On today's episode, we visit Professor Claudine Tomlinson-Burney's Radio and Podcasting Class at Valencia College to explore the question of a successful life.  The student guests on today's show Felice Mathie, Tim Hetz, and Makenna Waller, are all students in the radio and podcasting class.  Felice, Tim, and Makenna engage Jerrid in a conversation on what success looks like in their lives and share a bit about their current journeys.     

On today's, episode we spend time with the Founder of The VIBE Movement Tina Median.  Tina shares her journey from teaching in Korea to teaching middle in Los Angles and San Diego to founding the VIBE Movement to inspire educators to vibe at a higher level.  She offers professional development programs for school staff and a Bold Educator Coaching Program aimed at teachers to re-engage in what their "why" is as a way to remain energized inside and outside of the classroom.      Biography A natural rebel and rule interpreter, Tina has promoted social change since her youth, risking her reputation with bold fashion statements like shaving her head when she was only a freshman in high school. Tina spent much of her youth living, working, studying and volunteering abroad in humbling places like South Africa, India, and Vietnam. With almost 30 countries and 20 states under her belt by the time she was 26, Tina got a good glimpse of a world that was full of both love and destruction. She realized at a very young age the meaning of global citizenship, the duty we owe each other as human beings, and the impact one person can have. With 12 years of teaching experience, Tina earned her Red Badge of Courage on the battlefields of some tough schools between South Central LA and San Diego. But she wanted more and felt confined by the four walls of the classroom and stifled by a bureaucratic education system. With a master's in peace and justice studies, Tina found her passions for education and peace align through restorative practices.   Links https://www.vibemovement.com/ https://www.vibemovement.com/vibe-deck Use Promo Code FREESHIP for free shipping if ordering within the United States. mailto:[email protected] Instagram _thevibemovement_ Facebook Page @vibewithvibe   https://taylormali.com/ A Brooklyn-based Poet and Educator

On today's episode, we connect with Rachel Christensen, Assistant Director of the Center for Peace and Commerce, at the University of San Diego.  Rachel shares how much of her work and pedagogy stems from living in the borderland of the US and Mexico.  She shares her journey into social innovation work and how she sees herself first and foremost as a bridge-builder bringing people together.  Biography Rachel Christensen is the Assistant Director for the Center for Peace and Commerce. She cares about inviting more cultural brokers and bridge builders into the public, private, and social sectors to help individuals and communities flourish.    Formerly, she worked with social entrepreneurs in education in 9 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America with Edify, Inc. She also worked with a grassroots non-profit advocating for green transportation and placemaking in uptown San Diego neighborhoods.    She lived in the Dominican Republic, working with microfinance and SME models to improve education and studied mental health in rural Brazil. She has a Master's in Public Administration and is Chairwoman of the Board of Directors for the bi-national non-profit Create Purpose.  Links If helpful, here are some other places I talk about teaching social innovation in the borderlands   Ashoka Big Talk "Teaching In Between" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vMguJPNQUk&t=5s   Tedx Talk "Borderlanders" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hxnp4eo0bY     Personal Website on Living In-Between https://www.livinginbetween.org   https://www.livinginbetween.org/themovement     Example of teaching design thinking across the border https://www.sandiego.edu/news/detail.php?_focus=68936     Links to resources mentioned   Acumen Resource Library https://www.plusacumen.org/     USD Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge https://www.sandiego.edu/cpc/gsic/ https://www.sandiego.edu/cpc/newsroom/gsic.php   https://www.sandiego.edu/cpc/resources/   Impact Gap Canvas http://tacklingheropreneurship.com/the-impact-gaps-canvas/ Gap Frame (SDGs) http://gapframe.org/ Ideo https://www.ideou.com/ Equity & Design Thinking https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/equity-centered-design-framework http://www.creativereactionlab.com/eccd Designing Your Life http://designingyour.life/resources-authorized/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SemHh0n19LA     Transcript Jerrid Kalakay 0:09 Welcome to the Teaching Change podcast, where we explore issues a Social Entrepreneurship, education, and innovation. I'm your host Jerrid Kalakay. On today's show, we're talking with Rachel Christiansen of the University of San Diego. Rachel, welcome to Teaching Change. Rachel Christensen 0:23 Yeah, thanks for having me. Jerrid Kalakay 0:25 Yeah. So, Rachel, I would love for you to kind of start out by talking a little bit about, introduce yourself, and then talk a bit of your work. You've done a bunch of stuff, a bunch of things, and now you're working in higher education, still doing a bunch of things. So anxious, just kind of who you are and what you're doing currently, and then we'll sort of dive off from that. Rachel Christensen 0:45 So my name is Rachel. I'm based in San Diego and park relevant a little bit for what we'll talk about today is probably two things. So my context is the US Mexico borderlands. We're about 15 minutes from Tijuana, Mexico. And that's part of Our pedagogy and how we interpret our context for the Social Innovation work that we do. And the other piece that's relevant to today is that I run our Center for peace and commerce, which is a center that's a partnership. I think it's a pretty cool radical way between the School of Business and a school of peace and justice. So the idea is we're trying to bring together sometimes disparate worlds, and paradigms around change, some of them that believe in business models, and some of them that believe in negotiation and, and community organizing, and realizing that we're going to need all approaches for us to make sustainable social change. And what that looks like on an operational level is I help primary students from the University of San Diego and our partner institutions around the world from about 12 countries to try their hand at building a social enterprise. So we kind of culminate a lot of our activities in a global social venture Pitch Competition that's oriented around the Sustainable Development Goals and really has as primary goals and learning and connecting around the Sustainable Development Goals and as a secondary goal and generating some ideas that could be sustainable social enterprises. Jerrid Kalakay 2:09 Wow. Wow. So that's a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff. What I think is really neat it talk a little bit more about your school of peace and justice and the School of Business coming together in the university to create the center that you work in. how unique is that in the landscape of higher education in the United States? And how did that come about? Rachel Christensen 2:34 Yeah, it's, um, it's very unique. There are. So just having a school of peace, or a school of peace study is very rare, usually to be normative like that. Usually it's war and conflict and peace or something like that. And so to study explicitly in the direction of pieces were in itself, there are only a couple schools and then to have a partnership between a business school and a p school is Common in higher ed, however, pretty necessarily emerging because it's been going on definitely conversations much longer than this. But since the 70s, there's been scholarship around economic development and peace, commerce through PP through commerce initiatives, and in the peacemaking space, economic generating activities are deemed as essential. And the conversation of course, around what's business for has shifted, have either shifted or depending on who you ask, go back to the basics of assuming that business is should be pro-peace and that business should be could be pro-poor. And so those conversations are fairly common, but the actual institutionalization of two schools coming together from sometimes very different paradigms fairly rare. And how did you come about? It's the centers been around since 2011, some visionary leaders from the University of San Diego. Definitely, right I need to reach across the aisle sometimes and, and sometimes it requires also retraining our brains as staff, faculty, students, community stakeholders of how we think about change and how it happens. Jerrid Kalakay 4:15 And approximately how many people are involved in the center's work? I know the two schools are probably pretty large. And then they've kind of come together with the center but how many people kind of are involved with the center's operations and, and the work that you all do? Rachel Christensen 4:30 Yeah, so it's, um, it's intentionally involving for on the doing side on the implementing side, all the stakeholders. So we have a team of part-time faculty who have teaching roles who also advised the center, and then we have to staff me and another person, and then students staff, part-time who is on learning and in-class and also work for the center. So that involves sort of the three main stakeholders at the university level staff, faculty and students and terms of participation. However, we work with dozens of Faculty, helping them learn how to embed SD G's into their syllabus learning how to embed experiential learning opportunities into their coursework. And then we have students participate at the University of San Diego from the undergraduate and graduate and Ph.D. levels. And then as mentioned, we have about 26 university partners per year that come from about 12 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and I don't think I mentioned North America, US, and Canada. And so those would be at the participation level. We have hundreds of students across the US. Jerrid Kalakay 5:39 That's, that's incredible. And just as a reminder, the university has, what's the enrollment at the university? Yeah, we're Rachel Christensen 5:47 around 10,000 undergrads and grad. Yeah, so it's a fairly small university. It's an engaged Catholic University that is contemporary and interfaith and much of the work but I'm trying to teach Catholic social values. In the sense of care for home, and dignity of work and some of those values that we bring to what we do, but it's just a fairly small private university. You know, Jerrid Kalakay 6:10 it's a beautiful campus I was on. I was on your campus A number of years ago for the showcase exchange. And it's absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. So, Rachel, how did you come to this work? It sounds like it's, it kind of sounds a little bit exhausting. I'm sure some of my listeners are listening and going, Wow, that's a lot of stuff, managing, balancing to complete schools, bringing them together, and then you've got students in the mix and you've got international students and faculty. It sounds like an awful lot of stuff that you're kind of balancing. I know you're not doing it alone. But how did you come to this work? Rachel Christensen 6:48 Well, I'm also be like my grandparents and wish that I would speak more slowly. So some of it could be a function of my Yeah, the answer is really easy. Maybe two parts. One is that I do consider it bridgework because you must. Yeah, I keep saying, you know, bridging worldviews and bridging disciplines. I think that that's, I've always found myself doing some kind of bridgework. Prior to this, I was doing first in Field Operations role, I was based in the Caribbean, specifically in some of the lingo, and then would liaise with office space in the US. And then I flipped and was based in an office in the US and would liaise with premier Latin