@work on the economy:

 

 

 

NC Secretary of Commerce: Social Businesses Could Create Some of the Jobs of the Future

 

NC Secretary of Commerce Keith Crisco challenged students participating in the UNC Social Business Conference to look for “new models” to solve the state’s most compelling problems and reignite the economy.

 

The models we develop have to solve some part of three big problems, noted Sec. Crisco. “They have to help us create jobs, they have to move us closer to solving community problems, and they have to find revenue to keep themselves going.”

 

Students working on proposals for the competition sought to accomplish all three of those things, following the model of Professor Mohammad Yunus for “social businesses.”

 

Social businesses sit between three critical sectors of the economy: for-profit businesses, nonprofit businesses and government. They seek to make progress in solving community problems, as do nonprofits and government, but they also seek to do it in a way that is not dependent on tax payments or grant funding. Unlike traditional forprofit businesses, social businesses reinvest profits into the enterprise, enabling them to grow and sustain the business over time.

 

That makes social businesses a viable “fourth sector” for North Carolina. “These enterprises pay real wages to real people. They don’t replace our other sectors, but they need to be part of the mix,” noted Secretary Crisco.

 

UNC President Tom Ross noted that there was value in both the problems students were addressing and the way of thinking students were using in developing their proposals. The world is changing too fast to have “one size fits all” careers that will get someone through life: “We can’t foresee what will happen to the business sectors our state depends on today.  The only thing we know for certain is that they will change, and we will need people with the thinking skills necessary to reinvent themselves, reinvent the economy, and reinvent their communities.”

 

 

 

 

@work in the community:

 

 

 

 

UNC Social Business Conference Proposes Solutions for Big Community Problems

 

Five hundred people from across the state – UNC students, faculty and staff plus community members – gathered, listened, spoke and competed  at NCA&T State University this month for the first-ever UNC Social Business Conference.

 

The September 27 conference, keynoted by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Professor Mohammad Yunus, asked student teams from across the UNC system to identify community problems, then take a business-oriented approach to solving them.

 

The conference and student competition is consistent with the new strategic planning effort the University is undertaking, noted UNC President Tom Ross, and helps emphasize the sorts of graduates the state will need to be successful in the future:

 

“We need students ready to think and do,” said Ross. “Ready to dream and execute.  Students who understand what is currently known about their disciplines or chosen professions, but who are also committed to and capable of understanding how to adapt and thrive through the next transformation -- and the one after that.”

 

 

Students coming out of universities also have an obligation to solve the problems facing their communities and the world, noted Professor Yunus, who created the concept of social business.  “This generation has a power that no other generation has had,” he said at the event. “You need to use that power to start solving problems.... Anyone can do it. It doesn’t have to be a big thing; even if it takes five people out of unemployment this has helped their lives.”

 

31 teams from all 17 UNC campuses tried to use that power to create new ideas for their communities. They worked with faculty and staff beginning last spring, then with mentors from TiE Carolinas and the SBTDC, to develop plans that built off their knowledge of a wide variety of disciplines, and observations to address community problems related to food and agriculture, energy, job training and retraining. Some examples:

 

·         Using videogames to retrain unemployed people;

·         Improving the efficiency of the market for used medical equipment to make sure underserved markets get exactly the equipment they need;

·         Rebranding a struggling rural community’s downtown area to improve economic performance;

·         Using aquaponics to turn fish waste into plant food, or recycling hog waste;

·         Creating a market that allows homeless people to sell their art.

 

Teams made preliminary presentations in front of small groups of judges, selected from across the state and the nation for their experience in community engagement and business. Judges moved forward to the finals student groups from Ellizabeth City State, Fayetteville State, NC A&T, NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro and Winston-Salem State. After final presentations in front of the entire room, NC State’s “Pennies for Progress” team finished first, followed by a plan from Fayetteville State, a proposal to convert biowaste, with UNC- Chapel Hill’s recycled medical equipment proposal finishing third.

 

The NC State proposal http://www.pennies4progress.org, outlines in detail a strategy for retailers to donate one penny of every purchase to supporting nonprofit work, thereby relieving nonprofits of some of the challenges of fundraising. A summary of the idea is at their website. A summary of all competing plans will be posted on the UNC General Administration conference website, http://www.northcarolina.edu/social_business_microcredit/index.htm

 

The UNC Social Business Conference was sponsored by the Norman Macrae Foundation, TiE Carolina, SBTDC, UNC General Administration and NCA&T State University.  Those organizations, along with the judges and participants, made it an event to remember. As judge Patrick Woodie of the NC Rural Center put it, “The single biggest take away to me is that BIG impact ideas start small, and that small efforts can sometimes have a BIG impact.” Now there’s a challenge: which small ideas take root, grow big, and make a difference?  

@work in the world:

 

 

 

 

Getting Students Globally Ready

 

 

 

 

More than ever North Carolina’s economic success is inextricably linked to the rest of the world. Last year the state imported $48 billion in goods and services – a 13% increase over the previous year. And the state exported more than $27 billion to other countries –up 8%.

 

Whether to succeed in a global economy, understand work colleagues or friends, or work on solving global challenges, North Carolina students need to have global skills and an appreciation of how the world works.

 

But often the people responsible for teaching them have limited exposure to global history, culture or economies.

 

A group of UNC senior international officers and education deans are working together to address that problem, and to make sure North Carolina’s K-12 students are globally ready.

 

This month 41 faculty and staff members from 13 UNC campuses met to brainstorm creative solutions to “internationalize teacher education.” They developed some interesting ideas.

 

The meeting was the latest in a series of discussions that started three years ago. Collaborators have divided their focus into four areas: making practica courses more internationally focused, getting more students practice teaching opportunities abroad, using technology and video conferencing to expose student teachers to other cultures, and finding ways teachers who can study abroad get “immersed” in foreign cultures without having to travel abroad.

 

Julie Kinnaird and Katherine Robinson from UNC-Chapel Hill’s World View program encouraged participants to teach teachers the “Three C’s”: content, key facts and data about international matters; context, how information about any one country fits with information from other parts of the world; and contact, the importance of real interaction with international partners and colleagues.

 

Working groups focused on those issues, looking for ways to teach teachers to use video conferencing to enable more students to get to “know” those in other cultures. They looked for innovative strategies to do more “immersion” of teacher candidates in cultures while staying at home. They examined ways to work a global perspective into a wide variety of subject areas, even those that are not specifically focused on “global” issues. They discussed new funding sources that might support more teacher travel to practice instruction in foreign cultures. A common challenge was money: with limited funds, it is difficult to make as much progress as they would like to as quickly as they would like.

 

The group agreed to continue meeting, continue working on ideas, and making changes to reach their goal of truly global classrooms led by truly global teachers. Participants clearly share a commitment to the idea that the state’s K-12 students can’t be successful  in the future without teachers who help them discover, embrace and learn to navigate their way in the world. global article (paste here)

Fact of the Month

 

 

A  recent analysis by UNC-Chapel Hill professor Dr. Jim Johnson presented to the UNC Strategic Directions committee suggests the UNC student bodies in the future may look different than they do currently. During that period, the whlte student population in K-12 classrooms declined in the state; 60% of the growth in North Carolina K-12 students between 2000-2009 came from among Hispanic students; 32.1% from among African Americans; with 7.2% of the growth coming from Asians.  

 

 

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