Ashoka
Changemaker Campus Initiative
The New School has been selected by Ashoka as a "2009-2010 Changemaker Campus," a national program to bring social entrepreneurship into universities through increased activities, curriculum and discussion. A university "core team" committee will be formed of six students - three graduate and three undergraduate - and we are looking for a GPIA student to serve on the committee.
The student should be interested in "transforming their university into an active breeding ground for aspiring social entrepreneurs and everyday changemakers." The committee will be an opportunity to network with some of the world's leading experts and practitioners on new partnerships that match theory to practice and bring the classroom to the world.
Applications are due Friday, September 25, and can be downloaded below.
What is Social Entrepreneurship? A social entrepreneur identifies and solves social problems on a large scale. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value. Unlike traditional business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs primarily seek to generate "social value" rather than - or increasingly, in addition to - profits. And unlike the majority of non-profit organizations, their work is targeted not only towards immediate, small-scale effects, but sweeping, long-term change.
Launched in September 2008, the Ashoka Changemaker Campus Initiative is a unique partnership between Ashoka and university students, faculty, staff and administrators. The aim is to cocreate a vision and plan of action to improve teaching, research and engagement opportunities in social entrepreneurship - both on campus and in the local and global communities in which we work.
Besides six students, there are already four professors on the committee: Michele Kahane and Dennis Derryck from Milano, Anna Rabinowicz from Parsons, and Mark Johnson from GPIA.
The New School's selection as a Changemaker campus "was based on your demonstrated commitment to improve campus opportunities in social entrepreneurship, combined with your entrepreneurial ability to rally administrators, fellow faculty members, and students around your vision for campus change," according to Ashoka. The program began last year with selection of George Mason University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland and Cornell. This year's campuses besides The New School include: Tulane, College of the Atlantic, Babson College and CU-Boulder.
More information on the Changemaker Campus Initiative, social entrepreneurship and Ashoka is supplied in the student application. To download the application click here in Word: Changemaker application Application in pdf: Changemaker application .
For a video on this program and information about the partnership and testimonials from some of this year's participants:
For more information about GPIA student participation, contact Mark Johnson at johnsonm@newschool.edu
About Ashoka: Ashoka is a global association of leading social entrepreneurs - men and women with system-changing solutions that address the world's most urgent social challenges. Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka has launched and provided support to nearly 2,000 social entrepreneurs in over 60 countries. It provides these "Ashoka Fellows" start-up stipends, professional services and a powerful global network of top social and business entrepreneurs, helping them to spread their innovations globally. Working with these social entrepreneurs, Ashoka builds communities of innovators who work together to transform society and design new ways for the citizen sector to become more entrepreneurial, productive, and globally integrated.
About Ashoka U:
Vision: Universities everywhere offer an enabling environment where every individual - from students, to professors, to leading social entrepreneurs, to members of the local and global communities - has access to resources, learning opportunities, role models, and a community of peers in order to actualize their full potential as changemakers.
Mission: To transform universities into hubs of social innovation.
Core Values: Collaboration and co-production. We work to bring people together at every level: connecting students, faculty, and staff within a university, across universities, and to practitioners in the community and around the world.
Creativity and Innovation. We are inspired by new ideas, and strive to develop new solutions to old problems by employing creative thought and innovation.
Rigorous evaluation and responsiveness. We make decisions not on the basis of assumption, but through evidence and careful assessment.
Everyone a teacher, everyone a learner. We actively seek contributions from unexpected sources, and work to foster a culture of openness within our own team, amongst our partners, and within our community.
Intentionality and systemic change. We actively seek to understand the root cause of a problem or challenge, and embrace ambitious goals, not for their own sake, but to bring us closer to our ultimate destination.