American teams. So I think that that was bridgework. And I think if I went back any job I've had prior, and a lot of that has to do with how much my education formation happened here at the, you know, added that at an international border. So I think that the bridgework is one piece of just like we find ourselves, sometimes doing similar roles across organizations. And then the other piece is probably the Social Entrepreneurship piece, which I don't think maybe some The students that are in school now could have gotten a degree saying, I'm going to be a social entrepreneur. When I was in school, I didn't think that that was a path. So definitely admit that I tripped into Social Entrepreneurship, only really discovering it as a field after graduation. And so I came to it through working doing work that was business training and acceleration services for small businesses in the education space, and then over time, realized that there was a whole space and then maybe more became more interest over time of like-new models that could be social enterprise or could be more broadly in a Social Innovation space. So like most things, I think, just like who you are, the bridge piece, and then stumbling into things and then realizing that it's a good place to act out those commitments in the world. Jerrid Kalakay 8:51 Absolutely. And are you from originally from San Diego? Rachel Christensen 8:54 Actually, I was sort of I am from California, but I was raised the much of my elementary years in New Jersey, right, right on the line to New York. So I think a lot of a lot of those early years were actually east coast. Yeah. Jerrid Kalakay 9:08 Gotcha. Gotcha. I was just so that might be why you speak so quickly. Yeah, yeah. The North North East folks in the US. Yes. And the move quick didn't move quickly. I'm originally from Connecticut. So I so I know. The reason why I asked you that question is, is I was wondering how much of your work and kind of of your of yourself is influenced by being so close to an international border, you know, with Tijuana, being right across and all the issues that come along with that, especially, you know, especially in today's world where there's, there's a lot of issues going on around borders in the US and many other streets. Rachel Christensen 9:49 Very, very influenced. And part of that's because of who my teachers were. So I went to school at another university, but also here in San Diego. And you know, I Sort of outed myself actually at a talk I did. About a year ago, where I admitted to the fact that I met I miss lots of birthday parties, final exams, classes, etc. During my undergraduate, because I was spending all my time in Tijuana. And specifically spending all my time in the boardroom, wait to come back. And so when I started, when I started sharing that story, which is just more just youthful, boldness or something, I don't know, just thinking, thinking I was going to take control of my own education, were maybe two things. One is that I realized that I was receiving my education primarily, and I wouldn't even say just antiquated I was receiving my education in the crossing in the in-between and partially because of the actual wait time to get back to the US back when I was crossing. Some of that was the height of that was in 2008 2010, which actually was when most people from San Diego stop going to Tijuana. Because of various geopolitical things and things that had to do with some cartels and conflict, and so a lot of the stuff that I learned there was influenced by that time. And by the So anyway, that in that in-between and then learning how to kind of integrate ways of being from two sides was probably the most formative thing of my life. And I kind of got it to show the board and I know sort of way not trying to be poetic, but just trying to be honest, I'm playing the border sort of chose me it wasn't something that I chose as an area of academic study or a location for friendships, it just happened. So to make all that, more explicit for the pedagogy, I mean, that was how I was taught about a lot of things when I was studying Latin it, you know, I did a degree in Latin American Studies and political administration was studying Spanish and other things. So it was a natural place for me to study those things. But now when I teach design thinking or Social Innovation, I try to do it in by cultural and balance. Will and by national context. So we have students that will come up from the quanta. It's a pretty easy trolley ride or Uber ride or etc. And they'll come to our campus often and study the same with faculty. And then I'll take students to Tijuana. And we'll do things that try to equalize the power of facilitation and allow everybody to realize that there's regional issues in common and potential solutions in common. So it's sort of by like, framework and the water we think we swim in terms of our context, so very formative for me and how I now teach. Jerrid Kalakay 12:36 You know, I love that. And I'm really interested to hear a little bit about so how do you balance and how do you balance the cultures and, and the sensitivities that need to be balanced when you have students from Tijuana and students, you know, from San Diego and everything in between? I mean, how do you do that in the classroom or in the workshop? You mentioned trying to balance and being sensitive to all those things like when you're teaching design thinking, what are some things that you do to create that safe space for everyone to be themselves? Rachel Christensen 13:13 I'm guaranteeing you I'm doing it perfectly first. I think a second thing is design thinking. I was just actually working with some women peacemakers from this network that USD manages called women. Women waging peace, which I think is brilliant. And we were talking, you know, they use design thinking in their daily work. And we were talking about how human-centered design can be used to collectivized people, particularly in the empathy stage. And so even if you're not developing sort of solutions radiating together, which generally comes next, and just the collectivization of folks is a valuable first step. And so I think using that stage empathy is critical. And I think another thing that's important and something that sometimes in higher ed, we do well and sometimes we We do for the wrong reasons but we should continue to do is you know, acknowledging positionality is important. And I am, you know, as a white woman and lots of the students I bring maybe white but many of the students that I if I'm using the example of bringing students into quanta, they're often not they're often from all over the world. And I think most of them take for granted that talent is distributed equally and opportunity is not so I think some of it is the positionality some of its empathy and the collectivization. And I think some of it is just like very practical, how people sit, how people are engaged. So circle would be better than, you know, sitting one behind another. Having some convention, whether it's raising hands or something else where people can speak. And then I think language so if we're doing it into quanta, we privilege Spanish and then translate back to English. So I think some of its the language used and so I've been to quite a few design thinking workshops. one that comes to mind is actually run by MIT D lab in partnership with some universities in Columbia and a university in the US, called Colorado School of Mines. And they did the whole process with small scale miners, most of the women, most of them very much at the edge of poverty. And so seeing design thinking used in a room where there are people that traditionally don't have a lot of power. And then people like MIT D lab, you know, educators who have a lot of access and power, I think it can be done well, definitely in perfectly. But when you privilege, maybe the language that's more comfortable to people, make sure that everybody feels comfortable through the empathy process, maybe elongate that and don't rush it. Sometimes it can take a whole day. It's not like you just do one empathy activity, and you're done. And then the ongoing last piece, and then I'll get off the potential soapbox is, is like the ongoing relationship piece. And so being able to do this in the US, Mexico Borderlands is different because we can keep going back. We can Keep making come in many cases, not all cases can cross the US and have to acknowledge that they can always cost us. But, you know, it's just so much possible to have these sustained relationships when you're 15 minutes away. Jerrid Kalakay 16:12 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I and I think it's a relationship that causes meaningful changes. Yeah. You know, if it's not, it's not just one semester, and it's done a type of scenario. You know, and as and as academics, I think we, our predecessors, have sometimes done the one and done gone into some communities did their research and then left. And so it's really good to hear that you're very mindful of that, you know, building that relationship and realizing that anything good is going to come out of the relationship, not not the other way around. That's really, really exciting. Why do you do what you do? There's there's a million things you could probably do that would be would argue a lot easier. I've got a whole page of notes of things that you've already been talking about. I'm sure that I'm sure the University of San Diego doesn't millions of dollars a year to you. So why do you do what you do? Rachel Christensen 17:16 Yeah, I think that there's Rachel Christensen 17:19 there are those moments when you're doing. Again, it's mostly tripping into finding something that worked for my passions, my skill set, and my interests. And so I'm accidentally finding myself in spaces and then being able to have that moment of reflection, where you realize we're in this case, I realized that it feels good to be able to do great work at the like institutional level, or maybe structural change level and then do relationship work. To your point earlier, I haven't seen in my life, anybody changed their mind about anything that wasn't through meeting somebody that was from that group that they formerly didn't under, etc, etc. I mean, my main theory of change, I guess in the world is that you meet somebody and you might change your mind. And so being able to do both the sort of like institutional stuff that like checks my strategy my like, the boxes I have for strategy. And they like academic learning, and then the relational pieces that I get to do at the student level at the institutional level between universities, and all of that in between work, and I guess there are checks enough of the boxes for me that I can't really imagine I can imagine doing different work in terms of content. I can't imagine doing much else that wasn't sort of bringing people institutions together. I think I would it wouldn't check enough in my boxes and I think that would be wandering looking to get back to it. Yeah, Jerrid Kalakay 18:46 yeah, totally, totally understand that. So here's, here's my million dollar question. Because you're, you're in academia, but you're not a traditional role, and I'm not so So has your Have you figured out how to explain what you do to your family? Rachel Christensen 19:06 I'm lucky in that my dad before social entrepreneur was a thing was a social entrepreneur, and my mom now here's a board that is looking at sustainable models for housing for adults with autism. And so I would call her a social entrepreneur as well. And my sister runs a Social Innovation incubator in Boulder, Colorado. So go figure that and even though I don't think any of us would have called us, ourselves, social innovators growing up at all, we would have used different words. I think we've all found ourselves in this space. So I'm lucky in that way. Your questions valid though? can I explain it to my aunt and uncle having a harder time and so one, one thing that's helping is there is shifting language. And there's more thought leadership that's kind of like making its way out to people