Guest blogger: Max Seidman
Just a semester ago Tulane’s Center for Engaged Learning and Teaching (CELT) created the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship minor, devoted to finding creative, innovative solutions to social problems. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 7 years, you’d know that New Orleans plenty to go around: public education, crime rates, etc. When I heard about this minor, I instantly set up an appointment with Rebecca Otten over at CELT to discuss the minor. I loved this opportunity so much that I declared my SISE minor that day. Visit the site below to see the curriculum for this rapidly growing program:
I’m taking the intro to Social Innovation course, SISE 2010, right now. In one word, the class is Inspiring. Now let’s use a few more words.
First of all, my professor is Dr. Richard Aubry, 23-year Director of Rubicon Programs, an organization devoted to providing people with jobs who are mentally disabled, homeless, or economically disadvantaged. Dr. Aubry’s extensive knowledge and integrative teaching style makes the class very interesting. He focuses the class on analyzing different social enterprises. For example, we first studied a company called Fair Trade USA, which seeks to empower family farmers around the world, while enriching the lives of those struggling in poverty. Who knew there was so much to learn about trading coffee and bananas? Other organization’s we’ve studied include Common Ground Collective, Kickstart, and my favorite social venture of ALL TIME: Playworks.
Playworks is a national nonprofit organization that transforms schools by providing play and physical activity at recess and throughout the school day. For the service learning component of this class, the professor presents several social enterprises, and the students choose which of the many companies they would like to work with. Some kids chose Propeller, some chose The Green Project, I chose Playworks. I work with the Playworks branch at Akili Elementary School where I play with kids at recess once or twice a week. Boring, right? Here’s the best part. I got to meet the founder of Playworks, Jill Vialet, when she came to our class to give one of our many guest lectures. In fact, when Jill came, I had the chance to ask her for some advice about a program I created here on campus called Play & Learn. Play & Learn organizes and hosts events at the Boys & Girls club where a diversity of Tulane organizations—The Ultimate Frisbee Team, The Fencing Club, The Hip-Hop Team, etc.—teach the kids something about their talent. As it says in the name, Play & Learn’s goal is to get the kids playing and learning at the same time!
If you couldn’t tell by this last paragraph, I have a passion for child development and working with kids; but for this class, it doesn’t matter what you are interested in. SISE allows you to engage in service related to your specific passion, regardless of what that passion may be.
The diversity of students’ majors in my class is astounding: psychology, business, English, architecture, biology, environmental studies, etc. The only required interest for this class is that you want to make a difference in the world.
If you want to know more about my experience with the Social Innovation minor, feel free to shoot me an email at mseidman@tulane.edu or contact Rebecca Otten, the Social Innovation program coordinator at rotten@tulane.edu
