Disruptive (Social) Innovation in Higher Education

Erin Krampetz
Co-Leader, Changemaker Campus Initiative, Ashoka

Jacqueline Smith

 

higher ed

Despite significant challenges, such as rising tuition and high dropout rates, higher education institutions must evolve and “re-engineer their DNA” to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Entrepreneurship can support the evolution of higher education. According to the Kauffman Foundation, universities need to become more entrepreneurial, “not only in what they teach and how they teach it, but in how they operate.” In 2003, the Kauffman Foundation set out to select Kauffman Campuses that embraced entrepreneurship across the curriculum, transforming the way colleges and universities prepare the next generation to be effective in a global and increasingly competitive economy.

As discussed during the 2009 Social Edge Chat hosted by Ashoka U on  “Universities as Agents of Change,” another group of colleges and universities have been recognized as Ashoka Changemaker Campuses. This designation recognizes institutions as hubs of social innovation, with pioneering programs, partnerships, and curriculum in social entrepreneurship. For the change leaders within each campus, developing an eco-system for future social entrepreneurs and changemakers and positioning their institutions as both agents and engines of change requires more than simply adding items to the course catalogue; experience has shown that disruptive innovation and systems change is needed to transform the higher education sector.

The Ashoka Changemaker Campuses are rising to the challenge and leading by example.

  • Duke’s Greg Dees and Matt Nash set the standard with the launch of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) in 2002 and they continue to innovate by developing the Center as a valuable partner to both practitioners and the field as a whole through their research and consulting on scaling social impact (as they discuss in the “CASE on Business Models” Social Edge Blog).
  • Babson College’s Lewis Institute has transformed the orientation for first-year students by asking business students to think about their social impact “From Day One,” and they have re-imagined alumni affairs by offering support to budding social entrepreneurs once they graduate, while using the research to improve their curriculum (a program created in partnership with Social Edge blogger and leadership coach Julie Engel Manga).
  • Marquette University is acting on its vision to enable all students to “be the difference,” in alignment with the institution’s Jesuit values, by providing access to social innovation across their curriculum with an innovative “3-2-1 institutional embeddedness strategy.”
  • Schools like the New School and Tulane take advantage of their locations in New York City and New Orleans to inspire local community engagement and research, and as a result, the community has helped to redefine the institution through partnerships.
  • The University of Maryland’s Center for Social Value Creation has helped to redefine business success as synonymous with social impact, and they are starting at the undergraduate level by offering a one-year fellowship program geared towards juniors and seniors to develop innovative solutions for social and environmental challenges.
  • The host of this year’s Ashoka Exchange, Arizona State University (ASU) has been selected as both a Kauffman Campus and as a Changemaker Campus due to their groundbreaking approach as a New American University. Both entrepreneurship and social embededdness are valued as institutional design principles supporting significant progress towards addressing local and global challenges. ASU’s newest initiative, Changemaker Central catalyzes change by connecting students to likeminded changemakers and giving them access to service and entrepreneurship resources and opportunities.

Globally, organizations such as the Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) in Latin America and EMES in Europe are the long time leaders in the field, fostering the growth of social entrepreneurship research and knowledge development. Most recently, in the fall of 2011, Ashoka officially launched Ashoka U Mexico, and selected Tec de Monterrey – Guadalajara as the first Ashoka Changemaker Campus outside of the United States.  Given the national mandate in Mexico for all students to participate in public service, this presents a huge opportunity to integrate social entrepreneurship and influence the higher education system.

A movement is growing. This Social Edge chat seeks to explore how social innovation has been translated into action at colleges and universities globally, and why it matters.

  • How would you articulate the need for disruptive innovation in higher education?
  • What examples have you seen of disruptive (social) innovation in higher education? What are you most proud of on your campus?
  • What is the potential impact of higher education embracing social innovation, both as an approach for institutional change and as a methodology for teaching and learning?
  • How can social entrepreneur practitioners most effectively partner with institutions of higher education to achieve both transformational social and educational results?
  • How will disruptive innovation present itself in similar or different ways in different cultural contexts? What is the global opportunity for social entrepreneurship education?
  • In what ways are students driving institutional transformation through demand?

This conversation is only the beginning!  Join us at the Ashoka U Exchange at Arizona State University in February 2012 to continue the dialogue. Workshop applications are due September 30, 2011 on the theme of Disruptive (Social) Innovation in Higher Education.

In the meantime, join Ashoka’s Erin Krampetz and ASU’s Jacqueline Smith in the conversation.

  • Erin Krampetz

    Welcome!

    Thank you for joining us to advance a conversation about the future of higher education. Log in. Join the conversation. Share your vision. Give examples of challenges you are facing and opportunities on the horizon.

    It’s time for dramatic change in higher education to address the greatest needs in our society, and we need to hear from you, the world’s leading social entrepreneurs and higher education leaders, to start creating the solutions.

    Jacqueline – perhaps you can share a few examples from Arizona State University about how your institution is taking a lead to create the New American University?

    • Jacqueline Smith

      Welcome!

      Hi Erin, I’m excited to jumpstart this conversation. I’ll start with one example of an institutional innovation at Arizona State University (ASU) made possible because of a mutually beneficial partnership motivated by a shared vision “to attract, prepare, support and retain more highly effective teachers.” I will share other examples as our discussion continues.

      “Where you see disruption occurring and you see positive outcomes coming from the disruption, run to them, because that is where the right thing is happening.” – ASU President Michael Crow referring to the Sanford Education Project (SEP), an innovative collaboration with ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College; a visionary donor, T. Denny Sanford; and Teach For America.

      SEP disrupts the traditional teacher preparation model by leveraging best practices from Teach For America, transforming the undergraduate curriculum to include more clinical experiences and embedding evaluation practices and ongoing professional development. SEP was co-designed utilizing the premise that to achieve new student learning outcomes we need new ways to prepare teachers. SEP’s scope and ultimately impact are amplified by the collaboration design of the program.

      Learn more about how ASU’s vision for the “New Teacher” at http://education.asu.edu/content/sanford-education-project (includes a short video) and http://asunews.asu.edu/20100125_educationgrant.

