ASU has been selected by Ashoka U to join the Changemaker Campus Consortium for the University’s commitment to social entrepreneurship.
Ashoka is an organization that supports social entrepreneurs, and the distinction of a Changemaker Campus is given to schools that are leading the way in the social entrepreneurship field.
ASU, chosen to join the consortium last week, is the first Western school to receive this distinction, and only the 10th school in the nation.
“Being one of the first 10 schools recognized for being a leader in this area is really exciting,” said Jacqueline Smith, an ASU Office of University Initiatives innovation fellow.
Along with ASU, Duke University and Marquette University were selected for the consortium in August. These three schools bring the total number of universities recognized as Changemaker Campuses to 10, with some of the other schools including George Mason University, Tulane University and University of Maryland. ASU’s partnership with Ashoka will last three years.
ASU went through a long application process to become eligible for this distinction, Smith said.
Smith was a part of the team that filled out the application in October 2009.
The application, which requires the support of the applying university’s president, was fully backed by ASU President Michael Crow.
After the application was submitted, Ashoka officials visited the ASU campuses every month to see how the University was advancing the field of social entrepreneurship.
The officials were extremely impressed with the New American University idea, as well as the scope of ASU’s social entrepreneurship programs, Smith said.
There are more than 10,000 students who enroll in entrepreneurship courses each year, she said. These students come from more than 100 majors, including technological entrepreneurship and management, nonprofit leadership and management and sports entrepreneurship.
Charis Elliott, a first-year grad student in justice studies who is on the Ashoka Changemaker Advisory Board, said the goal of social entrepreneurship is to solve local and global problems.
Being in the Changemaker Campus Consortium will assist ASU in several ways, Smith said. These ways include working with the Ashoka fellows, a group of 2,500 professionals across 70 countries who deal with a multitude of modern issues, like human trafficking, slavery and genocide.
The Changemaker Consortium will also benefit ASU through intercampus cooperation with the other schools in the consortium. Everything from joint research to setting benchmarks and pushing the other schools to excel in the field are all possibilities, Smith said.
The university’s partnership with Ashoka will also help them to showcase existing programs and look at how they can better support current and future programs.
“Ashoka is a global network of social entrepreneurs and having that global network accessible … is a tremendous opportunity for any [student] looking to make a change in the world,” management entrepreneurship senior Tyler Metcalf said in an e-mail. Metcalf is the president of the student group Entrepreneurs@ASU.
The Changemaker Campus was launched in 2008 and plans to include about 30 universities by 2015, according to Ashoka’s website.
Reach the reporter at connor.radnovich@asu.edu