like my aunt and uncle, that they are reading about these conversations around like nuclear kinds of business and like might have heard of a benefit corporation, and understands that, like, a lot of charity is toxic, and we need to like rethink how we try to help people. So I think that the conversations about how we do the work and are not that hard to have. Sometimes people are surprised that a university might pay somebody to do this work because it seems it seems too abstract. But that is true a lot about people that look at the academy and don't understand what the practical benefit is. But I have less of that problem. Because I can tell me I can tell stories of students and whether or not their venture was, successful. That's not really the point. The point is I did they learn these skills that are going to help them be an entrepreneur, a change maker, wherever. And I can tell those stories, and then they can nod and understand, right? Jerrid Kalakay 20:52 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Why? And I asked that question because it was years before I finally found the language explain what I'm Doing an academic, it's my family. Because I was I was not the model student, as our as my listeners will know, in my younger years, but so obviously you're very, very talented in this kind of work and so forth. Many of our listeners may be teaching a class on design thinking or human-centered design or, or social entrepreneurship of some level of social innovation. But a vast majority of the folks that are probably out there in the US and around the world that are engaged in the academy may have interest in this, but don't know how to get started. And so obviously, what you've done and the center and the two schools coming together, that didn't happen overnight, clearly, what would you suggest to the faculty, and not by hitting by you necessarily? Yeah, but you certainly run with it, along with the rest of the folks that work in it, but what would you What advice would you give to a faculty member that wants to learn more wants to do More with their class with a class. How do they get involved in? I mean, they have to take on the world all at once? Or what would they do? What would you suggested, you Rachel Christensen 22:09 know, and actually, a colleague and I, both of us are administrators. So we're not faculty. But you know, both have advanced degrees in this space. And we're actually teaching a workshop on this. And we're hoping, in about a month and we're hoping to make that actual argument, that same argument to faculty that you don't have to bite off the whole bite to get started. There are so many ways and so some of the ways that we offer are you can just ask questions. So we're trying to engage actually around Sustainable Development Goals, one of the ways is to you know, use, action-based learning, experiential learning, and maybe Social Entrepreneurship curriculum and design thinking, but it's all around the Sustainable Development Goals. And students are demanding at least our university, you know, survey that they want to have even in their like, intro to marketing class. You know, what Is this mean, for gender equity? You know you can. And some of it's just how you moderate your questions to be able to, like, engage people around some social justice issues potentially. So it could be questioned. There are so many resources online. And I don't know if there's a possibility to put links here. But I'll mention a couple. They're really easy to Google, really easy to Google, around the SD GS gap frame is one that you can go and see how different countries and regions are doing around different Sustainable Development Goals. And so you can interact with charts and that's a great way to start conversation in a class and could allow you know, somebody who's teaching something around anything for in the math department, for example, where you're having to figure out how to display information that would be a way to engage with this content, but being able to continue to teach your module but then there are also so many resources, I think, as you know, and you would have more to share to around sign thinking, certainly ideas around Social Entrepreneurship. Certainly, acumen comes to Mine, among others. And, you know the power of YouTube to I mean, something general as storytelling might lead to many results on YouTube. But I, when I'm preparing for a workshop, I often will try to find content from different areas coming from different voices. So I often will just kind of look to see what video content out there some of its very good, but almost all this stuff is open source. And then your last last thing I'll say is if somebody is wanting to get started, you can always start at home so that this like, you know, very famous book these days, designing your life is something that any faculty member could start reading and applying to their life and we've had quite a lot of faculty do that at USD. And then you start having that being approach, you know, experiment, to get more information to bias towards action, and making sure that you start with your own why and understanding what the actual problem is the defining stage, all those things then become like an approach that you would bring to everything. So those are like some ways that wouldn't require a lot of time or like a year's lead time to just get started and trying. And some things like in this in this design thinking space, you maybe have to let go of some of the control, some things will fall on their face and some things will stick. And that's how you learn with your students and they'll teach you to Jerrid Kalakay 25:26 absolutely, that's fantastic it's a fantastic answer. Thank you. Yeah. So what keeps you going? Where do you go to recharge? Are there are there conferences? Are there certain types of books you like to read that keep you motivated? Because I'm sure that there's obviously tough days, like in any, any job or any profession, there are good days and there are bad days. And so what do you have when you have a tough go of it? What do you turn to? Rachel Christensen 25:54 Yes, it's a great question. I mean, I think like many folks, you know, friends and family and I think the peace officers there is certainly being you know just being seen by people where you don't have to you know, you can kind of take the mask off that we sometimes put on is a thing but I think also just conversation partners I have so many friends who are lawyers or are environmental activists or you know work in business and don't have an explicit some of the social change peace but they are so strange person and just having conversations around work 21st century work? What really to answer your question what really helps me recharge sometimes is being I guess I belong in the academy maybe being philosophical about these things instead of focusing hyper-focusing on the individual challenges or sometimes politics helps me to zoom out maybe it would be part of the answer. And zooming out also can happen to your you know, your suggestion, either in conferences or can meetings, I'm lucky that I get to chat with our partner University from all over the world all the time, on Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, text, message, whatever. And so I feel like I'm often in good company because I'm often working with my counterpart and other universities and that always helps us zoom out to realize a lot of these things are trends not work at all. And we're in it together. And then I think that the big thing for me is this like I'm very I benefit a lot from a lot of folks in San Diego who tried to make my neighborhood more walkable so walking my neighborhood, meeting people consuming and small businesses. A lot of them found it you know, San Diego has received traditionally lots of refugees and asylum seekers. So there's many businesses, micro-businesses, many of them that sell great food and coffee, very close to my house, and to go and see sort of like the power of community and be able to just like sit and enjoy food or coffee across generations and any other boundary who might have always recharges me and connects me back because like the whole so the real answer is probably walking around my neighborhood with nobody agenda and trying to turn off the ideas. Jerrid Kalakay 28:03 Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That's, that's awesome. Yeah, I had a colleague A number of years ago who, who got a dog just so that they would be forced to walk and and and be outdoors. Do you know? So what would you hope three years from now? What would you hope the country of the United States you'd be dealing with? What do you hope, the design thinking and that entire movement and social entrepreneur movement in general, but what do you hope and things would look like? Rachel Christensen 28:36 Well, I certainly hope that on the US level that we could magically shift to be able to practice in the model or civil dialogue. I think that without having to have agenda for changing anybody's mind if we could spend more time in conversation with people, that would be both an important step on That design process to thinking about our democracy, but also would be something that would shift a lot of the heart the harmful conversations I think we have. So that would be my hope for my country. And for in terms of this space, and so some furniture been signed thinking, the way I see it going, which I think is a promising trend. I just worried the same way I worry about greenwashing or anytime there seems to be more substance or more hype in the corporate social responsibility, etc, than the actual substance. I hope we put our money where our mouth is in the trend I see happening, which is more of the conversation happening around equity and community. So there's a lot of design thinking for firms that are trying to send her equity in the conversation. So design thinking as a way to sort of shift power dynamics is a powerful possibility. Again, when centered this the way that we tried to send her humans in the process, centering equity, and then having a lot of a lot more case studies around community entrepreneurs. worship and team-based entrepreneurship rather than by an individual or by an outsider. Since it was made from hidden, formerly hidden assets within a group, I think that's where we're going. I think we're moving away from Hero ownership and towards featuring and supporting teams, and with complementary skills and different backgrounds. So I think it's encouraging. And I would hope that we do that in a way that would change some structural Rachel Christensen 30:30 barriers. Jerrid Kalakay 30:32 Awesome. Awesome. Well, Rachel, she's been absolutely wonderful. Is there anything else? Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners before we end? Rachel Christensen 30:43 I guess I would Rachel Christensen 30:46 like to share my experiences that I think this is obvious to most of us that are in the education space, but students learn a lot more from who you are, then what you say. And I think that that's not to put extra pressure on us because We're not supposed to be perfect. But just to to remember that especially in this space, many of us, maybe would recognize ourselves as social innovators, maybe would embrace the term change maker. But the way that we the way that we live in the way that we treat people is probably the best way to teach our students how to be different kinds of leaders and people in the world. So keep doing it. Jerrid Kalakay 31:23 Till next time, be nice and change some stuff.  

On today's episode, we are joined by authors Narayan Sundararajan and Jacen Green to discuss their newly published book "The Rule of One: The Power of Intrapreneurship". We discuss the journey of Grameen-Intel Social Business a partnership between Grameen and Intel Corporation from the beginning to now 9-years later.  We also discuss the desire of the authors to share the successes and failures of their social business to inspire other corporations and individuals to pursue untraditional partnerships to improve the world.  