      I’m interested to hear from other universities and organizations that work with universities, how do you leverage partnerships to advance social innovation?

    • Dr. Mrim Boutla

      Looking forward to this conversation

      Dear Erin and Jacqueline –

      Thank you for launching and facilitating such important conversation! I cannot agree with you more that universities’ missions are to help emerging leaders gain the skills and knowledge they need to create a better world than they have inherited. Fortunately, there are more well paying career opportunities that will enable them to do so today than ever before!

      I look forward to participating in this conversation as I have been a career coach to values-driven students and working professionals for the past 8 years, helping emerging and established leaders turn their education and values into well paying jobs in Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise, and Sustainable Business.

      From hundreds of conversations with students, university staff and faculty, as well as countless frustrated alumni from a variety of universities, I would suggest that the biggest problem today is not going to be solved by opening more social enterprise centers, or by providing more courses or extra curricular activities for students to gain more knowledge about social enterprise.

      These all help of course, but the biggest issue really is to make sure that university staff and faculty have the coaching and mentoring skills they need to effectively help students get clear about their academic and career goals so that they can help students make informed decisions about what courses to take, what resources and services to take advantage of and what extra-curricular or professional association (on or beyond campus) students can get involved in to gain knowledge and experience that will make them a more attractive and credible candidates for internships and jobs that align with their values and skills.

      These types of conversations happen most often 1:1. Unfortunately, the quality of the advice students currently get varies widely, and most often does not help students make informed decisions. From what I am hearing from students and recent graduates (from undergraduates and graduate programs), most often, when a student goes to his/her academic advisor, s/he hears ‘ok, figure out what you want to do, and then come back and I can suggest a few courses that would be a good fit for you’. The student then goes to a faculty member, and hears ‘ok, figure out what you want to do and I will make suggestions about courses and student organizations that you can consider’. With their career services staff, they get assessment results, and lists of books or handouts to read, and contacts to alumni so that ‘they can figure out what they want to do’, but really, nobody on campus sits a student down and helps the student integrate all this information into a coherent and consistent set of goals and values-driven priorities they can use as an internal compass to make decisions about who they want to become as a person and a professional, and what available courses, resources, and best practices are available to them to help them actualize this vision.

      Each student needs to develop a clear internal compass that enables him/her to decide which courses, extracurricular, and career opportunities would be a better fit for their values and education. Students with supportive parents or a strong mentoring team might be lucky enough to have one or two people around them that will help them do that.

      Most universities have in their mission statement something along the lines of a recent quote by Harvard University President Drew Faust "The purposes of higher education is to equip students ‘with the capacity to lead fulfilled, meaningful, and successful lives,’ and ‘the development of talent in service of a better world.’"

      This implies helping students develop a vision of what kind of a change agent they want to become (internal compass) and how to actualize that vision. How do universities currently facilitate the development of such internal compass? How many campuses provide self-development activities and tools that allow/require students to reflect upon their experiences and integrate what they are learning in the classroom and beyond into a coherent and consistent set of goals and priorities they can use as they make decisions and self-actualize? Few campuses have such processes in place. For instance, Wake Forest University’s new Personal and Professional Development Center led by Andy Chan is attempting to develop such framework. I believe your center at ASU Jacqueline is also attempting to provide some of these services and resources to students.

      What else can universities do? Of course, make sure that faculty and student/career services staff have access to up-to-date information about personal development processes and tools that they can use when meeting with students 1:1.

      The hardest part is that this process requires that faculty and student/career services staff also know more than the students in terms of the range of values-driven career options that exist today. I was appalled to hear stories after stories of students who told me that they spend their time educating faculty members and their career center staff about the career they were about to pursue. For example, a student spend her senior year at a major university last year, educating her career center ‘expert’ in socially and environmentally responsible careers about what impact investing is. I would agree that during their first meeting, the student might make the career center staff aware of a new type of career path. That is fine. But by the 2nd or 3rd meeting, I would anticipate that the career center staff would have done a bit of research to come across as engaged and dedicated to learning what s/he needs to learn to effectively help that student. A 2011 graduate told me that when he said to his career counselor that he was interested in ‘international development’, his counselor told him that pretty much his only option was to apply to the Peace Corps. This counselor of course should instead have helped the student figure out what ‘international development’ meant to him, and then suggest resources and contacts, as well as organizations for him to research.

      I believe there is a severe shortage or knowledge and counseling/coaching skills on campuses when it comes to helping students get clear, get connected, and get hired for values-driven internship and job opportunities in sustainable business, social enterprise, and corporate social responsibility.

      How do we ensure that these 1:1 sessions and workshops that are happening on campuses include current information about values-driven career options and help students get clearer and not more confused about how to turn their education into well paying careers that bring solutions to our social and environmental challenges?

      I look forward to sharing and learning more about insights and scalable best practices for campuses to truly become knowledge-filled ecosystems designed to train our emerging leaders to effectively create solutions to the social and environmental challenges we face.

      • Jacqueline Smith

        Looking forward to this conversation

        Dear "mrimboutla",

        Thank you for your thoughtful post. Your point about 1:1 sessions and individualized mentoring and guidance for students is one that keeps me up at night, especially given the size of ASU (over 70,000 students). Quality mentoring is essential, and developing effective counseling and coaching programs at scale is a complex problem to solve. I started ruminating on this in a recent blog post: http://ui.asu.edu/blog/inspiration-in-threes-part-one/.

