For five summers, the Center for Community Development and Social Justice was awarded grant funding by the Kauffman Foundation (Kansas City) to place students in paid internship positions of leadership and innovation in the non-profit sector. Students' interests, talents, and skills were matched with the needs of local non-profit organizations. Community partners communicated that this Social Entrepreneurship Internship program provided very valuable contributions to their missions and the constituents they serve, and students also rated it very highly for providing meaningful experiences, both personal and professional. When the program at the Kauffman Foundation ended, our commitment still existed to offer these specialized learning opportunities to students interested in how to help solve social problems and build the capacity of non-profit organizations. Coursework in Social Entrepreneurship was created, and in 2006 a new minor in Civic Engagement (created through a project funded by the Bonner Foundation) was also approved.
"Social entrepreneurship is not about starting a business or becoming more commercial. It is about finding new and better ways to create social value." - Dees, Emerson, & Economy, from Strategic Tools for Social Entrepreneurs
How are social entrepreneurs different from business entrepreneurs?
Social entrepreneurs have an explicit social mission in mind.
Their main objective is to make the world a better place.
This affects how they measure success.
How do social entrepreneurs measure success?
Instead of measuring success by how much profit they make, they measure success by the extent to which they create social value.
Students at Lynchburg College can learn more about how to become a social entrepreneur by taking GS 220: Exploring Social Entrepreneurship, a one credit introductory course, and GS 415: Social Entrepreneurship Internship, a one to six credit internship experience.
GS 220 -- Exploring Social Entrepreneurship (1 credit)
Students in GS 220 explore what it means to be a social entrepreneur in a wide variety of fields. All students in LC’s Bonner Leaders Program are required to take GS 220, preferably during the Spring semester of their first year in the program. (GS 220 is also open to all upperclass students.) The students taking GS 220 are given a variety of reading material, view videos, and write papers examining the personal qualities and professional skills needed to be effective social entrepreneurs. Class activities have also included: 1) a brief history of philanthropy and the development of the non-profit sector in the United States, 2) an introductory grant-writing project done in teams, and 3) final presentations and research papers where each student identifies one social entrepreneur and one social program that inspires him/her.
Students are visited by a variety of guest lecturers that includes entrepreneurs working in non-profit and for-profit settings who discuss their personal experiences as leaders and entrepreneurs and describe the qualities they feel are necessary for students to become effective leaders and successful entrepreneurs. Guest lecturers from past semesters include:
- Virginia state delegate Shannon Valentine
- LC alum Andrew Miller who runs a business in Argentina with a not-for-profit-only philosophy and is working toward the development of a new foundation
- The co-founders of Lynchburg Grows, committed to providing access to healthy food, employment opportunities and therapeutic gardening for youth, people who are disabled, and low-income members of the community
- Sandy Kanehl, who shared her enduring and active commitment to ending the stigmatization of people with substance disorders
- Wayne Meisel, president of the Bonner Foundation, who shared his experiences of starting a youth movement on college campuses
- Michael Gillette, Lynchburg City Councilman and medical ethicist.
GS 415 -- Social Entrepreneurship Internship (1-6 credits)
Prerequisite: GS 220 or permission of instructor.
The Internship in Social Entrepreneurship is designed to provide students with an in-depth experience in the non-profit sector that includes significant responsibility for a new or expanded non-profit program or initiative. Students' interests, talents, and skills are matched with current needs in the community.
Open to juniors and seniors for academic credit; requires 8-10 hours per week working at an off-campus location if completed during the academic year, full-time if during summer. Interns meet/communicate regularly with the instructor, keep a journal, write a final paper and/or create a presentation.