In today's episode, host Jerrid Kalakay takes us on a journey into the concept of balance and how it applies to his life. Is balance possible? We have all heard the phrase "work/life balance," and is it possible what other types of balance do we truly need for the long-term. Jerrid proposes thinking about balance as different seasons and what is necessary for our lives for each season.   Transcript   Jerrid Kalakay 0:09 Welcome to the Teaching Change podcast, where we explore issues social entrepreneurship, education, and innovation. I'm your host, Jerrid Kalakay. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about finding balance. What does that mean? How does someone go about finding balance? And is it even possible? So on a previous episode, we talked about basically recharging your batteries, and understanding the need to restore oneself to stay in the game for the long haul. And the finding balance everyone talks about work-life balance. Jerrid Kalakay 0:46 Is that a real existence? Is that even possible? You know, the thing that's difficult about finding balance is what are you finding balance with? So a lot of times people talk about their personal life Jerrid Kalakay 0:59 and the Jerrid Kalakay 1:00 Their work-life, you know, and then balancing the two or balancing one's family life with their friends' life, or balancing your work life with your family, friends, personal growth, all those kinds of things. Jerrid Kalakay 1:18 I think it's a work in progress for pretty much everyone I don't know if anyone has would say, honestly, they found complete balance because it's, it's an ever-moving target, right? Jerrid Kalakay 1:31 You feel like you're doing pretty well. And then you get thrown a curveball. Jerrid Kalakay 1:37 You feel like you're on top of the world, and then all of a sudden you backslide, or tumble down the front of the hill, all the way down to the bottom. And so it's kind of a constant struggle, a continuous battle to try to figure out where is your balance and where can it be I know for me in my life as a professor as a social entrepreneur. Jerrid Kalakay 2:00 As a father, as a husband, as a son balance is ever elusive, many times, I'm trying to continually figure out what's the right amount of work to put in here, whether it be in my personal life or whether it be in my work life, whether it be my, my academic life, so forth and so on. And I think that it's probably a healthy conversation to have with yourself, not only with yourself but also with your family, with your friends, if you have a partner, so forth to really try to figure out what, what right now and this exact stage of my life, what does balance look like? What could balance look like? Jerrid Kalakay 2:41 And I don't know if it's, I don't think it's going to be a perfectly balanced thing. Like I'm looking, I'm thinking about a seesaw, you know, and I'm, I'm looking for, you know, what point is a seesaw utterly horizontal with the ground. Very rarely have I ever in my life and all the playgrounds that I've taken my kids Jerrid Kalakay 3:00 too, and probably all the playgrounds I've ever gone to as a child myself, have I ever seen a seesaw exactly horizontal with the ground? Jerrid Kalakay 3:10 And so using that as a metaphor for life, is it possible to have a perfectly balanced life to have your work? Have your academics or your extracurricular activities, your clubs, your organizations, the things you do on the weekends, your family? All the requirements that go along with with having a family and so forth is is it ever going to be a possibility that it's going to be perfectly balanced? Jerrid Kalakay 3:39 I don't think so. I think the answer to that question is no. And the reason why I say that is because I believe at certain times, it naturally should not be in balance ultimately, right. You've got a deadline and work, and so that's probably going to, you know, coming up that's going to be it's going to take a little bit more energy from you. Jerrid Kalakay 3:57 One of your children gets sick if you are fortunate. Jerrid Kalakay 4:00 have to have kids, or we know one of your dogs or animals get sick or your partner gets sick, or you get sick, then you know, obviously that's going to take energy away from your work. Jerrid Kalakay 4:12 If you're pursuing if you're on a softball league or you're in a bowling league, or you know anything like that, if something goes wrong with that, and you're having a tough season or tough go of it, that might take more energy to try to try to remedy that situation try to get better at whatever it is you're trying to do. Right. And so I think it's natural to kind of oscillate between projects and activities and things that you're doing. And not necessarily be super caught up with everything has to be 5050, you know, exactly even across the board or 3333 33 and don't forget about the third and each one of those. Jerrid Kalakay 4:50 That's probably not a healthy way to do things. I think a much more robust is to realize that with each season, different things are going to be taking our energy and Jerrid Kalakay 5:00 Our focus and so what we need to do, and what I need to do more telling myself than I am, my listeners are, is to realize that every season requires different things from us and that we need to be able to focus on those things and not feel guilty about Jerrid Kalakay 5:20 that, and then paying more attention to one thing over another, Jerrid Kalakay 5:25 You know, realizing that the season will pass and that there'll be a new season and the new season will require something different from us. I think that's what right balances. I think, in the end. That's what we really matter. You know, what do we spend our time doing, and how we do it on a day to day basis is essential. But I think in the long run, it's much more critical that we're in balance. Jerrid Kalakay 5:50 On the long haul, you know, the long term for short term, so many things in this world, come down to the long time versus short time, you know, what can we get done now in the short term Jerrid Kalakay 6:00 You know, whatever that looks like, that's a day, a week, 30 days, 90 days a quarter, or whatever it might be, versus the long term, you know, what, what will matter a year from now, what will matter two years from now or four years from now? Jerrid Kalakay 6:15 The short term versus long term folds into the seasons, and that concept I was talking about earlier with trying to figure out what the season of now is, and how you can find balance overall in those seasons. You know, with this being said, you know, I'm not advocating that anyone forget that they have a family for six months to get a project done at work. That's not what I'm saying. That probably wouldn't Bode very well for you, or your family, for that matter. Likewise, I'm not saying that suggesting that you forget about the fact that you have to go to work from you know, nine to five or whatever you whatever your work looks like because you know, something's going on in your personal life. Jerrid Kalakay 6:58 But rather, maybe this Jerrid Kalakay 7:00 It's a day or two that you need to spend in the office only and not worrying about other things. And perhaps or maybe the exact opposite is a day or two or so that you need to spend away from the office and not worrying about anything but your personal life or your family life. And being honest with yourself, and being honest with those around you, both your employer or the folks you work with, and also your family about kind of where you are, I think is right. And I think that's a healthy scenario. I think a lot of times people try to deal mainly, men that I know, myself included, try to deal with everything on their own. I know I get caught in that often. Where I'm trying to deal with things entirely by myself, you know, if I, if I'm not able to do this and work, then people will think less of me they will need they won't think I'm as productive. They won't think I'm as good as I would like them to, you know if I can't deal with something in my personal life and my family life. You know, Jerrid Kalakay 8:00 Well, what would that mean? So I mean, I'm not a good husband, I'm not a good father, I'm not a good son, so forth these all these kind of negative concepts, negative thoughts, that kind of go could go and permeate our minds Jerrid Kalakay 8:16 Exists when we're trying to find a balance that may not be exactly possible. But when we're open and we're honest with the people that are in our lives, whether they be employees, employers, people we work with in general, our families, our friends, about where we are and what season we believe we are in and kind of what's on our plate. I think that we will more easily find balance in our own lives and in doing so will be much more successful on all fronts. And so, I'm inquisitive I'm interested in finding out from you all as, as my listeners as our listeners. Jerrid Kalakay 9:00 What do you see balance? As? Do you believe finding balance is possible? What is finding balance mean to you? You know, one of the things that I grew up on as a professional in higher education was taught was in graduate school and Jerrid Kalakay 9:20 in graduate school at Florida State University in their higher ed program shut out to FSU Jerrid Kalakay 9:26 Not doing so well in football, but that's okay. They're still doing well in the classroom. So good, good, good going. But in Tallahassee, Florida, Florida State, I will I went there for my Master's in science in higher education. And one of the very first things one of my professors talked about was finding work-life balance, and how can we do that as professionals, and I remember thinking as a 20, something-year-old and a professional preparation program to Jerrid Kalakay 10:00 To work as a professional at an at a, you know, university or college, and we're thinking, wow, you know, the, that's probably not that big of a deal. Like I don't need to worry about finding balance because I'm just going to go out and I'm going to do the best job I could do. And I want to make a name for myself this in this field of higher education. Jerrid Kalakay 10:20 And I dismissed it all. And I think a lot of my classmates did as well. I don't believe that any of us focus the time and energy that we needed to on having a conversation with ourselves about what that could look like. And I think partly because it's all in the abstract. Jerrid Kalakay 10:37 You know, when you start to think about what your life is going to be after x or after y, Jerrid Kalakay 10:45 whatever those x's and y's are, whether they're the graduate program, law school, medical school, college in general, after you get married, you buy your house, you you know, whatever, whatever those X & Y's are you, you start to think Jerrid Kalakay 11:00 Somewhat intellectually about what that's going to be like, but you don't know what it is. It's all in the abstract. Right? You never you don't know what it's like being a parent until you become a parent if you happen to be fortunate enough to do that, you don't know it's like to get married until you get married. Right if you're lucky enough to do that, you don't know what it's like to buy a car house, you know, so forth like you, you know what it is intellectually, but fully, you don't have any idea. So it's the same. It was the same thing for me when I heard about the work-life balance in graduate school. And it wasn't until many years into my professional life, Jerrid Kalakay 11:38 that I start to realize that I needed to take some time for myself and my relationship. Jerrid Kalakay 11:46 And for my partner and for, for our life together and so forth. And it was a long, hard road Jerrid Kalakay 11:55 and lesson for me to learn because what I was basically Jerrid Kalakay 12:00 Doing is I was trying to make the most significant impact in my professional life as possible. And so, you know, eight 910 15 hours a day, you know, working during the day and then going to events in the afternoon in the afternoon or evening for work Jerrid Kalakay 12:22 was perfectly Jerrid Kalakay 12:25 Perfectly acceptable, not only accept the Buddha is encouraged. So I would work, you know, my nine to five, and then Jerrid Kalakay 12:33 I worked in campus activities, so I put up to put on events and concerts and different things, which is a lot of fun. But it also still works. And so I would get home at you know, midnight, or one o'clock in the morning sometimes. And I did this pretty extensively for the Liesl first, on a three-four. If you asked my wife probably ten years of my professional life Jerrid Kalakay 13:00 I what I did in that is yes, I've made somewhat a name for myself at some level. Jerrid Kalakay 13:07 But in doing that, I also neglected a lot of things I neglected myself my well being, and I neglected my relationship, I neglected my life outside of my work completely. Jerrid Kalakay 13:25 And in the long run, that will never work. In the short term, it might have worked well in a particular focused area, but it won't work in the long run. And I and I still have a lot of colleagues Jerrid Kalakay 13:38 Who I knew from that time, that that seem to be still doing that same thing or the seem to