Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56535
content gives students the ability to go to their professors and say, 'We want to do this course.' They can get their professors excited about this." How Haas' microfinance course evolved is representative of how many social enterprise courses find their way into the business curriculum. When faculty are reluctant to teach a topic in which they are not well-versed, students like Young are leap-frogging the academy to fill the void. They're start- ing their own courses, setting up conferences, holding com- petitions, and spearheading initiatives in sustainability—and they're working to get more faculty interested in this quickly emerging field. Leading the Way Faculty like Foote have plenty of opportunities to support students in their efforts. There is no shortage of students interested in becoming "change makers," says Liz Maw, executive director of the San Francisco-based Net Impact, a nonprofit membership organization for students and busi- nesses dedicated to sustainability. Net Impact's guide of graduate business programs, Busi- ness as Unusual 2008, provides examples of how students are driving change on their campuses. At the UCLA's Anderson School, for example, an interdisciplinary team of graduate students asked faculty to help them design a study emphasis titled "Leaders in Sustainability." At the University of Chi- cago's Booth School of Business, students participating in Net Impact worked with faculty to design a business course on clean technology for the 2008–2009 academic year. The Social Enterprise Club (SEC) at Columbia University in New York boasts 315 student members and spearheads on-campus activities such as the Global Social Venture Com- petition, one of the oldest competitions focused on corpo- rate social responsibility in the United States. In addition, Columbia is home to the Green Business Club, the Interna- tional Development Club, and the Microlumbia Fund, which makes microloans to entrepreneurs in emerging markets. "We've seen a rapidly growing interest in social enter- prise on campus—more than 40 percent of our students are members of at least one social enterprise club," says Joseph Chmielewski, a Columbia MBA student and one of two leaders of the SEC. He adds that the current financial crisis has inspired many students to consider nontraditional career paths in sectors such as clean energy and the environment. Students who originally came to study finance or consult- ing, for example, are changing their plans once they see that carbon trading companies and educational nonprofits are hiring. 40 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2009 Making the Case Membership in Net Impact chapters now comprises more than 10,000 students at more than 200 campuses world- wide. That's a huge leap from 1994, when Net Impact had only 500 members on 16 campuses. In fact, as Net Impact's membership has grown, so has the activity level of students like Chmielewski, who have become campus champions for sustainability. Take Rebecca Solow, who leads the Net Impact chapter at New York University's Stern School of Business. Now in her second year of a three-year joint master's program in business and public policy, Solow was part of a group of students who pushed to get a specialization in social enterprise approved in Stern's MBA program. With the help of Kim Corfman, vice dean of MBA pro- grams, the students worked for two years to develop and present a case to a decision-making committee. They con- ducted benchmarking research to show how comparable business schools were addressing the topic and what courses on sustainability Stern already had in place. After they com- pleted their research, the students realized that Stern already had the courses required to create a specialization—the courses just needed to be sequenced and designated differ- ently, Solow explains. "It didn't make sense for the school not to do this. It's really about giving students credit for the electives they're taking in this area," she says. "In fact, I would love to see social impact integrated into the first-year core curriculum in an even more structured way." Convinced by the students' research, the administration at Stern offered the new specialization in Social Innovation and Impact in 2008. In addition, students drove the imple-