The College of Business is now offering a minor in social entrepreneurship. The minor is predominantly directed toward non-business majors, so any student can pursue the degree. Business majors have the option to pursue a management major with a concentration in social entrepreneurship.
“The minor has its roots in conversations amongst various College of Business faculty members, [but] I think the Jesuit values and traditions themselves drive the inspiration behind creating this minor,” said Laura Mizaur, a professor in the management and entrepreneurship department.
“While social entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly popular buzz word, what we’re really talking about teaching and studying is what the Jesuits have been doing all along.
“As a department, we define social entrepreneurship as ‘the work of a social entrepreneur, someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to make social change.'”
The College of Business has had a major focusing on entrepreneurship for many years, and this minor is a continuation of earlier efforts, Mizaur said.
“You cannot effectively learn social entrepreneurship without encompassing the basic entrepreneurial principles,” Mizaur said.
“However, whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures success primarily in profit and return, a social entrepreneur judges their success in terms of a desired impact on society as well as assessing profit and return.”
The minor is comprised of three courses students must take and three recommended courses that may be substituted with others with the department’s approval. The first three are BUS 312 Innovation and Creativity, BUS 314 Business Planning for Social Entrepreneurs and then BUS 316/BUS 366 Business Internships. The recommended three are ECO 203 Introductory Microeconomics, MKT 319 Principles of Marketing and BUS 356 Business Ethics.
“The approach will vary, but in some of the classes, we will take a ‘Harvard Business School’ case study methodology to explore companies and situations where we can explore how to be a social entrepreneur in multiple approaches,” said Taylor Keen, who will be teaching the Business Planning for Social Entrepreneurs course.
“In others, such as my seminar on Native Americans, we will seek to expose students to situations, peoples and perspectives very different from their own, and challenge them to find a way to make a difference.”
Social entrepreneurship is a field that Mizaur said she hopes will bring many students to Creighton in the future – a growing influence in modern society.
Names such as Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Bill Gates have been involved in social entrepreneurship, Keen said.
Other well-known examples of social entrepreneurship include Newman’s Own products, the profit of which goes to various charity, Aravind Eye Hospital, which was established to eliminate needless blindness in India and has become the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world, and the “one laptop per child” initiative.
The minor brings together the mission of the Jesuit values and the skills of an entrepreneur.
“The ‘mission’ factor is the critical determinant if whether or not someone is a social entrepreneur. But there is a saying that goes something like, ‘No money, no mission,’ and if you’ve ever tried to change the world without any money, you’ll understand the saying,”
Mizaur said. “Business principles and skills have tremendous applicability to social change and impact.”