Social Entrepreneurship Summer Institute

This summer I had the privilege of participating again in the Social Entrepreneurship Summer Institute offered by UIUC's College of Business and the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership and led by Assistant Dean Collete Niland.



What is the connection with Spanish community service learning?



I gave a talk on Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Among other things, I used the Spanish & Illinois program as an example of innovation in the not-for-profit (higher ed) sector. I also asked the representatives of the participating not-for-profits if they had innovated within their own organizations in order to meet the growing "market" of Latinos in Champaign County.



While most people think of innovation in terms of science and technology, innovation can be found everywhere and take many shapes. Community service learning is certainly an innovation within Spanish language , and it can be decidely low-tech (or not).

Furthermore, "innovation" does not have to be a totally new program or product. Partnerships and processes can represent very important innovations in how things are done, not necessarily what is done. For example, our community partners deliver instruction to the students, not just the professor/TA. Scheduling students' community service learning suddenly became so much more manageable when I innovated the process--self-scheduling on-line saved me many headaches and ultimately made the students more responsible and engaged in the community service-learning work in the first place.

Finally, I teach an entire course called "Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities," which I developed with my colleague, Darcy Lear, and the support of UIUC's Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership. The main objective of the course is to teach students--through community service learning--how not-for-profits can meet the needs of Latino communities through entrepreneurial processes.