Change Makers on Campus

Recognizing that universities can play a powerful role both in helping to solve the problems of today and in building up a generation of leaders that is fully equipped to tackle the problems of tomorrow, Ashoka has launched a year-long partnership with four universities - Cornell, Johns Hopkins, George Mason, and the University of Maryland - designed to improve dramatically the changemaking potential of universities and the students, faculty, and staff who occupy them.

Ashoka, a global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs, launched this Campus Changemaker Initiative in the fall of 2008 to build universities as incubators for social change.

Teams of select faculty, staff, and students from each school are working together to create, refine, and implement an innovative plan to strengthen social entrepreneurship teaching, research, and student engagement on their campuses. "I am involved because I would like to create a culture of social innovation on campus, and to encourage students that feel alone in their endeavors," says Jessica Prue a student at Cornell University.

At Cornell, students from across its 7 colleges have joined with faculty and staff from the Center for Transformative Action, the Center for Global Sustainable Enterprise, and Entrepreneurship at Cornell. Encouraged by their President, David Skorton, who recognizes that this generation of students will provide needed leadership in the field of social entrepreneurship, this team has three goals: 1) to celebrate student and alumni changemakers by telling their stories; 2) to ignite social innovation, creativity, and problem solving through inspired teaching, and 3) to strengthen the effectiveness of students who want to be part of the solution to pressing social problems while on campus and after they graduate.

Senior, Lauren Wein, explains that the Cornell Changemaker team "allows me to engage with some of the most innovative, hard-working, passionate students and faculty on campus. The energy you get in bringing all of these people together is truly amazing, and it has helped me in my own personal, academic and extracurricular pursuits".

The end goal of Ashoka's Campus Changemaker Initiative: a network of campuses that foster a culture of innovation and social change, and a generation of students who will be empowered to test out new thinking and new approaches to tackle today's toughest global problems.

For more information, visit http://www.ashoka.org/changemakercampus.

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