Tulane Social Innovation Leader and Student Laura White on Ted-X

See Laura White, Tulane senior and social innovation leader on campus and beyond at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ubAhyX9O0&feature=relmfu

Urban Build in New Orleans

Tulane Social innovation professor, Byron Mouton's project is highlighted here in the Tulane New Wave.

Tulane Students, Professor, Banneker Principal, Ashoka Fellow in Residence and Director of the Birthing Project Present at Ashoka 2012 in Tempe, AZ

Thanks to the presenters from Tulane and Banneker and the Birthing Project for the presentation at the Ashoka U Exchange, in Tempe, Arizona on February 11, 2012

From left to right: Laura White, Melanie Barlow, Colette Bolton, Cheryllyn Branche, Carol Whelan, Reina David, 
Anoop Jain, Katie Smalley, and Kathryn Hall-Truhillo. Photo by Albert Truhillo

From the point of view of a social entrepreneur, two students, a professor, and two community partners, this workshop show how a social venture can be a catalyst for university engagement with the surrounding community. This workshop asked: How can students become engaged in meaningful community service or internships? Can partnerships with universities serve as a conduit for community development? What obstacles prevent successful engagement of universities in their surrounding communities? We had a participatory discussion with leaders from two community partnerships with Tulane University, including the Birthing Project USA to improve birth outcomes for women of color, and a local elementary/middle school partnership to engage youth in social venture creation, to share best practices and to plan a new or improved community collaborations based on these examples. 

Tulane SE Professors Laura Murphy and Aaron Mouton Presenting with Ashoka U colleagues at Ashoka

MAJORS, MINORS, MASTERS & CURRICULUM FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION

Ashoka U Exchange 2012

PREVIEW - There is a growing trend of course sequences for social entrepreneurship. As field evolves, we need more robust and comprehensive frameworks. Join us to get a deep dive into how Tulane and NYU launched their Minor and Major in Social Entrepreneurship and learn about new Masters programs at the Tata Institute in India and at the University of Waterloo in Canada. These programs skillfully integrate a new thinking on social change, including complexity, resilience, design thinking, and scaling ideas and initiatives. Walk away with lessons learned about the content these educators have developed and how they overcame the institutional challenges they encountered during the process. 

Speakers: 
Bethany Halbreich, Teaching Assistant, New York University
Clayton Lewis, Program Coordinator for NYU Program for Social Ventures, New York University
Satyajit Majumdar, Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences Maximilian Martin, Founding and Managing Director, Impact Economy
Ellen McGrath, Clinical Associate Professor of Public Administration, NYU Wagner
Byron Mouton, Professor of Practice of Architecture, Tulane UniversityLaura Murphy, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Global Health Systems and Development, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical MedicineBrian Ng, Senior Teaching Assistant, New York University
Steven Rasovksy, Student, New York University
Cheryl Rose, MSC, Associate Director, Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR); Director of Program Development for the Graduate Diploma in Social Innovation  

Tulane students, community partners and faculty present at Ashoka U Exchange 2012

Community Members as Teachers: A true collaboration between the New Orleans community and Tulane University

Ashoka U Exchange 2012

From the point of view of a social entrepreneur, two students, a professor, and two community partners, this workshop will show how a social venture can be a catalyst for university engagement with the surrounding community. This workshop will ask: How can students become engaged in meaningful community service or internships? Can partnerships with universities serve as a conduit for community development? What obstacles prevent successful engagement of universities in their surrounding communities? Join in a participatory discussion with leaders from two community partnerships with Tulane University, including the Birthing Project USA to improve birth outcomes for women of color, and a local elementary/middle school partnership to engage youth in social venture creation, to share best practices and to plan a new or improved community collaborations based on these examples. 

Speakers: 
Colette Bolton, Student and Project Director, Tulane University and Inclusion Buddies
Cheryllyn Branche Principal, Banneker Elementary School, New Orleans
Reina David, Volunteer, New Orleans Birthday Project
Kathryn Hall-Trujillo, Ashoka Fellow, Founder, The Birthing Project
Katie Smalley, TUchangemakers student, Tulane University
Carol Whelan, Professor, Tulane University Social Innovation in Education

                             TU student Collette Bolton working with Banneker Middle School student.

Principal of Banneker Elementary and Middle School and Tulane Community Partner, Cheryllyn Branche

 

Collaborative Team: Carol Whelan, Laura White, Cheryllyn Branche and Marie Gould

Scott Sherman's Blog

Check out Scott Sherman's comments on Stanford's Social Innovation Blog at .

Mid-Semester Update on Social Innovation in Ed Projects at Banneker and Beyond

Carol Whelan and students at Banneker Elementary and Middle School in New Orleans are featured in Tulane University video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl4s3OmSZoM&feature=player_embedded

Mid-semester Reports on Social Innovation In Education Internship  Projects –

October 18^th, 2011

Joe Eichner

NO Limits Theatre

NO Limits Theater is an after school theater program, functioning as of now at Banneker Middle School.  The class contains 15 eighth grade girls, and will work to give them a creative, judgment free outlet wherein to express themselves.  I think that theater will help these students to have a more open mind, make them more culturally aware, advance their empathies for others, and give them confidence in their identities and who they are.  Also, it will transform their idea of what it means to be in the classroom, allowing them to express their voice and say exactly what’s on their minds.  The program will hopefully result in a performance of some sort to be performed for family and friends, and furthermore, will work with Tulane’s Theater Department to provide students with a more professional theatrical model.