        In that post, I reference how we need a networked approach, and what I mean is that mentors and mentees need to have shared roles and STUDENTS need to support other students. We are starting to experiment with this student-led model at ASU with our Changemaker Central effort, see http://changemaker.asu.edu

        There are other types of networks that can help us share best practices and tools amongst the counselors and advisers at universities around the US and around the world. One example is AshokaU, and I’ll let Erin chime in with how AshokaU creates tool kits and hosts conferences as a way to spread this important information. Moreover, this Social Edge discussion and other online tools are another way to empower students to identify career paths that resonate with their passions and values. While in law school I felt frustrated with the tools and resources available to me to pursue a career in education policy. After 3 years of law school I realized that I had accumulated a lot of knowledge from my conversations with alumni and employers and online research — information that I wish I had had on my first day, rather than my last day, of law school. With this in mind, I created a web site that could be shared with future students. You can check it out at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/…/index.htm

        • Dr. Mrim Boutla

          Looking forward to this conversation

          Dear Jacqueline,

          Thank you for your reply and for sharing these resources! The beauty of technology is that it enables knowledge to be accessed so easily, the hard part is to know which keywords to enter into one’s google search, which is exactly where mentoring and coaching become critical. When you know what you are looking for, it’s much easier to find it, and unfortunately, universities are not very good at helping their students clarify and articulate what they will do with their education… The number of options out there is always increasing, which brings up a host of challenges in decision making (Barry Schwartz’s research on the Paradox of Choice captures these challenges quite well – http://www.ted.com/…/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html).

          Once students are clear about what they want, it’s much easier for mentors, and university administrators to connect them with relevant resources, contacts, and information (such as in the case of the excellent education policy interface your created).

          Our thoughts are very much aligned indeed, and similar things are keeping us up at night. While at Brown and at Kelley, I was doing my best to help students interested in high impact careers, but kept thinking about the number of other students and working professionals I kept meeting at conferences and events. All were lamenting about how discouraged they were because they felt there were no well paying high impact career options for them, but few were able to articulate what they were looking for beyond sound bites such as ‘I am interested in international development’, or ‘I have done a lot of research on clean tech’. This gave me the motivation to leave academia and to start a social venture that focuses on providing university staff and faculty with the tools, best practices, and coaching skills they need to effectively guide students (and alumni – I cannot agree more with Mr. Bassill’s comment) so that they can make informed decisions about which well paying high impact internships and jobs to pursue.

          I believe that this all starts with moving past a few myths, including one around the idea that to pursue a high impact career one needs to be willing to live paycheck to paycheck for the rest of one’s life. This might have been true in the 80s, but it is not true anymore. There are plenty of internships and jobs that enables emerging leaders to do well while doing good (and pay for their student loans), but few university staff and faculty have the time or resources to research them on their own. I had written a few blog posts about this, including one for VaultCSR (http://www.vault.com/…/entry-detail?blog_id=1462&entry_id=12366), and a three-part series I wrote for Justmeans for recent graduates on how to leverage their career center when one wants to pursue a high impact career (http://www.justmeans.com/…/12233.html). I would love your thoughts on these!

          Another myth is that mentoring and coaching are the same thing. Although these two are often used interchangeably on many campuses, they actually mean very different things. The contrast is well articulated by Nigel MacLennan: "The coach concentrates on helping the performer learn how to achieve more. The mentor’s aim is to be available for the performer to use as a resource. A mentor can fulfill the role quite adequately with basic management, people and training or teaching skills. An effective coach must have the knowledge, technique and skill to help the performer achieve, without directing.” (source: http://www.cmoe.com/blog/coaching-vs-mentoring.htm).

          I believe that although mentors are nice to bounce ideas around and can be quite useful if the mentor has pursued the career one wants to pursue, students on most campuses need more coaching (or at least more directive counseling) because of the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) of the global world of work they need to navigate (http://blogs.hbr.org/…/leading-in-a-vuca-environment.html). This is especially important when it comes to peer counselors. Peer counselors can be a great resource indeed, but only when they are equipped with the knowledge and coaching skills they need to effectively help other students explore their options. Otherwise, all they do is add noise and confusion into the decision making process.

          It seems that you are putting into place some really innovative and interesting things at ASU, I look forward to learning more about these initiatives. What are some of the things you envision doing to ensure that a changemaking mentality is embedded into your students’ experience on campus? How do you evaluate students’ progress, and ensure that students are held accountable in this process? How do envision measuring against your goals of ‘more students pursuing high impact careers’?

          • Erin Krampetz

            Mentorship/Coaching

            Hi Mrim and Jacqueline – I have really enjoyed following this conversation thread. At Ashoka U, we have found that colleges and universities across the board are struggling to provide coaching and career support to students interested in the emerging field of social entrepreneurship. Given that the field is defined by innovation, new opportunities and ways of thinking are emerging daily and I think you both have a point that it starts with the student knowing more about themselves before they can work in a constantly changing, quickly growing field. I am a huge fan of the innovative ASU "network" model.

            I also wanted to point out the Babson example listed in the intro text. With "From Day One" (http://www.babson.edu/…/From-Day-One.aspx), students are supported in their incoming first-year orientation to discover their passion and to develop purposeful goals to guide their academic and extracurricular pathways at Babson. The team at Babson is also considering extending their new award-winning alumni program to coach aspiring social entrepreneurs into the academic curriculum for current students. I would be curious to hear how Julie Manga or Cheryl Kiser are thinking about the questions at the end of your post (how to evaluate progress, how to hold students accountable for progress, measuring impact).

          • Nabil Hashmi

            Mentorship and Experiential Learning

            Mrim and Jacqueline,

            Thank you for your thoughtful comments about young social entrepreneurs’ need for effective coaching and mentorship. As a recent college graduate, I agree that there is a general lack of institutional support for anyone who wants to start his or her own social venture or work for a social enterprise. University career centers come across to many students as unhelpful because the perception is that they cater to more ‘traditional’ jobs in consulting or finance. I couldn’t agree with both of you more in that mentorship needs to come from alumni and other students. It would be hard for even the best career centers to keep tabs on how the social entrepreneurship space is developing. The development of programs like Venture for America (http://ventureforamerica.org/) for recent graduates might make career counselors more attuned to the entrepreneurial opportunities that are out there.

            I’ve been working for Compass Partners (www.compasspartners.org), and we have tried to find solutions to the lack of institutional support for budding social entrepreneurs. I liked Jacqueline’s point about the need for students to help other students because it reminded me of the ‘n+1 model’ we espouse as part of The Compass Fellowship. We believe that people often learn best from people who are one step beyond them (n+1) in their endeavors. Freshmen learn well from upperclassmen mentors, seniors learn from recent graduates, and so on because mentees can see the concrete steps they need to take to get to the next level of success.

