Program cooks up a taste of social change
This winter, Sandy Neubaum challenged business students in her Introduction to Entrepreneurship class to see how much money they could generate from $20 in three weeks. Their results were impressive enough at face value: one team raised $250 by offering breakfast in bed at $5 per tray to fellow students (such as Resident Assistant Dale McCauley, pictured on the home page) in Weatherford Hall. Yet the real lesson came in the next step, as students used their earnings to fund microloans in developing countries. To a poor entrepreneur without access to traditional credit, even a few hundred dollars can launch a small business.
"Part of our mission is to teach college students they can make a difference; they can effect change," said Neubaum, the associate director of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program. "Our students are joining a growing movement of people who are effectively addressing some of society's most intractable social problems in very real, resourceful ways."
The microloan exercise was inspired by the Social Entrepreneurship Program, a College of Business initiative which encourages students to use their creativity and business know-how to make a more just world. The program received a major boost recently through a gift of $120,000 from Randy and Susan Conrads.
Randy Conrads, '72, founder of the popular website Classmates.com, noted that social entrepreneurs are thriving today; "upcycling" ventures, for instance, recover demolition wastes and prevent usable materials from being dumped in landfills. "You can make money in a business and be doing something that's great for society as well," he said.
Neubaum said the Conrads' gift -- which provides support for two years -- will allow the program to expand the number of social entrepreneurship courses offered, including a new class for incoming first-year students. It will also help support a social entrepreneurship speaker series and opportunities for social enterprise internships.
