This article has been corrected from its original version.
Students who don’t know how to achieve their goals for social change can now go to the university’s Center for Social Value Creation.
The center, which has been run for a year through the business school but officially opened Friday, focuses on partnering students with ideas with business leaders who can make them happen. Previously, the center was geared toward business school students, but it is now offering services to the university community as a whole.
The program brings business leaders to the campus for panels and workshops. It will also offer graduate classes in the spring and may offer undergraduate classes as early as next fall. It is also looking to start sponsoring study abroad trips that focus on students fostering change in developing countries, said Melissa Carrier, the center’s executive director.
Yonas Beshawred, a 2009 decision and information sciences graduate who also studied international development, said the center helped him refine his interests and make contacts in the business world.
“I knew that I wanted to do something with business and international development, and I wanted to do something in Africa. The center basically helped me combine those three things,” said Beshawred. “I had the idea, but what I was lacking was the platform and a place on campus that can help me in moving my ideas forward.”
The center was able to Beshawred with projects like Harambe Endeavor, which he helped to found. The organization aims to engage African university students in the United States with African social and economic issues.
Now serving as a vice president for the Harambe Endeavor, Beshawred is coordinating efforts between the social organization and the university’s business school to address finance issues in Ethiopia.
The center sprung from a mixture of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, which assists student in starting their own businesses, and the Ashoka Changemaker Campus program, an international organization that encourages students to make social change.
“There were students coming to [the business school] and asking for more content than what was provided in the classroom and as an administration we felt more movement in the business sector towards being involved in social leadership,” Carrier said. “A lot of companies are looking to attract this generation of students, who are very interested in finding work that has meaning.”
To celebrate its opening, the center held a forum in Washington on Friday. Professionals from both non-profit and for-profit organizations spoke about how businesses are becoming more socially conscious.
“I see [the center] as an avenue for students to get involved in business that are not only profitable but are good for the community,” said sophomore international business and Spanish major Scott Shuffield, who blogs for the center and attended the forum. “Social entrepreneurship is a growing trend with my generation and I think that it is something that [the university] needs to pay attention to, and the center will allow for [the university] to be on the cutting edge of this trend.”
desmarattes@umdbk.com
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