            Mentorship is just one aspect needed for creating sustainable solutions to some of the problems in higher education discussed here. Matt Barr’s comment below about identifying “your problem” rather than your major resonated with me because we emphasize to our Fellows that identifying one’s passion is a necessary first step to becoming an effective social entrepreneur. In Compass’s work we’ve also found that students are looking to participate in experiential entrepreneurship activities. They want to start businesses and work directly in communities where they can learn more about the social issues that they find most important. Gradually, universities are starting to recognize this demand, work with programs like The Compass Fellowship, and offer more experiential entrepreneurship courses.

            I’d love to get feedback from participants in this discussion about how universities can offer incentives to students to enroll in social entrepreneurship courses and to start their own social ventures. Schools recognize academic and athletic achievement and provide scholarships for both. Students interested in research have resources available to them at many universities. Can schools provide a similar support ecosystem to students who want to become social entrepreneurs? How can career centers and employers do a better job of working with these types of students?

          • Sean Tinker

            Mentorship and Experiential Learning

            Truly fascinating conversation and great reading, thank you. I want to share my experience with a program I developed at Swinburne University (Melbourne, Australia). The program is titled ‘Academic Personal Best’ and whilst not about entrepreneurship per se, there are some aspects of the conversation above that address fundamental elements of the program. Jacqueline’s and Nabil’s commentary on the need for student and mentor/alumni support and Mrim’s and Erin’s call for universities to engage in self exploratory process with students to find deeper purpose and direction are the points in the conversation that I think the program I have been involved in has something to say about.

            I have designed a program to improve student engagement and motivation using a raft of ‘art of hosting’ methods to enable students to explore what is meaningful to them about their learning and to support one another in their personal and social exploration. The brief I was given at Swinburne University was to develop a mentoring program using post graduates as mentors that would coach, mentor and support undergraduate students through a series of modules based on Andrew Martin’s Motivation and Engagement Scale.

            The basic premise of Andrew’s idea is that when students shift towards ‘self referenced’ learning goals rather than goals based on the perceived standards or expectations of others, sustainable, reinforcing learning outcomes are achieved. Past application of Andrew’s approach has used traditional, one to one, designs to work through the modules with evidence of success in change regarding concrete skills such as planning and task management, but less effect shown in core aspects of students learning namely ‘self efficacy’ and ‘learning values’.

            I agree with Mrim Boutla comment that we need to find ways that create the circumstances or environments where students are able to explore what provides meaning for them in their learning, while at University, but also more importantly, well beyond the time they spend in tertiary institutions. The approach I took to designing the program at Swinburne University was that self exploration and the journey towards meaning were critical to the ‘Academic Personal Best’ program I developed and the best way I knew to facilitate this was to have students and mentors engage in conversation.

            Right from the first workshop of the program students were aware that they were accountable for what emerged for them from their participation. The ‘Personal Best’ program was theirs, and while I would provided the scaffolding and basic structure, the content and the quality of the dialogue and what they gained from their participation was up to them. A bit of a risk on my part as the rising cost of student’s education and their growing sense of being ‘consumers’ in a competitive market has raised expectations in general that accountability for outcomes rests with the University and its staff.

            This is where I see the need for ‘disruptive social innovation’. Universities still have a responsibility, but not so much in the traditional sense of providing information for students to consume, but to create environments and methodologies with the explicit intent of enabling students to find meaning and a sense of what matters to them. Students that find what they learn has deep personal meaning will seek out information and skills and it is then the Universities secondary responsibility to expose students to the best and latest thinking in their quest for knowledge.

            Through government reforms to the Tertiary Education Sector that aim to increase the number of citizens with degrees, particularly from poorer sections of society, and through diminishing vocational options available not requiring university pathways, there are growing numbers of students (in Australia at least) that lack direction and purpose in their studies. It’s easy to see that the number of students who find themselves undertaking studies at University are doing so because it’s a normative thing to do, or there are few other viable options. Universities will fail these students unless we help them to take that journey and find personal meaning and purpose that matters as learners and as citizens beyond university.

            The ‘Personal Best’ program at Swinburne University is a start in the right direction (I hope). I have become aware that there are three distinct phases in the program. The first phase is self exploratory and asks students to consider influences on their learning beliefs with the introduction of ‘systems thinking’ to help them see some of the influential relationships and ‘art of hosting’ methodologies to provide the environment for exchange and exploration. The second phase is more oriented to the development of learning skills such as goal setting (personal best or self referenced goals), task management and planning. Again, ‘art of hosting’ and systems thinking help provide the means for discovery, experimentation and connection. The third phase addresses student’s thoughts and behaviours that can detract from their capacity to learn, for example, anxiety, sense of control and fear of failure. We are just entering this last phase now after some 7 weeks of a 10 week program. The way students have formed a caring and meaningful group, including the mentors, I am sure that during this last, challenging phase, students will have fantastic support and encouragement to make the changes necessary. Not only has the program had an impact on students and mentors at a personal, self discovery level, but they have now gained tangible improvements in their academic achievements. The impact has been beyond my expectations and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

            As the ‘Personal Best’ program draws to the end of the 10 week pilot, I am giving more of my attention to what comes next. There is a need long term to connect with the broader community at Swinburne University. Having only been at this university since March this year it has taken me some time to become aware of some pockets of enterprise that should share common ground with the ‘Personal Best’ program. My next task is to establish those relationships and see what emerges. There are other cohorts of students that I have identified as likely to beneficiaries of a ‘Personal Best’ program. New post graduate students and students entering university from non-traditional pathways are two groups that come to mind. I am yet to find out if Swinburne will continue with this program after the pilot but it certainly has been a great experience for all involved to date.