Social Entrepreneurship Websites
- Ashoka: http://www.ashoka.org
- Ewing Marian Kauffman Foundation: http://www.kauffman.org
- Ewing Marian Kauffman Foundation website dedicated to entrepreneurship: http://www.entreworld.org
- The Foundation Center: http://foundationcenter.org/
- Independent Sector: http://www.independentsector.org
- NonProfit Times Publication: http://www.nptimes.com
- Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Non-Profit Management: http://www.cgu.edu/pages/2417.asp
- Red Dog Software offers portal management software: http://www.wego.com
- The Roberts Foundation: http://www.redf.org
- Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship: http://www.schwabfound.org
- Stanford Social Innovation Review: http://www.ssireview.com
- Yale School of Management – The Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures: http://www.ventures.yale.edu
Civic Engagement (CE)
"Adding one’s voice to community conversations. Advocacy on behalf of others. Participation in public life. Encouraging other people to participate in public life. Joining in common work that promotes the well being of everyone." - Project 540
To view students' definitions on civic engagement from around the country: http://www.actionforchange.org/getinformed/student_ink/student_ink.html#definitions
To enter your own definition of civic engagement:
http://www.actionforchange.org/getinformed/civic-engagement.html
Other Links:
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Ashoka: http://www.ashoka.org/
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Association of American Colleges and Universities: http://www.aacu.org/issues/civicengagement/
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Pew Partnership for Civic Change: http://www.pew-partnership.org/
Students at Lynchburg College can learn more about Civic Engagement by choosing to complete the minor in Civic Engagement. The minor is open to students in all majors.
Civic Engagement Minor
The Civic Engagement Minor encourages students to participate as citizens in the democratic process by providing opportunities for active engagement in public policy and direct service to the community. After completing this minor, students are equipped for complex thinking about social issues through opportunities for reflection on issues of poverty, diversity, and social justice. They integrate civic engagement principles with their specific academic disciplines through research in the community and are guided by the culminating capstone and reflection coursework to find ways of putting their knowledge into action in a variety of contexts.
The Civic Engagement minor is a total of twenty-one credits. At least two courses (six credits) overlap with General Education requirements. In addition, GS 220 – Exploring Social Entrepreneurship (one credit) overlaps with a Bonner Leader course requirement. The minor is open to all students in any major and and is housed in the Political Science Department of the School for Humanities and Social Sciences. Significant emphasis on developing community-based research skills and knowledge of public policy is woven into the required courses.
If you have any interest or questions please feel free to contact:
- Tim Meinke, assistant professor of political science, at 434-544-8448 or meinke@lynchburg.edu
- Lisa Whitaker, associate director at the Center for Community Development and Social Justice, at 434-544-8156 or whitaker@lynchburg.edu
- Ellen DeLuca, associate professor of nursing, at 434-544-8322 or deluca@lynchburg.edu
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Required Courses for the Minor in Civic Engagement: GS 220 Exploring Social Entrepeneurship and Leadership |
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Choose one course from: PHIL 204 Intro to Ethics |
3 |
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Choose one course from: POLI 220 The American Political Experience |
3 |
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Choose one course from: GS 415 Social Entrepreneurship Internship -or- any internship approved by the minor steering committee. |
3 |
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Choose one course from: GS 311 Independent Study -or- Capstone Course in Major approved by the minor steering committee. (The capstone must include a community-based research project and/or significant analysis of public policy as needed by non-profit community partners or policy-makers.) |
3 |
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Total Hours Required |
21 |
1. To encourage students to participate intentionally as citizens in the democratic process by:
- providing opportunities for students to actively engage in public policy
- providing students with opportunities to actively engage in direct service to the community
2. To equip students for complex thinking about social issues by:
- providing them with theoretical and empirical tools for understanding communities and the dynamics of change within them
- encouraging students to examine and reflect on their beliefs about community life, including issues of poverty, diversity, and social justice
- enabling students to implement a research project to address a specific social issue
3. To help students integrate civic engagement principles with their specific academic disciplines by:
- enabling students to describe the historical and contemporary context of problems/issues confronting communities from an interdisciplinary perspectives
- providing students with opportunities within the minor for students to directly link their major field of study to their experiences and research in the community, especially in the internship options and the culminating capstone and reflection coursework
Service learning courses are integrated within academic departments across a variety of disciplines. The civic engagement minor is intense in that it requires students to devote significant time and focus throughout the minor working with, and towards enhancing, the goals of community partners (in conjunction with class discussions and assignments). The multi-year Civic Engagement minor is a total of twenty-one credits, taking two to four years to complete the core courses, internship, research capstone, and culminating reflection course. The program focuses on service and contribution to community partners within a developmental and sequential model. The program offers a global perspective within courses and offers a study abroad option for students to conduct internships in service. Students investigate and have opportunities to have an impact on public policy via coursework and community-based research capstone projects. Program/Course Architecture:
- A Common Course – All students in the Civic Engagement minor program take five (5) required courses. As a lead in course, students choose between Introduction to Ethics or Quest for Justice.