be still trapped in that same rat race. So I encourage you to think about, you know, what, what does balance look like for your life? What season Are you in? have that balance, you know, where do you think you need more excellent stability? Where do you think you Jerrid Kalakay 14:00 Let's balance. Do you feel like you're in pursuit of that, that balance for yourself? And I would, and I would argue that and ask you is if you don't feel balanced, do you feel rewarded by that imbalance or you burdened by that imbalance? Jerrid Kalakay 14:24 And that's pretty it's a pretty profound concept. So do you feel rewarded by that unbalanced? So if you are, Jerrid Kalakay 14:31 whether it be in work or your personal life, are you getting the rewards wherever they may be for that imbalance or are you being penalized or you being Jerrid Kalakay 14:43 Martyred or hurt by that imbalance? And realize that whether you're being rewarded or whether that imbalance is punishing you that the pendulum Chloe swing the other way, Jerrid Kalakay 14:57 that your reward today could be a punishment tomorrow. Jerrid Kalakay 15:00 vice versa. Jerrid Kalakay 15:02 And the pendulum swings. Like I said both ways, the door swings both ways the pendulum swings both ways, whatever metaphor you want to use. So what we're rewarded for today might be what we're punished for tomorrow. Jerrid Kalakay 15:16 And that's something that we all have to deal with, and we have to think about it. And so I would, I would encourage you to think about where's your balance? And where can your balance take you? And what does that look like? For social entrepreneurs for social innovators, balance is a really, really, really important concept. Because of balancing the the triple bottom line that people profit planets, they're they're balancing the social value creation, the doing well in the world, with the profit and the profit-taking models, the revenue, and so there's a lot of balance to be found in that there's a balance of the storytelling. How much Jerrid Kalakay 16:00 How much of the story do you tell versus how much of the money do you try to make? You know, and realizing that you as one individual, as a social entrepreneur, social innovator can't do everything all at once? Right? You've got to build a team. Again, that is balanced. And so Jerrid Kalakay 16:18 What does that look like in each one of your lives? I encourage you to spend some time this next week, thinking about that, analyzing that figuring that out. And then I will we will talk next time. Jerrid Kalakay 16:34 Thank you for helping me kind of figure out some of my balance. This is an I have not done a single show. Just by myself in a while, I've had only guests on, and this week, I thought that we would like that I would analyze balance a little bit with you all, just as Jerrid Kalakay not as Jerrid Kalakay interviewing someone so I appreciate it. Hopefully, you enjoyed this episode. Jerrid Kalakay 17:00 Your listenership, you probably noticed that we'd redone our website we've redone Teaching Change podcast calm. We've also rebranded some of our stuff for our third season, which debuted last week. Jerrid Kalakay 17:15 Appreciate and honor your journey with us, and if you dig our podcasts you dig the show, please leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or the highest compliment would be to share us with one of your friends. Till next time, be nice and change some stuff  

On today's episode, we learn about an innovative partnership between the U.S. Department of State's Office of Global Women's Issues, Rollins College, and Tupperware Brands called The Global Links program. Recorded at the Ashoka U Exchange 2019 in San Diego, California.  Our guests include Dr. Mary Conway Dato-on, Crummer Associate Professor of International Business and Social Entrepreneurship; Yasmin Mesbah, Program Coordinator; and Dr. Denise Delboni, Professor of Labor Law, Compliance, and Labor and Employment Relations at Fundacao Getulio Vargas and Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing in Brazil.   Links Webpage: https://www.rollins.edu/business/news/global-links.html Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Tupperware.Brands.Global.Links/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/global.links.us/ Blog: https://globallinksus.wordpress.com/author/globallinksprogram/ Contact Info: [email protected]    Transcript Jerrid Kalakay 0:09 Welcome to the Teaching Change podcast, where we explore issues of Social Entrepreneurship, Education, and Innovation. I'm your host, Jerrid Kalakay. So welcome. We're so excited to have you on Teaching Change and to talk about some really exciting things with you. We are currently recording at the Ashoka Exchange 2019 in San Diego, California. So, unfortunately, it's been raining here, but nonetheless, that we won't let that dampen our spirits. So we have some really exciting guests today. And I'll let them introduce themselves and talk a little bit about their work. And then we'll kind of go from there. Mary Conway Dato-on 0:45 I am Mary Conway that goes on. I am a faculty member at the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College. And there I am the Cornell scholar for social entrepreneurship and international business. But all the roles that I do today, one of the most exciting ones, and the one I hope we can talk about with you today. Jerrid is about the global links program. And so I am the faculty mentor and sort of all-around girl Friday of different things related to global links. Jerrid Kalakay 1:18 Fantastic. Yasmin Mesbah 1:20 So I am Yasmin Mesbah And I am the Global Links Program Manager. So I kind of just manages everything that has to do with all the links. And I'm also right now an adjunct professor for the Social Entrepreneurship department at Rollins College. So it's a lot of fun just working with all of this kind of opportunities to inspire change-making in different fields. Jerrid Kalakay 1:43 Awesome, Yasmin, can you explain a little bit about what global links program is? Yasmin Mesbah 1:49 Sure. So global links, it's a public-private partnership between Tupperware brands, Rollins College and the US State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues. And it was founded in 2011, with the purpose of empowering female entrepreneurs and developing countries. So the way the program is structured is over, it takes place over three phases. So we start by bringing over a female professor to be our global scholar from a developing country. And she spent about, she spends a semester at Rollins college followed by a month or two months externship at to her brands. And during that time, she kind of learns different concepts of social entrepreneurship and how she can implement those learnings have changed making theory and practice back in her home country once she returns. Fantastic. Yeah. So once you're in terms of success, exactly what she does, so she partners with NGOs and universities. And the structure of phase two is then that she partners one student with one female entrepreneur, so the student works with the female entrepreneur for about four, six months to just address different business issues that the entrepreneur faces in three different areas. So it's business development, female empowerment, and then social and environmental issues that she's having in her business. So the students do that for about four to six months. And at the end of that, we do a three 360 degrees evaluation of the students. And based on that we select five students who we designate as global links change-makers, who then return to Rollins college for a two-week immersion program. Jerrid Kalakay 3:32 Wow, wow. And how long has the Global Links program been in existence? Yasmin Mesbah 3:36 So it was founded in 2011. And so far, we have had a completed three cycles, our first scholar was from Iraq. And then we had two scholars from India. And we just welcomed our fourth scholar from Brazil. And yeah, so we just started our fourth cycle in January of this year. Jerrid Kalakay 3:57 Fantastic and fantastic. And also with us, current global links, scholar. Denise Delboni 4:02 Yes, I'm Denise Delboni professor in Brazil, I teach labor law and labor relations there. But here I am a global link. scholar and I have been learning so much about Social Entrepreneurship in Social Innovation, it would be a great idea to we can spread these ideas in Brazil to Absolutely, absolutely. And what brought you to the program? I mean, how did you hear about the global links program? And, and how'd you get involved? Because you're the first global link scholar from Brazil? Yeah. So how did you didn't know, I didn't know about the program. But when I decided to apply, I could see that it was so important not only to empower female entrepreneurs, but also to bring the students together with us, and especially maybe inspire them to take part of problems related to the community in Brazil. So it's a different kind of program. Definitely, it's different from whatever program you can imagine. So that's why I think it's so inspiring and so enthusiastic about there is absolute, Jerrid Kalakay 5:05 and how long have you been in the States? We Denise Delboni 5:08 are one month, okay, for one month, and enough time, we enough time to learn so much about the things, what we are going to expect with this program here? And what have you have been doing here related to these programs, and especially the results that they had a ninja with the last scholar, gobbling scholar? Jerrid Kalakay 5:30 So how have you seen? I'm sure your mind must be going a million miles an hour? Being in a brand new environment, a different country? How do you see social entrepreneurship with your labor relations lens and labor law? What implications Do you think social entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurship has for your discipline? Denise Delboni 5:55 I would say that in Brazil, it's very difficult. It's a huge country, of course, you have lots of things, diversity is related to the kind of other business around, of course, for any serious reasons. But if you think about the women in Brazil, and especially the moment that they decide to hire someone to work with them, it's very complicated. And I think that maybe the students can bring some ideas to this kind of possibilities in Brazil, thinking about different kinds of contracts, labor contracts, for instance, or maybe trying to help the entrepreneurs to run their businesses. So I think we have lots of opportunities related to that. And that thing, how to think about the businesses growing in Brazil, especially the small ones, and especially with this problem that we have related to loss, we have a very restricted, we have very difficult, that will have a very tough loss. We have very tough laws in Brazil. And that's why sometimes the people think twice before running a business there Jerrid Kalakay 7:00 Laws kind of prevents people from jumping into entrepreneurship appropriately, so difficult. Denise Delboni 7:05 And even this way we have today we have maybe 52% of the entrepreneurs there for me, male entrepreneurs. So even this way we can help them It can empower this woman to run their businesses. And of course, thinking about these students that set the point to help them or to not to coach them and orient them how to do the best way. Absolutely. Jerrid Kalakay 7:29 Absolutely. And Mary from you know, working in Crummer and and being the host institution, and I understand that you serve as kind of a quasi host, personally, to the to the scholars that come over, what kind of things have you kind of experienced or did you not expect when you first signed on to the program? Mary Conway Dato-on 7:50 That's a great question. And I'll tell you one of the things that one of my mentors who is now retired from Crummer, Susan Bach, talk to us talk to me about when I first started this project, right, so our first caller was from Iraq. And then she met, Susan met the second scholar from India from east of energy. She said, you know, Mary, what you're really doing here, and I said, know what's happening. She said, you're collecting sisters, you're developing a network of, of sisters of deep friendships and deep connections that are going to permeate not only your life and her life but the lives of your students and the lives of her family. And so, you know, as we talked about change-making, right, we should always sort of focus first, I think on us, right? What am I doing? What am I looking to change in my life? What am I looking to understand more about the world? And, for me, this program has first introduced me to three countries that I really don't know a lot about, even though I consider myself pretty International. So learning and working with a woman from Iraq, and it in a post-conflict situation and seeing the strength of her work and the long term resilience, right? We talked a lot of resilience and Social Entrepreneurship, that she has to not only implement small curricular changes, but she took back an entire program around career development and career coaching. Because what the situation was in Iraq is you have very intelligent women who are coming out of