  • Jess Rimington

    Re-thinking the university’s role in a community

    Thanks Erin & Jacqueline for prompting this discussion. It is an important topic and one we think about a lot here at One World Youth Project (www.oneworldyouthproject.org). There is a need for disruptive innovation in how institutions of higher education see their role within a community. As tuition rates increase, more and more learning options are provided online and graduates with top-notch degrees have limited job opportunities due to the current economy (see: "popping the higher education bubble": http://www.nationalreview.com/…/dan-lips?page=2), universities need to re-imagine their function with a town/city as that of an anchor institution (http://americancity.org/…/). One way universities can begin to dream big is by offering systemic, university-wide service-learning engagement in partnership with their surrounding community. If done well, these opportunities allow students to practice 21st century skills by putting what they are learning into practice. Service-learning also awakens students to both social entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship possibilities as well as career paths!

    • Jacqueline Smith

      Re-thinking the university’s role in a community

      Jess, Glad you joined the conversation. Based on your experience working with universities around the world, what do you see as the most essential characteristics of universities that are particularly good at developing partnerships and service learning programs that promote 21st century learning?

  • Karen Gates

    Disruptive (social innovation) in higher education

    Wow, Clayton Christensen’s pace and quality of work is remarkable, isn’t it? Glad I learned of “The Innovative University” (“The IU”) by way of your reference in the forum introduction. My overall thoughts and two responses to your questions that I share here have been influenced already by reading some of “The IU” via Google’s limited online access.

    My first comment speaks to a potential “transformation” that a traditional DNA university like Harvard could make with regard to social innovation. This comes from “The IU’s” idea that the best traditional universities can thrive by building on what they do best. Then a second comment is about a potential disruptive innovation in support of social innovation.

    1. A traditional DNA university could lead the conversion of innovation as a skilled craft to a methodology. This potential transformative effect borrows directly from Peter Drucker’s idea that it is the articulation of organizing principles that enables a skilled craft to be converted to a methodology or discipline (as occurred in the past with engineering, science, the physician’s differential diagnosis, etc.).

    Influenced by Drucker’s idea, I developed a prototype “innovation method” (www.TheInnovationMethod.org) along with an active personal vision for (Harvard’s) Clayton Christensen to develop a valid and highly usable version – one that could become widely established. What I read of “The IU” reinforces my sense that Christensen is really a match for the task. Not only does it fit with his depth of knowledge regarding innovation, his artful communication, and his stature, it seems to fit with his overall higher education ideas.

    The prototype includes a proposed “social innovation differential.” Plus one of the sample learning applications is a sketch for higher education academic programming for social innovation. The sketch assumes shared reference to organizing principles and strives to use that as a foundation for generating maximal new educational value within a university.

    If this forum has ideas for improving or re-doing the prototype, a better version might make it more likely to compel the attention of Clayton Christensen and/or another well-qualified person. I worked on it solely to try to demonstrate what I think is feasible and also important.

    2. An innovation that might be disruptive to higher education is to cultivate uber intentional teaching and learning about social innovation at the front line of the social production system. Forget the education establishment! Front line knowledge probably is at least as valuable, and this is where so many strong ideas seem to originate. Perhaps partnering with state and local governments and highlighting the "best of." Social innovation often doesn’t scale (e.g., the highly successful Texas Prison Entrepreneurship Project has elected not to scale beyond Texas), which means states and localities can borrow and modify great ideas, building on innovation’s "association" tactic.

    If frontline practice were to become robust and broad enough, that visibility might become a new mini-mill — something that traditional universities could not ignore. They might up their own game in response.

    This “disruption” might actually be a matter of extending work like Ashoka’s Changemakers and all that Skoll and other organizations are doing, or maybe it’s happening already. The work might be aided by a shared language of methods — something like a highly usable “innovation method.” So if not authored by a member of academe, it could be authored by a different type of qualified leader. Some form of shared reference to fundamentals of method/practice could provide glue for an array of resources like the EME’s knowledge resources, social media structures for interactive communities of practice, online learning offerings, and institutional support (e.g., from the National Governors’ Association, foundations, etc.).

     

    I look forward to others’ ideas within this discussion. Thanks for hosting it!

    • Erin Krampetz

      Disruptive (social innovation) in higher education

      I really enjoyed learning more about your "innovation method" prototype, Karen. Thank you for sharing this resource! Can you say more about what audience you have developed the prototype for and how you hope to see it put to use?

      On your first point, what really stood out to me was the need to develop "innovation literacy" in today’s higher education system, and the significance of developing this competency in graduate (and graduating) students. In your prototype, you break down initial skills as having a major area of study since effective innovation requires a strong knowledge base (it is for this reason that Ashoka U promotes minors or certificates in social entrepreneurship rather than the development of a major); developing skills of discernment and creative confidence; and the cultivation of internal conditions for moral leadership.

      These points are addressed in part by a DRAFT of social innovation learning outcomes developed by Ashoka U with input from our global university network: http://ashokauexchange.pbwo…ies+-+Learning+Outcomes.pdf

      The need to adapt, refine, and improve learning outcomes for future social innovators connects with your second point about the need for "shared languages or methods" to help these concepts scale. I would be interested in hearing thoughts from other contributors about how they have been tracking and measuring learning outcomes? How does the definition of learning outcomes inform the development of pathways for learning and curriculum design over multiple years? What are the implications on the structure of the university to support a continuum of student learning based on an innovation paradigm?

      • Karen Gates

        Disruptive (social innovation) in higher education

        Erin, thanks for your follow-up, and my apologies for somehow not "seeing" it when I checked the overall discussion in days following my post. Just noticed it this morning. In response to your response:

        –I’ve been thinking of the direct audience for the prototype as a web of people who could influence someone *like* Clayton Christensen to consider creating a "valid" and highly usable version of an innovation method. Or people who might find my prototype to provoke the generation of a different prototype

        –Regarding how I hope to see a valid method put to use, an ideal scenario would be that it connects ~all innovation teaching and learning, in the way that the scientific method connects all science/research teaching and learning. The three learning applications at the web site are intended as examples of this idea of connection (and the important leverage that I think an established, valid method could provide).

