How can colleges do more to teach students about important social problems and provide them the tools to tackle them?
Those are questions that Marina Kim, founder and director of university programs for Ashoka, an organization devoted to advancing social entrepreneurship, thinks about all the time.
As a speaker at the third Clinton Global Initiative University, being held Friday through Sunday at the University of Miami, Ms. Kim will describe the progress her nonprofit group has made since starting its university program five years ago.
Ashoka is working with nine colleges and universities, including Babson College, Tulane University, and the University of Maryland at College Park, to try to create a culture of entrepreneurial leadership among students, faculty members, and administrators. About 30 more colleges are planning to join the Ashoka network over the next few years.
Below are excerpts from a Chronicle interview with Ms. Kim about her organization’s work.
Q. What’s lacking in the classroom experience that could better prepare students to address societal problems or industry issues?
A. Employers increasingly want to hire students who are highly adaptive, who can work in a fast-paced environment, be creative and problem-solve—and these are not necessarily core skills universities focus on. Most universities focus on knowledge acquisition, but what the world requires is much more about learning how to work within a fast-changing environment and be a leader in that context.
Q. How can Ashoka’s program help?
A. We have a global network of 2,500 fellows who are leading social entrepreneurs, and we start by placing a social entrepreneur in residence. Our fellows spend one to two weeks on a campus, going out to classes like anthropology or nursing or architecture, and giving examples of how social entrepreneurship is relevant in different disciplines. When students see people who have had a huge impact, they want to be like that.
Q. Do the fellows stay involved?
A. We’re not just bringing them into the classroom, but we’re involving them in more research collaborations and conversations, so the learning students do is guided by that.
Q. How have faculty members responded?
A. Faculty are often our biggest converts. It’s natural for students to expect that they’re going to do big things. But faculty members, when they see someone who can be transformative and inspiring, it’s something that’s inspiring to them.
Q. Have they incorporated social entrepreneurship in the curriculum?
A. I just heard from a faculty member at Cornell who has increased the amount of experiential learning she requires for class projects. More students are asking for it, and she’s using every opportunity to get people out in the community or talking to people so they can engage in real-world experience. Another faculty member at George Mason who teaches freshman composition has started teaching social entrepreneurship there. He’s having students interview social entrepreneurs and analyze social problems, and his vision is to get every freshman composition class to do this.
Q. Are there broader efforts?
A. Maryland has created a Center for Social Value Creation that includes curricular and research activities that give students the framework and critical-thinking skills they need to think about social change. They’re also launching a fellows program where students will be able to apply and practice their social entrepreneurial skills in their junior and senior years.
Q. Where have you run into resistance?
A. Siloed disciplines are one of our biggest challenges. The world doesn’t operate in disciplines—its problems and organizations are cross-cutting. The more interdisciplinary people can think and learn, the more equipped they will be to deal with the complexity of the real world.
Q. How have you overcome that?
A. We find the entrepreneurial student leaders and faculty champions, and look for university presidents with an entrepreneurial spirit. Then we take the best of what we’ve learned from our network of 2,500 people over 30 years and try to bring that spirit of optimism, energy, and ability to drive big change to get the bureaucracy unstuck.
Q. If campus leaders buy into this, how can it help them?
A. University endowments are down, staff are getting cut, and in some ways it’s not a very good time for higher education. This can make the classroom experience and student leadership opportunities more relevant—which can help the students, when they graduate, leave with more practical skills to address the world’s problems. It can also create a competitive advantage for institutions. Just like people want to work for companies they believe in, they want to go to universities that are ready to commit to train the next generation of leaders who can have an impact on society.
