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40 November/ December 2014 BizEd OLEGGAN KO/TH I N KSTOCK venue for nonprofits to hold classes and workshops at night. As part of their anal- ysis, the Babson stu- dents suggested ways to ensure The Window generates enough revenue to support its cost and continues to meet the needs of downtown resi- dents and businesses. Eventually, more than 400 people were coming to downtown Las Vegas each month just to study the progression of its revitaliza- tion and contribute where they could. "Our students want to get their hands dirty. They want to take what they're learning and make something happen in the real world," says Gould. "Cities need students' work and idealism to move forward, and they can be a playground where students can exert their energy." In the last two years, the Down- town Project grew to include 300 entrepreneurs, but as Gould explains, even the idealism of Hsieh's vision could not overcome deficits in the project's planning. The trajectory of the Downtown Project took an unexpected turn in late September, when it was announced that Hsieh was leaving the initiative and that the project— and many of the startups it had supported—had become financially unsustainable. New leadership now oversees its operations, and the future of the new businesses that remain is in question. Gould resigned his position soon after, and in an open letter to Hsieh published in the Las Vegas Weekly, he expresses his sympathy to those who lost their jobs. But he also shares his conviction that the project's objective is still as vital as ever. "Though I have come to understand the formidable chal- lenges inherent in transforming a city, the story [Hsieh] crafted was not only visionary, but attainable." New Aspirations Although Gould's work with the Downtown Project has ended, he plans to encourage more professors to create real-life city-based proj- ects for their students. In June, for example, he invited 20 primarily tenured professors from the Uni- versity of Nevada Las Vegas and the University of Iowa to a Fac- ulty Institute in Las Vegas. There, they met with Eli Kaufman from A Hundred Years, a design studio and consulting firm in Los Ange- les that helps firms think in more innovative ways. The goal was to emphasize the importance of educational entre- preneurship, which Gould believes is vital in today's rapidly changing higher education environment. "We talked about breaking out of tradi- tional academic molds and teach- ing classes in new ways, whether that means co-teaching a class or sending students to 'winterims' in Las Vegas, using the city as our classroom. We want to be as cre- ative we can." Gould will move back to Iowa City, where he'll continue to teach his Life Design class. While he is disappointed by the outcome of Hsieh's initiative, he appreciates what he has learned and is no less enthusiastic about what his stu- dents accomplished in Las Vegas. Gould hopes professors in all dis- ciplines will make it their biggest priority to galvanize their students' talent to inspire real social change. He admits that academic entre- preneurship comes with risk and the possibility for failure. But even when projects don't turn out as planned, academics will have gained new knowledge and experiences that they can apply to their next projects. "I still believe that as academics, we must stay plugged into the world in real ways," says Gould. "Our cities need our knowledge and our stu- dents' energy and idealism. That's exactly the direction we should go. The only other choice is to say that we can't change the world, that we can't make a difference." The latter choice, says Gould, is not an option at all. "Too much of a professor's academic success is based on building up a vita by publishing in the right journals and attending the right confer- ences. When this is our focus, we often don't have conversations with those on the ground dealing with problems," he says. "What's the use of publishing a paper that six people read before it sits on a shelf in a university library like an object in Raiders of the Lost Ark? If we could apply our teach- ing and research in meaningful ways and see the real results of our work, I believe nothing would be more fulfilling. Our disserta- tions and research studies should be measured by the impact they have on social and environmental problems." To learn more about the Life Design Class visit www.uiowa. edu/~lifeclas/. Even when projects don't turn out as planned, academics gain new knowledge and experiences.