- Poverty Course – The issue of poverty is woven into the coursework in the Civic Engagement minor program. Service-learning and social entrepreneurship coursework and community-based research, sociology, and public policy courses all investigate poverty and poverty-related issues.
- International Exposure - Coursework addresses global connections; international service-learning option; International Relations internship option
- Internships - Open to juniors and seniors for academic credit; requires eight to ten hours per week working at an off-campus location if completed during the academic year, full-time if during summer, which is preferred. Students in the Civic Engagement minor choose from GS 415 – Social Entrepreneurship Internship or INTL 399 – International Relations Internship. Interns meet/communicate regularly with a faculty member, keep a journal, write a final paper and/or create a presentation.
- Capstone Project - Building on their work in an introductory course to community-based research in the junior year, students in their senior year complete a community-based research project, often with a public policy focus, and also participate in a final reflection and analysis seminar.
1. Freshman Year: No coursework is required in the freshman year because students are not required to declare a minor. However, many students will be introduced to the Civic Engagement Minor in their freshman year via learning communities and courses that relate to rights, liberty, responsibility, global issues, vocation, service, and urban issues. A freshman symposium offers topics related to civic engagement; Freshman Make A Difference Day introduces the importance of service and community engagement to incoming students.
2. Sophomore Year:
- Choose: Phil 204 Intro to Ethics or Poli 111 Quest for Justice I (three credits). Both are considered lead-in courses and often relate to domestic poverty.
- Choose: Poli 220 The American Political Experience, Poli 258 State and Local Government and Politics, or Poli 290 American Public Policy (three credits). Predominantly courses that have a service learning contextual component.
- Required: Soci 201 Introduction to Sociology (three credits).
- Required: GS 220 Exploring Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership (one credit)
- Some students enter the Bonner Leaders Program
3. Junior Year:
- Required: SOCI 209 Applied Sociology (three credits – service-learning course)
- Required: GS 307 Introduction to Civic Participation and Community Based Research. (ome credit seminar)
- Internship and Study Abroad Focus: Choose GS 415 Social Entrepreneurship Internship or INTL 399 International Relations Internship or a Study Abroad program with a service-learning component (three credits).
- Bonner Leaders Program: Students in BLP may be in their first or second year of the program; students in the minor do not have to be in the BLP.
- Social Justice series
4. Senior Year: Capstone Experience and Reflection
- Choose: Capstone Course in major with research project focused on a Civic Engagement topic (students must submit research proposal to Civic Engagement Steering Committee for approval, using the Westover Honors Thesis model) – OR - GS 311, Independent Study (Focused on a Community Based Research project, often with a public policy emphasis; students must submit a proposal to Civic Engagement Steering Committee for approval). Students utilize our existing Non-Profit Directory national CBR Network (in development).
- Required: GS 430 Putting Civic Engagement in Perspective (one credit). A reflective course where all graduating students in the minor program come together to integrate what they have learned.
- Student Scholar Showcase (student presentations of research and experiential learning)
- Bonner Leaders Program (students may be in their second year in the BLP, serving as a Bonner senior intern, or have otherwise maintained their connection as contributing program graduates)
Strategies for Bonner Connection:
Role of Service: Students are very involved with service learning in a long-term symbiotic relationship with a community partner/organization and focus deeply on specific social issues as they are introduced to community-based research and then complete a CBR project as a capstone project. In the wrap-up course, all students in the minor program (from a variety of majors) come together to reflect on and discuss the impact of their community work for the minor.
Student Leadership: Students assume leadership positions. Starting in the sophomore or junior years students may enter the Bonner Leaders Program. All students in the Civic Engagement minor program will experience an increasing level of leadership development in the community as they develop their capstone projects and increase the intensity of their collaborative, working relationships with community members, faculty, staff, and other students. Specific focus on leadership development is also provided in GS 220 – Exploring Social Entrepreneurship (required) and GS 415 – Social Entrepreneurship Internship (a choice).
Community Partnerships: Students will be matched with community partners for service-learning and community-based research coursework based on the needs of partners at the time and the individual student’s major field of study, specific interests and skills. The principles of the Asset-Based Community Development model (Kretzmann & McKnight) and community-based research (as described in Community-Based Research and Higher Education, Strand, et al) will be taught and applied throughout the minor program experiences. These principles serve as the foundation for how to approach and maintain effective partnerships.