About the Social Impact Semester

The Social Impact Semester, offered in the spring, provides students with the opportunity to study the concept of social impact through both an experiential and an interdisciplinary lens. The course meets twice a week, primarily in New York City, and involves guest speakers, field trips to non and for-profit organizations with a social mission, skills workshops, and a hands-on group project with a non-profit. The field trips include visits to arts institutions, cooperatives, rights as well as international development and relief organizations, religious institutions, research and policy institutes and foundations, among others. The skills workshops may tackle such diverse topics as how to design a mission statement, fundraising strategies, project implementation, cost benefit analysis, and steps for building an advocacy campaign. The main philosophical question tackled in the course is an examination of whether and how non-profits are feeling pressure to become more entrepreneurial while at the same time for-profit firms are feeling pressure to behave more socially responsibly. Students who participate in the program must enroll in two 4 credit courses: course/course/course and course/course/course.

Specialty Semesters

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