        In general, I believe that our global society has entered a new epoch that is defined by the *need* for innovation; however, we don’t have a pipeline of innovation teachers, nor do we even have shared basic definitions.

        For social innovation in particular, higher education "insiders" like Gregory Dees are *rare*. And they’re more rare for applied social science than for nonprofit management. When I learned 2-3 years ago that a new, highly selective program in medical innovation at the Univ. of Michigan contracted with a local small business for their training in innovation methods, I couldn’t believe it. To me, that was simply incongruous. Yet it seems to speak to the reality that university faculty who may practice innovation didn’t have the benefit of any training; they just did it. But that needs to change in light of the need for innovation and also in light of students’ interest. As a society, we’re so lucky that the student interest exists — no doubt as a direct benefit of the example of pioneers ("disruptors"?) like Ashoka and Dees.

        To borrow A.G. Lafley’s words regarding the present day global context and the reason that he led a major paradigm change at Procter & Gamble during the past ten years: "You can’t wait for the lightbulb to go off in someone’s head." The approach needs to be highly intentional and coherent, including organizational structures, incentives, language, leadership, and much more. And as universities are becoming more intentional about teaching innovation and entrepreneurship, I believe that a shared understanding of fundamentals — across disciplinary areas, across universities, across practitioners, etc. — could make an important difference.

        Lafley’s particular approach to a paradigm change that builds on an organization’s existing strengths (outlined in "Game Changer") might be a great model for what Christensen calls a traditional university — as a highly explicit approach to re-orienting everyone to the shared and explicit purpose of innovation. P&G still has R&D, but invention is now linked much more explicitly to the purpose of innovation; it’s not "tossed over the gate" from inventor to marketer.

        Within such a paradigm shift, my fantasy is for someone like Gregory Dees to lead the social innovation shift at a university like the Univ. of Michigan, which has deep strength in social sciences, engineering, and management, and to re-orient those strengths explicitly to the *shared* and interdisciplinary purpose of innovation. (As a U-M alum, I did send my web site to U-M President Mary Sue Coleman.)

        Thanks for your thoughts! And thanks for the draft learning outcomes developed by Ashoka U and network. If it’s okay with you, I may add a link to this doc within my web site’s sketch of a higher education model for soc innovation.

        • Karen Gates

          p.s.

          Maybe some high caliber *online* curricula for the subject of innovation could serve as a disruptive higher education innovation … I’m borrowing that idea directly from Christensen’s other education book ("Disrupting Class").

          Online curricula for innovation (social and other) would recognize the scarce teaching resources and broad student interest.

          It might also serve as a good laboratory for developing fundamental methods.

  • DanielBassill

    Changing Roles. Challenges.

    Thanks for hosting this discussion.

    I wish Social Edge would update this platform so we could put pictures and visualizations into the discussions. It would help communicate ideas. Instead I point to an article I wrote that includes a map of Chicago and a graphic showing the role of an Intermediary connecting people who can help with places where help is needed. http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/…/tipping-points-do-you-agree.html

    If you drew a time-line from birth to work, it would have segments like pre-school, elementary school, jr. high, high school, college or vocational education, then a job and hopefully a career and other adult roles that would stretch for 40 or more years after college.

    A university is at the upper end of that time line after high school and before jobs and careers. It’s students come from one site and the become alumni on the other side.

    I’ve been recruiting interns to help visualize ideas showing what intermediaries and third-party organizations can do to help more kids from poor neighborhoods move through school without dropping out or getting involved with the justice system. These ideas show what volunteers and adults who don’t live in poverty need to be doing to help make that happen. You can see some of the work interns do at http://michaelcnt.blogspot.com/

    I think that in order to stay relevant, and economically sound, universities are going to need to find more and more ways to have an active role in the lives of alumni as they go through their lives as well as youth as early as elementary or pre-school. The competition for attention and resources means that every university with an on-line presence is potentially competing with every other school, regardless of where they are located. The high costs of going to college will lead more and more students to choose more economical options including on-line learning.

    The role universities can take as intermediaries in this pipeline are unlimited. When IUPUI re-built our web site in 2005 they called it "re-purposing resources". The student and alumni talent at worldwide universities represent pools of under-utilized social problem solving talent that needs to be coached and mentored not just during the time they are enrolled as students but in the years before and after.

    I’d like to connect with more universities who would like to include our ideas in their own strategies and who see ways to re-purpose resources to help us and other businesses and non profits do their roles of helping kids to college and careers.

    • Elizabeth Isele

      Disruptive Demographics!

      I have really enjoyed the thread of this conversation – especially the ways in which the individuals involved seem to understand that true innovation is rarely about a device or service but rather involves the creation of new organizational design, integration and delivery strategies.

      "Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education" needs to be more than the Kauffman Foundation and Ashoka U’s laudable programs, embracing “entrepreneurship across the curriculum.” It can be even more effective if it is also “entrepreneurship across the curriculum and across generations.”

      Seniors with their life work experience can be the change agents – the critical x-factor – needed to leverage entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable social change. If universities provided a forum for Senior entrepreneur students, including some of their Alums, to learn and engage with young student entrepreneurs we would have, as MIT AgeLab director, Joe Coughlin says in his blog, “Disruptive Demographics!”

      Coughlin says, “Global aging is not just a story of ‘more,’ that is, more older people wanting what older people have always wanted. The new older consumer expects and demands more. They are disruptive. They are a call to innovate.

      These Seniors are the “positive deviants’ described by Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, and Monique Sternin in their book, "The Power of Positive Deviance."

      In Dean Karlan’s SSIR review of "The Power of Positive Deviance," he said,

      “The authors take their readers on a fascinating tour to learn about ‘positive deviance’—an approach to solving social, and even some business, problems. The approach, which the authors developed from work done by Tufts University nutrition professor Marian Zeitlin in the 1980s—has roughly three steps. First, engage the people needing change in the process; they must take part in discovering answers to their problems to adopt changes. Second, identify ‘positive deviants’— people who seem to have succeeded compared with others, despite having the same resources. Finally, work with communities to pinpoint what the positive deviants do differently, and figure out how the whole community can adopt these successful practices.”

