students is witnessing their growth. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work with students,” she says. “Many of my colleagues don’t get that chance, and they don’t get to know students very well.”
Enterprise students, she notes, arrive already oriented toward action. “They’re not passively waiting to be handed information. They’re wrestling with real problems. What we talk about in class, they can apply immediately.”
Archer sees her role as guiding students in “the process of becoming” — becoming engineers, scientists, professionals, and thoughtful contributors to their fields.
“It’s amazing to influence, even slightly, how they think about the world they’re moving into and how they interact with it. To help them be better, do better, and be more successful.”
Making Problems Visible — and Solvable
One of Archer’s most memorable experiences came from helping a student team that had fallen significantly behind on a high‑stakes project with an external sponsor. “They were seven weeks behind schedule and really worried about their milestones,” she recalls.
She introduced them to a core continuous improvement tool: a visual kanban board that made the project’s status visible at a glance. “It wasn’t about blame,” she says. “It was about seeing where resources needed to be redirected.”
The impact was immediate. By the end of the semester, the team had reduced their delay from seven weeks to three. “They weren’t mired in an unsolvable situation anymore,” Archer says. “They were moving forward.”
Creativity, Communication, and Confidence
Another standout memory comes from a communications course Archer previously taught. The course included a simulated conference experience that she brought to life, collaborating with co-instructors teaching other sections of the same course. Students formed teams, selected topics, submitted proposals, wrote papers, completed reviews, and delivered polished presentations.
The topics ranged from practical to wildly imaginative: speed‑reading techniques, musical storytelling, American Sign Language, how accents shape communication, communicating with dogs and their handlers — even communicating with extraterrestrials. One student developed that extraterrestrial communication talk into a presentation for NASA and ultimately landed a job.
“It brought out all of their skills,” Archer says. “And it showed them what it really takes to prepare something professional.”
A Community of Practice
Archer also values the relationships she has built through Enterprise. “I’ve had the opportunity to create and share materials with other instructors, and many of them have become friends,” she says. “We’ve built a community of practice, pushing the curriculum forward together. It’s the same model we use in continuous improvement. No one person is the sole source of knowledge.”
Reflecting on the Honor
Receiving the Enterprise Distinguished Service Award gave Archer a moment to reflect on the program’s impact. “Enterprise gives students a chance to apply what they’re learning in meaningful ways,” she says. “Being part of their journey — and part of a community that supports them — has been incredibly rewarding.”
About the Enterprise Program
Michigan Tech’s Enterprise Program offers students a unique, hands-on learning experience that goes beyond the classroom. With more than 25+ Enterprise teams spanning disciplines such as engineering, business, computing, and science, students collaborate on real-world projects sponsored by industry and government partners. Enterprise students develop technical expertise, leadership skills, and teamwork experience—preparing them for success in their careers. Many teams work on cutting-edge innovations, from automotive and aerospace to sustainability and emerging technologies.
Explore the Enterprise Program experience and see how you can get involved! Follow Michigan Tech Enterprise on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for the latest updates.