[Scpg] California State University, Channel Islands, is launching a new social business institute

[Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

California State University, Channel Islands, is launching a new
  social business institute

Nobel laureate kick-starts CSUCI institute
Written by Marlize van Romburgh	  
Monday, 08 February 2010
http://pacbiztimes.com/index.php?option=com

California State University, Channel Islands, is launching a new 
social business institute it hopes will revolutionize its curriculum 
- and it has a Nobel laureate as its pitchman.
CSUCI will feature Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, in a 
keynote event on Feb. 26 that also launches the university's new 
California Institute for Social Business.

The institute is the first of its kind in the California public 
university system, and the fact that CSUCI, launched in 2002, is 
still a relatively new institution means it's well positioned to try 
something different. "We're nimble, and part of our flexibility is 
that we're a young institution," CSUCI President Richard Rush said. 
"We're able to try to implement those things that are 
interdisciplinary, multi-cultural and international."

Rush said he told Yunus, " 'We're trying not to replicate what is 
going on elsewhere - good as it is - we want to try something new not 
tried anywhere else. Something truly interdisciplinary.' "

In a speech in Berlin, Yunus had said that CSUCI is a university 
"educating for the future."

With the launch of the institute, the university is seeking to move 
its curriculum forward, exposing students to issues of poverty and 
environmental problems and educating them to come up with 
market-based solutions.
The university was put in touch with the Nobel laureate by Julia 
Wilson, its vice president for advancement. She had formerly worked 
with Yunus' Grameen Bank, the organization widely credited as the 
catalyst for the international microfinance movement.

Yunus and the bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for 
providing access to credit to thousands of the world's poorest, 
people who usually don't have collateral to secure conventional bank 
financing. The idea behind microfinance is that entrepreneurs in 
developing countries often need only a small loan - sometimes less 
than $100 - to kick-start a business and become self-sustainable.

To better understand the social business concept, a group of CSUCI 
faculty and administrators visited Bangladesh during the early stages 
of planning for the institute. There, they visited with villagers in 
some of the poorest regions of the world, and began to understand the 
microfinance model and the idea of social entrepreneurship - that is, 
business for more than the sake of profits.

"We're now considering the possibility of creating social businesses 
of our own with our students. We'd like to expose them to third world 
countries," Rush said.

The new institute will have several elements. In its undergraduate 
curriculum, it will offer social business classes through its 
business school, which may lead to the establishment of a minor or 
concentration in social business. Students will be encouraged to 
study abroad to fulfill some of the requirements for the minor or 
concentration.

CSUCI is also looking to integrate social business concepts into its 
MBA program.
"Around the nation and around the world, there's a growing interest 
in this field," said CSUCI Dean of Faculty and Economics Professor 
Ashish Vaidya. "Business schools around the country are looking at 
how they should be preparing their students to be involved citizens 
who are aware of the challenges of the 21st century."

Because it wants students to gain practical benefits and move beyond 
classroom learning, the institute will also function as an incubator 
for business projects. Plans suggest that the institute may host an 
international business plan competition, which would culminate with a 
ceremony including a monetary award of seed capital for winning 
projects.

The institute will work with students on a more regular basis to 
start social businesses in the surrounding community and may be able 
to provide a micro-loan structure to students to start such projects.

Lastly, the institute plans to be a breeding ground for academic 
research concerning social entrepreneurship. Faculty - ideally 
working with students - will conduct and publish research based on 
case studies and field work. If the institute is able to secure 
funding, an endowment will allow for a fellowship program.

"There are social problems that we need to address," Vaidya said. 
"The question is, 'Are there business solutions we can use to solve 
them?' Students, with faculty supervision, can begin to address these 
problems, and gain real-world experience that will help them when 
they graduate."
Rush said that he hopes the institute will lay the groundwork for 
other universities, both public and private, to follow suit. "When I 
was hired it was my thought that we'd try to build a 21st century 
university. And I've been privileged to have the faculty and staff 
join with me as we try to build something for the future," he said.

Vaidya said that  faculty from across the board are already embracing 
the interdisciplinary approach - not just professors in business and 
economics, but also from engineering, the hard sciences and the 
humanities have all expressed their support for the institute.
"From an academic community standpoint, our approach is that we want 
to educate the whole student to be really an engaged, global 
citizen," Vaidya said.

If it hopes to get all that done in the next year and a half, CSUCI 
has its work cut out for it. By the fall - and once the institute 
receives final approval from the academic senate - the university 
hopes to hire a director and administrative support for the institute 
and form advisory boards with regional, national and international 
partners. By next spring, it hopes to begin faculty research and 
student projects as well as development of the social business 
incubator.
All that will require millions of dollars in funding, and with a 
cash-strapped public university system the institute is striving to 
be almost purely privately funded. The endowment alone is expected to 
be $12 million and annual operating costs for the institute are 
estimated at $560,000.
Vaidya said that in the spirit of the free-enterprise system, the 
university is looking to the business community for monetary support. 
"All of this will depend on the resources we can generate. We're not 
expecting state funding," he said. "We're hopeful that these ideas 
are something the private community will embrace."

With Yunus as the institute's public face, the university has already 
received a lot of attention. The Nobel prize winner will return to 
the Camarillo campus Feb. 26 for all-day events and to talk about his 
book, "Creating a World Without Poverty:  Social Business, the New 
Face of Capitalism." The campus has distributed 3,600 copies of the 
book and expects record turnout at the event.
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