      In another book, "True to Yourself: Leading a Values-Based Business," author Mark Albion notes, in an excerpt published in SSIR, Fall, 2010,

      “In 2005, the leaders of Social Venture Network (SVN), asked me to research why members had difficulty scaling social enterprises up from founder-led to second generation-led organizations. I interviewed 75 social entrepreneurs: 66 percent had founded a for profit and 40 percent had founded a nonprofit; 60 percent were male and 40 percent were female; and 89 percent were white and 11 percent were racial minorities. All of them had experienced the challenge of scaling.

      Surprisingly, the research revealed that scaling challenges rarely rose from financial limitations, but were most often due to a lack of leadership skills. To successfully scale up, these entrepreneurs needed to think differently and lead differently from their peers. They had to understand that social entrepreneurship is not just a form of entrepreneurship but rather an instrument for social change. They needed to define their businesses less in terms of products or services and more as vehicles for personal, organizational, and global transformation — a transformation they realized must begin with themselves.

      The research indicated that to make that transformation from entrepreneurial founder to successful leader depended on leading more like a monk, an architect, and a diplomat. As monks, these social entrepreneurs become more mindful of their leadership role in the company and their impact on people; as architects, they spend most of their time on the immeasurable process known as company culture; and as diplomats, they become expert collaborators inside and outside of their organizations.”

      Monks, architects and diplomats, leading personal, organizational, and global transformation – sounds like a group of seasoned seniors to me.

      Leonardo da Vinci’s creative power was said to come from his “saper vedere,” a Latin phrase that means, “knowing how to see.”

      Isn’t it time we saw the current, age-loaded demographics as an opportunity to capitalize on experience? Experienced seniors in intergenerational entrepreneurship programs may be one of our universities’ – indeed our nation’s -greatest untapped assets.

      I am applying my ability (albeit not so finely tuned as Leonardo da Vinci’s) “to see” to design and implement an intergenerational, entrepreneurship curriculum. Guided by experts in the fields of entrepreneurship education, adult learning, online curriculum development, business start-up incubators, and network data mapping, the pilot course will be a blended learning environment with a strong evaluation and assessment component.

      My "kitchen cabinet" and I would welcome your thoughts on both the content and delivery of such a program.

  • Matt Barr

    A Students Perspective

    Hello everybody!

    I am a student at Marquette University, one of the honored to be considered an Ashoka Changemaker Campus, representing the Midwest in Milwaukee, WI.

    I have to admit I have not been able to follow the entire chat so please excuse me if I bring up something already discussed because I have been meaning to finish reading the thread, but figured I would add some of my own thoughts on the third question you posed Erin, What is the potential impact of higher education embracing social innovation, both as an approach for institutional change and as a methodology for teaching and learning?

    Addressing institutional change, I cannot remember who mentioned this notion during one of the presentations at during Ashoka’s 2011 Exchange at Duke, but during a Tedx talk a speaker put a twist on the age old question we all ask each other in during college, “What’s your major?” He posed, what if instead of asking about someone’s major ask, “What’s your problem?” An institution that allows each student to work towards the social problems that they most passionately seek solutions for, will be a university that will create some of the most innovative problem solvers for future generations.

    Secondly, in terms of using social entrepreneurship as a methodology for teaching and learning I can only imagine that allowing by allowing students to cater to their passions would culminate with students focusing on how to combine all of the resources available to them in all disciples around campus. The interdisciplinary approach may look as like students are able to pick their course of study like a menu at a restaurant to search for key takeaways from biology, finance, engineering, or whatever is important in their quest to seek a solution for what is, “their problem”.

    • Karen Gates

      A Students Perspective

      I love the "what’s your problem" question. :)

      It’s better than "what’s your passion," because it places the focus on the external world, even as it draws on the individual’s passion. Nice way to connect the two.

  • Nayara DeSousa

    The Movement is Growing

    During the past few months I have been involed with a very interesting class and actually places students in the position to think about entrepreneurship in regards to education. I agree with Erin and Jacqueline that universities need to operate differently so students can be prepared in this competitive economy.

    The need of social innovation in higher education is very important to be incorporated in projects, events, classes and degrees. Due to a constant change, in regards to technology and people, it more important than ever for the higher education setting have a relationship with international students in a more relaxed way. What I mean by this is that international students have so much to offer, but because of rules, fees, regulations that they have to abide by it makes very difficult for them to explore their ideas and contribute to the higher education setting. I am suggesting that there should not be any rules, but I think that the process of peparing for paper work and the cost involved should me minimized and easy to acquire, especially if these young minds arrive in the united states legally. For example, a student under a F-1 visa cannot work outside of campus no matter the circumnstances. He/she must go to school full time and must pay outside tuition and without having to mention the extra fees involved.

    There are many international students in the USA with high skills but because of rules and regulations they are not permitted to do certain things–this can be discouraging especially if they are doing everything legally. The buracracy involved paper work, fees etc…is so much that sometimes they just return back home and apply what they learned in the American universities in their countries.

    Because the world has become very close due to technology and the easy access to travel, it’s important to incorporate cultural exchange in universities, but with less bureaucracy. :)

    More thoughts coming later, :)

    Nayara DeSousa

    • Jacqueline Smith

      The Movement is Growing

      Nayara, Thanks for your post. You’re right, international students have a lot to offer higher education institutions that are building ecosystems of innovation. Reform to retain innovators in the US is being called for inside and outside of the university setting. Through my work at ASU regarding entrepreneurship and regional economic development, I’ve come across a few articles that might interest you:

      http://online.wsj.com/artic…2504576482573203358158.html

      http://chronicle.com/…/

      - Jacqueline

  • Lee Ann Silva

    ASU’s change-making course: Entrepreneurial Educators

    Hello! My name is Lee Ann Silva, I am a Sun Devil grad student and socio educational entrepreneur (founder of Hands-on Spanish (www.hands-onspanish.com) currently enrolled in ASU’s Entrepreneurial Educators course–HED 691. It is through this course that I was made aware of the social edge, and through this course that I have grown so much as an entrepreneur. Only 1/3 of the way through my class, I already am wishing our University had an actual degree program in social entrepreneurship! Maybe we should design one? I can’t imagine Dr. Crow saying "no!" to that idea! : )

    In the past few weeks of HED 691 I have learned so much about entrepreneuriship. I was made aware of ASHOKA and have submitted a presentation proposal to the ASHOKA U 2012 Conference that will be held at ASU in a few months. I have worked as a socio educational entrepreneur for five years, and I feel like I am just beginning to nudge the ice cap of what this field all entails. This course has been, and will continue to be what my professor, Dr. Ewing calls "a good headache"!