the universities, but they didn't know how to position themselves for that next step in their life. And so the beauty of this program, just like we teach, right, in international marketing is what do you adapt? And what do you standardize, and so for each of these three countries, we've had to make some slight changes to that? So I've seen what I teach in the classroom also manifest itself, and the energy that the professors bring, like Denise and Xiaomi, certain Roomba, and Mel, and then what their students bring is so inspiring and energizing, that it makes me want to do do this all again, it makes me want to do it five times more, find more sponsors, find more scholars, because that leads to more students and the women entrepreneurs that have been so positively affected and are now like sustainable in their business. So that was a really long answer. But it just shows that every time I get talking about this, it's really bringing to life, what we do. And we've also published quite a bit, you know, as a professor, we always have to think about how do we take what we're doing, whether it's pedagogy, right, the pedagogy of teaching, and the pedagogy of creating a program like this. And then also, how you take cross-cultural issues and look at those from someone who's come from another country. Absolutely. It's been cool. And I think the last thing is, we've now had six, I'm looking at Yes, me because he asked me was before she was a program manager, she was a graduate assistant with us. And we had dinner not too long ago with four of the graduate assistants who are still in this area. And so it has really catapulted their careers, as well as the careers for the Changemaker students who are coming from Iraq and India. So it's, it's been fun. Jerrid Kalakay 11:29 Yeah, that's, that's amazing. I would imagine that most of that you could have never imagined. Mary Conway Dato-on 11:35 No, you know what's so crazy. And this is really great, like, opportunity knocks in lots of different phases in ways. So, literally, I just got this call from the dean, and he's like, I'm gonna send you an email, I don't really understand what it means. But he's like the person who's always crazy enough to try something that's not fully baked. So give it a chance. And I got this email from Tupperware brands. And it was, we have this idea to start a program. We don't know what it's going to look like. We don't. But we want to train the trainers, we want to train the professors who turn to train the students who train the great so we can have this ripple effect. We talked about going out there. And we didn't know what we are doing. And God loves the scholars think. I hope Denise will find a little more structure now that we're in our fourth round of scholar, I've literally called her on the phone and I said, Hi, this is Mary, you applied to this program. You might you know, you know, you don't know me, but she's like, Yeah, can you call me back tomorrow? Because it was this crazy call from America coming? live with us for nine months. And then I called her back the next day. She's like, okay, so you really this is real, right? This is really good. So from that, she each color teaches us so much about how to adjust the program, we started out as me were just thinking about the five C's, right? So the program has a structure around coaching, curriculum, community, culture, and career. And then the focus then depends on what works for the scholar what their country needs, and what their students need. And so that's what we started with a phone call and five C's and fate, like, just jump in, just get dirty and make it happen. Jerrid Kalakay 13:26 Yeah, it's pretty funny. Well, that's awesome. That's awesome. And he has been now as the program kind of coordinator, is that your title program? Turner? Yeah, Program Manager. I'm sure. I'm sure that there's a lot more intentionality and a lot more structure in it now then, you know, kind of what Mary was talking about, where it was literally a phone call and said, Hey, call me back tomorrow, because I think you're pretending it and when you call back tomorrow was like, Okay, this is might be real, I'm sure. It's a lot more, a lot more structure. Now. With that being said, You're still probably inventing a lot. And you know, whenever you move into a new country, it is all new stuff. And with every scholar is a completely new set of challenges and so forth. What have been some of the most rewarding experiences that you've had? Because I'm sure there's a lot of legwork that you have to put in it leading up to. And there's also a lot of stakeholders, right? There are a private corporation Tupperware brands, and then there's an educational institution Rollins, and then there's the scholars and their home country and the US State Department. And I mean, that's a lot of stuff going on. So So how does it all come together? Yasmin Mesbah 14:40 I mean, for me, personally, it's very rewarding, that I am able to combine this idea of social excellence with professional achievement. So I feel like it's very fitting to talk about this, now that we're here at a showcase. This is kind of a theme that they bring up over and over. And this is exactly what I'm able to do. Right. So I was able to apply my MBA education into something that needs as you said, there's a lot of partners, there's a lot of stakeholders, there's a lot of things that you kind of have to go with the flow and figure that as you're going. So they needed someone who was able to kind of has this critical thinking analytical skills, open mind adaptability. So I was able to apply all of those things that I've learned over time, but in a way that was not just focused on how do I make more money out of this, but how do I give back. So for me, it's also very rewarding for me to be able to then help these students who we mentor who we work with, to achieve the same thing. So help them figure out the skills that they would need in order to be giving back to their communities. But at the same time developing these soft skills, these leadership skills, this leadership potential for them to then go on and continue to be change-makers in their communities. But then it even if this is not exactly the field that they want to pursue, they can pursue other avenues where they would achieve things that they never thought would be accessible to them. We've had students work with us who come from lower to a middle socio-economic class who don't have access to a lot of resources. And by the time that they were done with the program, they got positions at companies like PwC, and Deloitte, which is just amazing for us to see. So for me to just see the impact that these students go through to see just even in the two weeks that they come for their immersion to see the transformation that they go through and becoming more confident becoming more able to speak up in front of an audience full of a room full of people they have never met with an idea they just came up with and to just do that with complete comfort, when they wouldn't even be able to do that at a table of just five or six of their peers at the beginning. It's incredible, it makes it all worth it. Jerrid Kalakay 17:02 That's, that's remarkable. I mean, most educators will spend their entire life looking for an experience like that, because in education, most of the time, we don't get to see the fruits of our labor. You know, we are planting seeds. And then our students might not grow that semester, or may not grow in the next two years or three years. And to be able and so oftentimes, us as faculty, or as higher education professionals in general, are educators in general, we don't get to see that results as quickly. So I can only imagine how powerful it must be to have this intensive experience. And the students were only here for two weeks. And to see that growth. So many, so many educators never get to see that. And so that's really a true gift. Mary Conway Dato-on 17:55 You know, if I can say also Jerrid the other thing that I love about this program, I see it from the perspective of seeing yes means growth, and the other graduate assistants. When we put a problem, we practice what we are teaching in terms of social change, right? We put a problem on the table, and we say, all right, we have to we have 500 Indian students, and we have to get down to 30. Wow, I put that on the table. What is that going to look like? What's your idea of the scholar? What's your idea to a graduate assistant? Okay, and we've got varying levels of English and we don't want to discriminate or to eliminate the better word, eliminate someone, because their English is not yet confident, or as he has been said because they can't verbalize right. And so yes, mean. And through this brainstorming process, right, we developed a whole way to get students to demonstrate empathy, to demonstrate leadership, and, and speaking and evaluate each other. And so that's part of what you were talking about the systemization of the program, still flexible. But we literally just put in front of them a picture and said, What, and it was a picture of a real situation in India. And we said, talk about amongst your team five, what is the social issue? See here? What is the environmental issue you see here, and getting them to talk about that from their different perspectives, and then take them to the next level of all right, each of you take one-minute silent reflection, write down an idea? And then right back to the table, share your idea, right? super basic things but suffer an Indian student had never been asked to do that before, right? They're the very role in learning. And now as a team come together, and a consensus of have an idea building on the five ideas, or the six ideas that you just shared, and do it in in a way that demonstrates listening, and empathy and and then we empowered the change-makers from the year before to help us evaluate the situation, which again, as foreigners, right, neither Yes, me nor I are Indian. Those students provide for us the context of No, this is appropriate in our culture. This is not this is why that happened. And so they help us to evaluate, it was really empowering to see the development of that evaluation tool to go to India and watch that too. And then to your point, come back and say, okay, what's working? Now, as we look going to Brazil, to think that same way? How do we go from who knows how many, once Denise gets back home and starts talking about it to the other schools in Sao Paulo in Brazil? What are we going to do to move from 500? To 30? Because that's all we can take in the program and one round? And then how do we go from 32? Five? And how do we use those students to help select and the scholars and entrepreneurs right, yeah, that 360 reviews? Jerrid Kalakay 21:09 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and, and, and you're kind of going off of that Denise, you know, kind of hearing your colleagues here, talk about the previous scholars, and then kind of how the system works, and so forth. And I know you're only a month in. Denise Delboni 21:26 With that being said, What do you hope will happen? What do you hope will be the response? In Brazil, we mentioned in one of the sessions here at a game of soccer, that it's so difficult for countries like Brazil having this kind of awards related to Social Innovation or Social Entrepreneurship. So we have some awards related to the best students in the class, the best student in finance, the best statistic, so we pay attention, or at least I think that in countries like Brazil, we are paying attention to different subjects difference issues. So that's why I think it's so important to introduce this kind of mindset there, especially related to good, very good top-rated universities and colleges there. So I think they are waiting too much for us to especially my bosses, it because I teach in two different colleges, I think I'm sure and think that I there are waiting, you're waiting for our return to related to this kind of engagement, I'm saved first, first thing engagement, part of the students in more than that, making these students helping another kind of sector, thinking about the different means for partnership. And I think it's so important for them to have this helping coming from the universities. So I hope that he will definitely they will be engaged in this kind of program to some amazing, so good one. Jerrid Kalakay 22:57 And Mary talked about culture, and not being of the cultures that are coming that the scholars are from, how do you think culturally, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation work with female entrepreneurs? How do you think culturally, Brazilians will respond? Denise Delboni 23:17 We have a problem there related to unemployment nowadays, I don't know if you saw that. But you have something like 13 or 14, that it's the rate and that we have nowadays employment? And the question is that most part of our population is not prepared. Thinking about skills are the skills required by great companies. So they are not prepared to enter this kind of market. And that's why sometimes they think about running their own business. But of course, they don't have