Nadia Horning

From Social Innovation to Social Change
In this course we will study what spurs social innovation and produces change. Our inquiry into the world of changemaking will entail theoretical and conceptual exploration, studying cases of social innovation around the world, and personal introspection. Theories from a variety of disciplines such as economics, political science, psychology, and sociology will frame our understanding of social change. Concepts examined include social problems, social innovation, social enterprise, and social impact. By the end of this course, students will understand what social innovation and social impact require. This course is primarily intended for students participating in the Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship program. Open to others by approval (approval only) 3 hrs. sem.

Global Challenges and Opportunities
In this course we will learn to identify, describe, classify, analyze, solve, and make predictions about the world’s most pressing problems. Using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework, we will select specific issues and learn to compare and connect across them to establish their interconnectedness and complexity. Students will then conduct independent research, collaborate with classmates across disciplines, and use a variety of approaches to come up with innovative solutions to issues most pressing to them. Lectures, class discussions, in-class group work, and oral presentations will guide students’ learning while self-study reports, group oral presentations and issue papers, individual written reflections, and class participation will be used to gauge student learning. By the end of the course, students will be proficient in collaborative problem assessment and problem solving across a variety of global issues.

Leadership
What is leadership, and what does good leadership require? In this course we will investigate these important questions, focusing on today’s world context. Examples from politics, business, and community organization around the world will guide our inquiry, help us evaluate the quality of leadership affecting us and others, and enable us to assess our own leadership potential. To achieve these course goals, we will analyze real-world examples of good and poor leadership from around the world, compare across leadership cases, and assess leadership examples against theories of leadership in business, political science, history, and psychology. Class discussions, in-class simulations, short lectures, individual research projects, and oral presentations will inform our learning experience while reflection papers, individual research projects, individual oral presentations, and class participation will help gauge student learning.