| Academics |
Textbooks and classroom time are not the only ways students develop and learn. It is essential to give them hands-on opportunities that better prepare them for life after graduation.
Student Development Center
- A place for community presentations, demonstrations, workshops, etc.
- Intergenerational exchange: storytelling, life skills, tools and trades
- Volunteerism - a place where students can be instructed in projects such as:
- community event planning and support
- municipal government
- community gardens and ecological studies
- parks and campground maintenance
- senior citizen outreach
Volunteerism designed for young people can be an avenue for successful asset mapping and engagement. Students who participate in such projects can build a voice in the community as partners deserving of recognition.
Technology Development
- Equipment upgrades to provide latest tools for optimum learning
- Speaker series: N.E. Ohio has a good representation of biotech, alternative energy and green technology companies along with software developers and computer services that can provide an interesting array of lectures
- Field trips, such as visits to local technology start-ups as well as business incubators developing technological advancements.
Entrepreneurial Development (business and social)
Business
- Visits to start-ups, incubators (spawning a kitchen table idea)
- Visits to venture capital firms to learn the criteria for start-up funding
- Visits to investment banking firms to learn the process of taking a company public (how and why it winds up on the stock market, a.k.a., IPO)
- Visits to the Cleveland Entrepreneur's Club monthly speaker series and the opportunity to meet successful local entrepreneurs
- Visits with the Entrepreneurial Learning Institute in Cleveland, a place where young people are encouraged to start their own small businesses
Social
- Emerging career sector: public service organizations, a.k.a., citizen sector
- No longer defined in the negative as "non-profit" or "non-governmental"
- Employment growth for this sector in the 1990's: 25% vs 4% overall
- An explosion of entrepreneurial opportunities fostering increased competition and collaboration, necessary skills for the 21st century
- On-line education in this field:
- Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, www.ashoka.org
- Tides Center, www.tidecenter.org
- Youth Venture, www.youthventure.org
- Duke University, www.fuqua.duke.edu
- Columbia Business School, www.riseproject.org
- Harvard Business School, www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise.org
- Stanford Business School, www.gsb.stanford.edu/csi
- Visiting speaker series to include experts in the field such as: David Bornstein, author of, "How to Change the World", a cornerstone book on the advent of social entrepreneurialism; Bill Drayton, creator and CEO of Ashoka, a pioneering foundation that has funded and supported thousands of social entrepreneurs.
- Field trips: Civic Innovation Lab & One Community (social enterprise organizations both located in Cleveland); Social Entrepreneurship at the Weatherhead School of Management and other citizen sector organizations in Northeast Ohio.