    As part of our coursework, we were asked to design our own webpage, and incorporate social media and video to realize our assingments. In this class we are asked to use social media to share ideas, define who we are and discuss our change-making aspirations. We are asked to dream big and develop solutions to social and educational challenges. My "dream big" idea is called "Potable Hope". You can find more information about this idea on my class webpage: http://www.wix.com/lsilva3/Entrepreneurial-Educator.

    This idea consists of incorporating Dean Kamen’s Sling Shot purifier ( http://science.howstuffworks.com/…/slingshot-water-purifier.htm) into the service-learning programs I run in Peru (www.hands-onspanish.com) in order to provide developing area schools with potable water and the start-up funds to build school stores in which they can sell the purified water to the surrounding community. This will generate revenue for schools (many of which don’t even have textbooks) and increase the quality of life of students, faculty and the community by eliminating waterborne diseases that run rampant in many of Peru’s shanty towns.

    I am so proud to be a student at a Changemaking University. ASU is truly inspiring students to make a difference in the world by fostering socially-conscientious change-makers. Instructors, Drs. Kris Ewing and Janel White-Taylor, and faculty associate, Stephanie Garcia are leading the way in inspiring disruptive socioeducational innovators. Follow our Entrepreneurial Educators discussions on twitter via hashtag #ASUEduEnt to see for yourself! : )

    I’m happy to be in on this conversation with everyone and look forward to future communication!

    Sincerely,

    Lee Ann

    • Jacqueline Smith

      ASU’s change-making course: Entrepreneurial Educators

      Lee Ann, Thanks for spreading the word about your work and the groundbreaking educational entrepreneurship course you are taking. – Jacqueline

  • Nicole

    Taking it Global

    Thanks for starting this conversation, Erin and Jacqueline! I just found this thread today, and have really enjoyed reading through all of the thoughtful comments. I am so intrigued by the work that you are all doing!

    I just returned from 3.5 months in East Africa, where I was doing what I have begun to call a "self-funded, self-directed fellowship". I was meeting with young social entrepreneurs and ventures’ fellows, to hear and learn from their stories in person. I was also studying nonprofit and corporate programs that partner with the secondary schools to prepare young East African women for successful futures. Here’s a post that recaps a bit of what I was up to: http://blog.acumenfund.org/…/

    My conclusion is very consistent with all of your comments and my personal experience. I, too would have benefited from exposure to social entrepreneurship and alternative career paths, when I was still a student:)

    I have been reading (and tweeting – @NicolePS) about social entrepreneurship and impact investing, as part of my job search. I am looking to do alumni programming and engagement work for a nonprofit with a fellowship program, an incubator, or a university with a social entrepreneurship community and program. I am very excited about one of my current volunteer projects – I am establishing a social entrepreneurship affinity group for my undergrad alma mater. So I particularly loved all of the comments about involving alumni in this work!

    I am hoping to get to attend the Ashoka U conference at Arizona State in February 2012. Is anyone planning to attend any other conferences that I might want to investigate, so that I can learn more about the field and do some networking? Do you read any blogs or follow anyone on Twitter, that you would recommend? Any LinkedIn groups?

    I was just at SOCAP11 reporting for Care2′s social entrepreneurship blog Trailblazers For Good. I think that this was my best SOCAP11 post – might interest those of you who are working with young social entrepreneurs: http://www.care2.com/causes…-from-day-2-of-socap11.html I am hoping to get to Net Impact’s conference in Portland, OR this month. Will any of you be there? I would love to meet up.

    It is so nice to be a part of this discussion and community! Thanks again, Erin and Jacqueline!

    • Vicki Fiacco

      Taking it Global

      Nicole,

      You might want to check out @EnnoventSEbot on Twitter. They always post new information and opportunities for social entrepreneurs. I look forward to meeting you at the Ashoka U conference at Arizona State in February 2012. I am a current graduate student at ASU and am really looking forward to this event.

      I am currently working on a project that guides undergraduate STEM students toward graduate school and one important focus of the project involves educating future scientists and engineers of career opportunities outside of academic research including social entrepreneurship. According to the published work Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, other nations are moving at a faster pace training new scientists and engineers than we are in the United Sates. To remain competitive, the U.S. needs to produce more highly qualified scientists and engineers. By moving the work of these highly trained scientists out of research labs and into industry or entrepreneurial ventures has the potential to help solve the World’s problems, and boost the economy of our country.

      I would love to hear more about your adventures in Africa and look forward to meeting you in February.

      Vicki

      • Jacqueline Smith

        Taking it Global

        Thanks for the twitter suggestion, Vicki! I just added them. (I’m @jvs8)

    • Jacqueline Smith

      Taking it Global

      Nicole, Thanks for your post. Were you able to attend the Net Impact conference? I hope to see you at the Ashoka Exchange. We at ASU are very excited to host it this year. Below is a conference that has been on my radar. I haven’t personally attended, but have heard it’s well-run and informative:

      http://socialenterpriseconference.org/

      Cheers,

      Jacqueline

      • Nicole

        Taking it Global

        Thanks for the suggestion, Vicki! I started following them on Twitter. I look forward to meeting you in February! Jacqueline, thanks for your comments, too! Too bad I missed you, if you were in Portland for the Net Impact conference! I’ve read about the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference but have not been able to attend, yet. Thanks for thinking of me! Thanks, too for starting this conversation!

        Nicole