Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/54913
Changemakers don't intend to expand to a unique course set on social entrepreneur- ship because it's so fundamentally integrated into what students want and how we teach in general." Other schools are slowly adopt- ing the same approach. "Topics and cases that have previously been associated with social entrepre- neurship are now being integrated into the mainstream curriculum," says IESE's Mair. She admits that kind of mainstreaming is difficult for professors who have taught strict disciplinary courses for a long time, but she adds, "It's time for us to open up a little." 3. Teach it across disciplines. At TCU, social entrepreneurship reaches across campus to schools as diverse as engineering, journal- ism, nursing, and fashion design. "We've found that entrepreneur- ship applies to any discipline where students see the potential to be their own bosses," says Smilor. Using and matching a small grant from the Coleman Foundation, TCU supports eight Faculty Fel- lows in entrepreneurship who are promoting the notion that "entrepreneurship isn't a business discipline. It's a way of thinking. It includes skills that can be applied to any discipline." Similarly, NC State encourages entrepreneurship initiatives across disciplines, particularly through a technology program that brings together students from engineer- ing, textiles, management, and other majors. While many of the connections have been informal, the university's new chancellor, Randy Woodson, is promoting social entrepreneurship as a univer- sitywide mission, says Townsend. Among other initiatives, he's advo- cating a cross-functional agenda that's likely to lead to more formal- ized joint degree programs. Multidisciplinary efforts in the past have often centered around the schools for textiles and engi- neering, the major players at NC State, Townsend explains, and that's likely to continue as social entrepreneurship is ingrained even more deeply into the curriculum. For instance, the textile school has discovered that a particular kind of fiber technology can also be used to filter bacteria and other organ- isms out of water. The business school is working with the textiles school to develop "early stage ideas about how to implement this prod- Pyramids and Policies While she primarily teaches at IESE Business School, Johanna Mair also holds appointments at INSEAD in France and Harvard's Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she is academic editor of Stanford University's Social Innovation Review. Much of my research has focused on how social entrepreneurship drives change at the base of the pyramid and, therefore, develops markets in that sector. More recently, I have focused on understanding not only how social initiatives get scaled up but on how effects differ from one location to another. I'm looking at the varying effects of social entrepreneurship initiatives on 400 vil- lages in India over time. This will help give us a better understanding of what it takes to scale up and what the limitations are. On the other end of the economic spectrum, I'm working with the European Commission to study successful social entrepre- neurship organizations in five countries. Because the research is driven by the European Commission, there will be policy impli- cations. We think we can go beyond the classic sector boundaries and carve out solutions and models that aren't categorized for the public and private sector. I find that very exciting. BizEd May/June 2011 27 Cheryl Y. Kiser is executive director of Babson's Social Innovation Lab and managing director of its Lewis Institute. Babson is one of ten univer- sities chosen by the global organiza- tion Ashoka to be a Changemaker Campus—a school committed to social entrepreneurship. At the Lewis Center, we sponsor a year's worth of coaching to selected graduates. That's important because social entrepreneurs are usually on their own. Not only will we help them under- stand the challenges a social entrepre- neur faces and create resources for them, we will use their experiences to build content for the rest of the school. The first five participants include two graduates working at an entrepreneur- ship center in Rwanda; two in San Fran- cisco working on social entrepreneur- ship ventures; and one driving change at a school in Harlem. We coach them individually, then bring them back together so they can learn from each other and our professors can learn from them. All five have offered to stay on for a second year to help mentor the next group selected for the program. uct in a global southern context to provide a cheap, cost-effective fil- tration system," Townsend says. 4. Offer more role models. While most business programs expose students to successful exec- utives, schools focusing on social entrepreneurship bring in a special kind of business owner with a cer-