skills also, to try to do this kind of immigration migration. So I think it's so important to be empowered and empower in this case, it means that bring some knowledge that we have inside universities, in this kind of a direction, you know, trying to help someone to make their own money, especially talking about the women because they are now the chief of families in Brazil, most part of them. So it's so important to have this kind of help coming from universities. Mary Conway Dato-on 24:21 You know, as as you say that, Denise, would what you're reminding me of is this expression, and I'm not sure I have it, right. So maybe someone at the table can get it exactly right. But it's you to you think you know, something, but when you are required to teach it to another, that's when you really come to thoroughly understand it, right. And so what the students say is maybe to your point, and he's in the classroom, they're doing very well, they're getting A's because they have this way of studying and they knew and their whole life, they've followed that way. So now we say okay, so you think you understand accounting, now go to this woman's micro business or small business, and help her to construct an accounting system that separates her family expenses from her business expenses, that is sustainable, so don't come in with a big Excel spreadsheet, that she's not going to be able to understand or that she doesn't have her own computer to maintain it. So how are you going to break down a complex system like financial management in a way that you can explain it? And that's when the students start to really go? Oh, Denise Delboni 25:32 and then they go, Okay, I got it. I got it. I got it. And you see the change that Yes, me, I think that's so important. And especially because they know that in Brazil, we have not this eight 5 % of the companies and small ones. So they are not the big ones, and they offer the employment that we need in our country. So I think that's why the first experience for some students would be great, talking about small companies. So in this aspect of think, it will be great to program for them because they are not used to pay attention sometimes to small businesses. Yeah. And I think this is the first step that we can arrive and resume a bit and try to tell the students that you have opportunities to act as a code for a woman, for instance, to start her businesses. So I think it's great, the great idea, yeah, and more than that, I would say that we learn too much with the students to, as they said in one in one of the session, we learn too much. But we have to, to pay attention to them. And this program, it brings this kind of attention that we need, when you call the students to take part in it, of course, we will have ears to listen to them. So it will be great to help the female entrepreneurs there. And more than that, trying to bring the students to our reality. Because of some, some universities, they don't pay too much attention to this subject. But we need that in Brazil, an absolute class we need trying to be a developed country, but we have to pay attention to our problems nowadays. Jerrid Kalakay 27:05 Yeah, and, and entrepreneurship, especially social entrepreneurship could be a great thing for our country, especially in a developing country. And I especially like because of the because you're focusing on female entrepreneurs, which most of the time are overlooked or not included in the economic engines. And there's an incredible talent pool. That's there. So it's very, it's very exciting. In terms of day to day operations, day to day experiences that you're having here in the States, what does that look like? I know it's only been a month, but Denise Delboni 27:42 know what month is wonderful. Maybe a month is not enough? It's enough? No, it's great, because I am taking some classes. Yes, as my professor. Oh, she's younger than me. Excellent. Excellent. Jerrid Kalakay 27:57 Yes, it's all relative. Denise Delboni 28:11 And, of course, learning too much about Social Innovation, and about the models that you have developed in the United States. So I think this is the big step that I have. I can tell you talking about this last month, in yesterday, I told them, Mary, Mary, I feel so small, because they have some initiatives close to us because we're talking about Latin American yesterday. And they have wonderful initiatives. And we don't have an idea about that. So maybe it's this month is so great for me, especially to understand what we're doing here, the United States, and which kind of model we could replicate in Brazil too, and especially to be in contact with this kind of network with other professors, students, like great students, also, I'm taking part of some groups in the other in class. And sometimes I try to angry with the students about the problems that we have. But sometimes the Americans, they don't know about that, of course. So it's a wonderful integration because we can, we can be much more responsible, say, when I returned to my country, thinking about other mechanisms that you have here. And in one month, I was able to take part in some very important events related to volunteer programs related to some initiatives like the victory cup. And when they have NGOs, looking for some award, of course, but they are there to show they're to present their jobs, their storytelling. So it's great. In one month, I saw lots of things I could write, write a book. Jerrid Kalakay 29:54 Oh, good. So so you can go back now? And you're done? Yes, I can. Yeah, because you're not going back until July. So so many more months. So only better things even come? Denise Delboni 30:09 I'm sure that I will have lots of experiences. But I don't know how yet. Jerrid Kalakay 30:13 Yes, Denise Delboni 30:14 absolutely. But I can tell you that this first month was great for me, talking about the network, start talking about the things that I learned. And talking about something that called me caught my attention. And related to the kind of models or jobs that I can take to Brazil to It was great. That's awesome. Jerrid Kalakay 30:34 That's awesome. Very cool. Now, and he has meant, so you're in an interesting position because you've been a student, of one of your colleagues. And now you're a professor, another colleague, so so you, you kind of span the entire journey. What is it? What is that like for you? What has that been like for you? Yasmin Mesbah 30:58 It's been very intense. So I know, I'm technically a professor of the scholar. But for me, it's a learning experience, right? Because she's in my class, and she's interacting with all these students. And she's providing a fresh and new perspective to everything that I'm discussing in class. So everything that I'm discussing, I teach the introduction to social entrepreneurship class, so it's very entry-level. So I'm just kind of exposing the students to these ideas for the first time for a lot of them, they have no idea what it is. So we don't dive into maybe the International, you know, how, what does this look like in different countries. So to have Dr. Delboni being in class and be able to participate in different teams and different activities that we do? For me, it's also giving me kind of more learning to learn about these concepts from a different perspective. And what how what I'm teaching is being communicated if it's being communicated the way I want it to. So it's, I think it's a definitely a two-way street. And of course, Dr. Conway, she's been my professor, my mentor, just incredible support from the start. So I learned from her both in terms of working on Golding's and then in terms of in the classroom, so for me, I'm very fortunate to be able to be in this edition. Jerrid Kalakay 32:19 That's cool. Yeah, it's often it could be a precarious position to be a colleague, having been a student, and, and all those sorts of things. So it sounds like it's not been as difficult as it could be. Yasmin Mesbah 32:35 No, because the way we work at global links is we don't really do hierarchy. So there is a little bit of Okay, this is the program manager, this is the faculty mentor, the Graduate Assistant, and we divide tasks, but it's not in any way, where Dr. Conway just tells us something when we're meeting and this is the way it has to be done. Or I told the graduate system, okay, now you go do this. It's not it's never been like that. It's always okay. This is the problem that we're facing. What would you guys think of that? And even if Dr. Conway hadn't a specific idea that she is convinced that it's the right way to go, she still does. propose it in a way that makes it seem like we have room to oppose it or get feedback, even if it doesn't always try to make us feel like she's in control or anything. So and she has some areas we are we have no idea what's going on, right in terms of maybe sometimes working with corporate partners or things like that. Dr. Conway obviously has way more experienced and for other things, she will seek our guidance in terms of maybe social media or crafting messaging or reaching out to students, she's not sure how exactly best to do that. So we just all collaborate, and contribute. And as we best can, based on our experiences, Jerrid Kalakay 33:52 yeah, I mean, that's what makes the strongest team, right where they were there aren't, were there were the lines of hierarchy or not define and that people feel comfortable, challenging, and speaking up and so forth, it's, it's when the opposite is true that you run into really problematic situations where people where you only have Yes, people around you. And then things got really bad really fast. And, Mary Conway Dato-on 34:17 you know, and I think again, as in my role as a professor, I'm teaching some concepts around empowerment, and around team building and things like that. And as I was listening to one of the people speak here today, she was saying, the best way we learn, and that is, is to reflect and to, to observe. And so I think, as a professor, I want to be sure that I am modeling the same principles of empowerment that I'm teaching classroom because a that makes that just makes me feel better. And I believe that that's who I am. But also it, how do we teach it? Again, if we go back to what are we doing and change-making, right is we have to first look at ourselves. And we have to first look at what we're contributing and how we're behaving, not just in the classroom, but outside of the classroom as well. And so I tried to set up a team structure that takes advantage of everyone's skill that they bring, and at the same time, creates an environment of engagement, and empathetic learning, and listening. Right? So I definitely have ideas, right? I'm not shy, telling my ideas. But at the same time, I am completely willing. And it's actually when I interviewed the graduate assistants, I say, can you challenge me? Will you say to me, I have no idea what you're talking about? Or can that is not going to work? Because if you can't do that, then we're not going to work well together? Because I need someone And to your point, what good is someone who's just going to mirror back to me? Every thought I have no, I want someone to say this is not the best way to communicate with students who are considerably younger than us, or have we thought about this? What about that, and then empowering them to bring their ideas because the skill set that we have on the students? And now Yes, mean in the program manager Jerrid Kalakay 36:33 are amazing. Absolutely. Well, and that's and that's how you make a stronger team. Right? If if you isolate people only to one particular role or one particular expertise, then you've left everything else that their value all their other valuables, the dollar. Mary Conway Dato-on 36:51 I don't mean to interrupt you here. The other thing you're saying to me, which I just as I'm hearing it, like what I'm hearing, you say is also creating a team where there's mutual respect, absolutely. There's no hierarchy, yet. There's a respect to that says, I understand that you're older than me, and life has given you certain experiences, I understand that you come from a different country. And that brings a set of experiences. And so having a respectful in my syllabus, I say opinions vary, but civility is constant. Yes. And so creating a space where the respect is paramount to the process of engaging and active agreement and disagreement. Jerrid Kalakay 37:33 Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and there's clear that there's, there's a huge amount of mutual respect between the three of you just in the short time that we've been together. And I really, I really love the idea of the power of the ripple effect that this program has, in bringing over one scholar for a period of a few months in reality, and then bringing over their students for two weeks is, is a very short amount of time in the span of a lifetime. But then, knowing that all that not only the scholar, but the students go back to create change in their own communities. What kind of things do you all hope to happen with the program in general? Mary Conway Dato-on 38:23 Thank you so much for asking that question. Because as you're