NO Limits Theater is an after school theater program, functioning as of now at Banneker Middle School.  The class contains 15 eighth grade girls, and will work to give them a creative, judgment free outlet wherein to express themselves.  I think that theater will help these students to have a more open mind, make them more culturally aware, advance their empathies for others, and give them confidence in their identities and who they are.  Also, it will transform their idea of what it means to be in the classroom, allowing them to express their voice and say exactly what’s on their minds.  The program will hopefully result in a performance of some sort to be performed for family and friends, and furthermore, will work with Tulane’s Theater Department to provide students with a more professional theatrical model.

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Colette Bolton 

Inclusion Buddies

At this point I am very excited with the progress that Inclusion Buddies has had. All of my volunteers except for one have started working with special needs students on a regular and consistent basis.  I have heard from teachers at Banneker that they are pleased with my volunteers and thy work they are doing with the special needs students.  My biggest upcoming tasks will be finalizing the volunteer workshop date, planning the workshop, and obtaining test data about the students we are working with.  Some of my volunteers are struggling with what they should be doing and would like more guided direction, which I will talk about with Ms. Johnson. I am finding that the Tulane students who have worked at Banneker and with students before have been able to jump right in without much direction, but the volunteers that don’t have much experience need a little more guidance, at least in the beginning. An additional goal for this week will be to check-in with all of my volunteers to see how they are doing and to hear any comments/questions from them.

Atticus Bieff

Work in Tulane University’s President Cowen’s Office in supporting his work with the White House Council on Community Relations (WHCCR)

My last assignment was to research different organizations that help each of the WHCCR’s  four categories of at-risk youth. After completing this assignment, it turned out that the WHCCR’s  changed their agenda and were no longer seeking such a deliverable from President Cowen's office.  Instead, the Council wanted the President's Office to report on secondary-school education in general.

The direction for my internship is still up in the air because we are operating from one call with the WHCCS to the next because the WHCCS has not settled on what it wants from us. This week, my assignment was to research a potential keynote speaker for an event to be held in the Spring. However, it turned out that the speaker would not be needed so I will not have another assignment until I meet with my supervisors next week.

There is a meeting of the WHCCS on October 14th in Washington, D.C. that my supervisors will attend. Hopefully, after this meeting, we will have more direction and I can continue my work for the internship.

(More information about the WHCCR’s can be found at http://www.serve.gov/council_bio.asp.)

Hope Barnard

Ladder to the Sky

At this point in the process, working with Mr. Smith and with the help of George Martin has been much more effective than trying to work with the larger administration system at Banneker. I've developed the outlook that in this process, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. I've learned that it's much more expedient to try to track down anyone I need to talk to during the school day than to email them. I've also learned how unavoidably time consuming this process is: identifying struggling readers, identifying their precise reading level to order workbooks for each, identifying each of their needs, coordinating with Special Education when appropriate, matching volunteers to students, and coordinating their meeting. If I were starting the process over, knowing what I need now in a way I didn't initially, I'd get as much of a head start over the summer as possible.

Where we are now: I got an email this morning informing me that our Youth Venture check has finally been mailed! I'll be pulling Mr. Smith's students from their English classes tomorrow to work through older versions of the workbooks we'll be using to determine which level workbook to order for each student After the check comes in, I'll order the workbooks we need. I'm also getting Mr. Smith's class schedule today so that we can coordinate our volunteers' and students' schedules.

Ellye Birnbrey

Ladder to the Sky Mid-Semester Report

At this point in my project, things finally are starting to get off the ground. I organized a googledoc of all of the volunteer time slots and set a date for our training session within the next week. Soon, all of our volunteers will be in Banneker working with kids. I think a few things really slowed us down until now. We were waiting on the money from our grant and were waiting on an okay from Banneker. We were waiting for something to really give us a head start until we realized that it was up to us to make our own head start and get the ball rolling. We also decided to work with only Mr. Smith's class, which really helped us. Once we chose a small sample group we were able to stay more organized and have better communication. I think it is really important that we always assign goals and tasks with exact due dates. Hope and I are really trying to time manage, and I think we are becoming much more successful at that.

Ladder to the Sky Literacy is a program for the children of New Orleans who have unfortunately been sliding through each year without being given a real chance for success. These are students in 6th through 8th grade who are reading drastically behind their reading level, many at a 1st or 2nd grade level. Our volunteers work individually with these students twice a week to build confidence and increase morale about learning and reading. Our goal is not only to increase their reading levels by at least 2 grade levels, but also to change the way they think about reading and learning through positive reinforcement and support.