Five Universities Will Join Consortium to Create the Ideal “Changemaker Campus”

Arlington, VA (August 18, 2009) Ashoka U today announced the selection of five universities to comprise its second Changemaker Campus Consortium. Babson College, The University of Colorado at Boulder, College of the Atlantic, The New School, and Tulane University will work together to set a new standard for social entrepreneurship education.  Now in its second year, the partnership brings together students, faculty, and staff from across campus to transform their university into a hub for social change.

"Today's generation of students is as socially engaged and ready to get to work as any in a generation. Unfortunately, this remarkable group of young people is about to walk into a job market as dismal as any in three generations,” said Phil Auerswald, one of the leaders of the partnership at George Mason and the Director of Mason’s Center on Science and Technology Policy.  “As educators we have an over-riding responsibility right now--truly more than ever--to prepare our students to create their own opportunities; to build their own future; to be leaders in a changing world. The Ashoka Changemaker Campus initiative has provided me and my student and faculty teammates with an exceptional opportunity to work toward delivering on that responsibility."

The five universities will join last year’s Changemaker Campuses – Cornell, George Mason, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland – in an effort to share best practices and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Led by Ashoka, the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, the Changemaker Campus partnership aims to develop new models for higher education, envisioning a day when universities everywhere serve as an enabling environment where every individual has access to the resources, learning opportunities, role models, and peer community needed to actualize their full potential as changemakers. The program gives students and faculty alike the skills and mindset they need to tackle systemic problems and effect positive social change regardless of their discipline.

“Universities and colleges are increasingly realizing that if they want to be part of the solution to the most pressing problems we face around the globe, they need to promote creative interdisciplinary problem solving among their faculty and students,” said Greg Dees, Director of Duke’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, and a leader in social entrepreneurship education. “Ashoka's Changemaker Campus program is the perfect partner to stimulate faculty and students to break out of old categories in search of new solutions. Ashoka brings unparalleled knowledge of global social entrepreneurship, a rich history of working with academics through it University Network, and extensive experience breaking down barriers.”

For more information, please visit http://www.ashoka.org/changemakercampus

About Ashoka: About Ashoka
Founded in 1980, Ashoka is the world’s working community of more than 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs. It champions the most important new social change ideas and supports the entrepreneurs behind them by helping them get started, grow, succeed, and collaborate. As Ashoka expands its capability to integrate and connect entrepreneurs around the world, it builds an entrepreneurial infrastructure that is supporting the fast-growing needs of the citizen sector.  Ashoka’s vision is to create change today, for an Everyone A Changemaker™ society to become the reality of tomorrow.  For more information, visit www.ashoka.org.

For more information please contact:
Marina Kim
Ashoka U
703.600.8318