talking, I was thinking about two things. One is we haven't talked a lot about the role the US Department of State in this program. And that's a very important role. because number one, they give us gravitas. And they have the perspective on the ground. So we work very closely are to me and scholars came from Calcutta. So it's not the capital city, but the console is there. And they've been incredibly supportive. And when Tupperware and Rollins decided for some strategic reasons to reposition the program into Brazil, the US Department of State in Calcutta said, Wait a minute, we love what you're doing here. How do we not lose this? And so we're in the process of working with the two scholars and the change makers who said the same thing, wait a minute, like I've got a younger brother and sister that I want to have off with this. And so we're actually doing some grant writing around that. So the future where I see the future, as is global links, India, global links, Brazil, global links Mexico, and so are, we're doing some grant work in India. And then the next step is to talk to other Latin American countries and see what companies can additionally sponsor that. And if we had five scholars, at the same time in Rollins, the impact of that would also have on our campus, bringing over one scholar is awesome. And Denise has been so great getting out and meeting people and interacting with people. And imagine that a multiplier of five and then that means bringing back. Sorry, I'm Jerrid Kalakay 40:11 not a math professor. Mary Conway Dato-on 40:16 Right? Yeah, 25 students all at once for this two-week program. And then the next round, maybe getting the scholars from Iraq and India and Brazil and Mexico and doing a kind of mini-conference around that. So for me, the sky's the limit. And as Yasmin said earlier because we're so passionate about this program, we just keep pushing the boundaries and asking for more, because I'm a true believer, if you don't ask for it, you, you'll probably never get it. So that's where I see the program going. Yasmin Mesbah 40:48 Yeah, and hit three people, just to kind of give you some perspective of the potential that the program has in terms of impact. Like he said as Dr. Conway said, we do have right now it's cycle has one scholar, and we only bring five change makers. However, on average, each cycle we impact around 2000 individuals, tween professors, staff, students, entrepreneurs, NGOs, the fat, the staff at the American Center back in Kolkata, so and that's just with one scholar. So imagine being able to have five scholars at a time, right? Because each cycle is between a year, two years. So if we are able to multiply that number by five, it's incredible. And that is part of what kind of pushes us to keep going even when we don't always have positive results because we've been trying this whole expansion and scaling thing for a while. And it's not always a Happy journey, right? Sometimes we get rejections and we meet, we have like a dead end. And we don't know where what to do. But what keeps us going is because we see the potential that this program has, and we are just not going to stop until we're able to achieve it Denise Delboni 42:02 the impact and the potential. Yeah. And it said that the more than numbers, I think you have to think about implications, the possible implications. So we are not talking just about knowledge. We're not talking about just a million for printers, we're talking about maybe creating new jobs, they're talking about creating new kind of mindset related to the transformation of businesses, the actual businesses that we have in Brazil. So I think it's a different kind of implication, because behind each student, or behind it, interpreter, maybe you have different kinds of consequences there. So this is a kind of different implications. So it's very helpful for this kind of program. Jerrid Kalakay 42:47 Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I just want to thank you all, so very much for taking time and chatting with us at that Teaching Change. I'd also be remiss if I didn't also acknowledge that Dr. Conway, that alone, served as my dissertation, one of my dissertation members on my committee, and also serve as a mentor and co-publisher of an article and a bunch of other stuff. So it was a joy to chat with you a little bit about this very exciting work. And it was very nice meeting all of you and chatting with you. Thank you. Mary Conway Dato-on 43:25 Thank you Jerrid way before you hit that Post button, I want to say the same that I can't tell you how exciting it is for me to see the impact that you're making, that you're making. With this podcast that you're making. I think also not only by challenging but leading at Valencia and leading in the community, your ability to create networks is amazing. So just keep going. It's exciting. It's very exciting. Jerrid Kalakay 43:52 I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you all. Yasmin Mesbah 43:54 Thank you. Jerrid Kalakay 43:56 Till next time, be nice and change some stuff  

On today’s episode, we have our 7th and final episode in our special series Ashoka U on Teaching Change with our conversation with Rachel Maxwell, Head of Learning and Teaching Development at the University of Northampton. Rachel shares her work in developing changemaker learning outcomes to be adopted institution-wide, her own philosophy around change-making, and the impact the upcoming Ashoka U publication will have on the field of changemaker education. Biography Dr. Rachel Maxwell is Head of Learning and Teaching Development in the Institute of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILT) at the University of Northampton in the UK. She is currently leading a number of projects supporting the student experience, including improving the first-year experience and the development of a framework of graduate attributes embedding employability and Changemaker skills across our curricula.  Since starting work at the University of Northampton in 2012, Rachel has displayed a strong interest in Changemaking, primarily through her work to embed the skills and attributes associated with Changemaker into our curricula. In this way, her desire is to ensure that all students at Northampton receive a meaningful, on-programme entitlement to engage with Changemaking, thus supporting the institutional strategy: Transforming Lives + Inspiring Change.

We continue our special series Ashoka U on Teaching Change with our interview of Jacen Greene, Director of Impact Entrepreneurs at Portland State University. Jacen shares his winding journey from the private sector to consulting to higher education and working with change-making education. He also shares how his private sector experience influences his work in education and how important learning outcomes are for a strong educational foundation. Listen to find out why Jacen believes that every decision he makes to be more inclusive in his programs has benefited every student participating. Biography Jacen Greene manages social innovation programs in PSU’s School of Business, including the Social Innovation Certificate and Elevating Impact Summit, and co-founded PSU’s new Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative. He teaches design thinking and lean startup courses in social entrepreneurship, initiated the student-run B Impact consulting program, and leads an award-winning case writing program. He serves as PSU’s Change Leader, official representative to the Ashoka U Changemaker Campus network, and is one of Ashoka U’s global Network Advisory Committee members. Jacen’s case studies have won the Oikos Case Competition, placed 2nd in the Next Billion Competition, and been used by more than 2300 students and faculty. He has published in the International Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Learning, VentureWell 20th Annual Conference Proceedings, Case Studies in Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, and the Oikos Case Quarterly. In addition to overseeing the planning team for the yearly Elevating Impact Summit, he has presented at or led workshops for the Fulbright Program, AmeriCorps, Net Impact Conference (2011), GoGreen PDX (2012), VentureWell OPEN (2016), Ashoka U Exchange (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018), and Social Enterprise World Forum (2018), among others. Jacen graduated Beta Gamma Sigma with an MBA in sustainability from Portland State University and magna cum laude with a B.A. in China Studies from Willamette University. He has previously worked or taught in India, China, Cambodia, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Links Learning Objectives Guide DOWNLOAD https://guides.library.pdx.edu/c.php?g=527355&p=3605354

Today’s episode brings us the 4th installment of our special series Ashoka U on Teaching Change with our conversation with Rebecca Riccio, Director of the Social Impact Lab at Northeastern University. Rebecca shares her philosophy of change-making education from the ways of thinking, ways of being, and ways of doing, to her disdain for placing too much emphasis on specific terms like “social entrepreneurship” or “social innovation” and lastly her chapter in the forthcoming Ashoka U publication.   Biography Rebecca Riccio is the founding Director of the Social Impact Lab (SIL) at Northeastern University, an experiential learning hub that prepares students for lives of citizen-leadership and social change through systems thinking, complex problem solving,  and ethical community engagement.  Throughout her career, Rebecca has developed and managed cutting edge projects around the world, including the first federally funded teacher training program in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall; satellite-based email networks connecting health facilities in Africa and Asia before commercial options became viable; and the world’s first massive open online course or MOOC on experiential philanthropy, which engaged thousands of students around the world in awarding grants from the Buffett family’s Learning by Giving Foundation.  She continues to break new ground by researching and developing experiential learning methods that challenge students to grapple with the complexity and ethical implications of engaging in social change using techniques such as network and systems visualization, real-dollar grantmaking, and community-based service-learning. Rebecca is a leader in the growing use of experiential philanthropy education to illuminate the study of the nonprofit sector, civil society, and social justice by having students confront the power and privilege of managing scarce resources in the face of vast need. The model she developed at Northeastern, Northeastern Students4Giving, is now being adapted in countries around the world through SIL’s Global Philanthropy Initiative. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the nonprofit sector, philanthropy, and social change at Northeastern University and has lectured on philanthropy, social justice, and policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Links Social Impact Lab website: https://cssh.northeastern.edu/impactlab/ Social Impact-athon website: https://www.socialimpactathon.com/ Rebecca’s talk at Ashoka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXxSIGdyPv4 For more information about Rebecca’s philosophy and work in experiential philanthropy, see Riccio, Rebecca. “Checks and Balances: Experiential Philanthropy as a Form of Community Engagement.” Service-learning through Community Engagement. By Lori Gardinier. New York, NY: Springer, LLC, 2017. 39-56. Print.  

Today we continue with our 3rd episode in our special series Ashoka U on Teaching Change by learning from Molly Ware, Professor of Education at Western Washington University. Molly shares her own journey to change-making through the classroom, her work as an educator of educators, and her chapter in the upcoming Ashoka U publication Preparing Students for a Rapidly Changing World: Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation, and Changemaker Learning Outcomes.    Biography How can we accomplish more together than is possible alone? It’s the question that’s driven my work since I left my science teaching gig in GA public, middle schools. Since then, I’ve worked as a teacher educator in partnership with public school teachers in WA state – supporting the growth of new changemaker teachers. In addition, I’ve worked to support organizational innovation & evolution at Western Washington University & beyond through a variety of leadership roles including Faculty Senate President, Director of Western Reads, and organizational change & innovation consulting work. I currently teach classes focused on leading systemic change and am finishing a memoir on adventures in system change. In addition to her work at Western Washington University, Molly is founder & lead consultant at We Evolve where she supports organizational change & innovation in higher education & the social impact sector. https://www.we-evolve.org  She is also finishing a memoir on her adventures in learning to create transformative change that will be completed this summer. Links http://www.we-evolve.org