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  • 1.  Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class

    Posted 07-24-2009 11:12
    This fall I'm teaching a course titled "Ecopreneurship." I currently have 20 undergraduates (capacity) and 8 grad students. The undergrads are a mix of business and non-business (some are environmental studies minors) majors, the grads are all in a masters of environmental studies program. I'm looking for suggestions on how to best integrate these students. My hope is to essentially cross-fertilize between business and environmental studies students. Does any one have experience doing so?
     
    Thanks,
    Dave
     

    David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
    College of Charleston

    Office: Tate Center 308
    Phone: 843-953-6447



  • 2.  Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class

    Posted 07-24-2009 12:15
    Put them in teams. In my elective I have had similar mixes. Have them work on projects together.

    Hansen, David J wrote:
    48D3A3F9C27FDC419AF2B1BBD8ACB76CC6A38C@EXCHMBX2.COUGARS.INT" type="cite">
    This fall I'm teaching a course titled "Ecopreneurship." I currently have 20 undergraduates (capacity) and 8 grad students. The undergrads are a mix of business and non-business (some are environmental studies minors) majors, the grads are all in a masters of environmental studies program. I'm looking for suggestions on how to best integrate these students. My hope is to essentially cross-fertilize between business and environmental studies students. Does any one have experience doing so?
     
    Thanks,
    Dave
     

    David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
    College of Charleston

    Office: Tate Center 308
    Phone: 843-953-6447



  • 3.  Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class

    Posted 07-24-2009 12:44
    Dave:

    I did a joint class last year at Rowan.  One of the devices was using a WebQuest for a campus sustainability assessment and proposal to the President.  See: www.njheps.org and search for the Climate change WebQuest.  

    I also did one that used support from the Project Management Institute to split the class into a matrix of project teams, so the different majors and degree groups got to work with others, take on a variety of roles.  That class built the launch plan for a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore operation, a very interesting local recycling / social justice platform.

    Sorry I can't provide more details at the moment -- will get back to you next week when I'm back home.  

    Best,

    Tom.



    Thomas A. Bryant, Ph.D.
    Trustee / Visiting Professor of Social Entrepreneurship, Newark School of Theology
    Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Enterprise Development Center, New Jersey Institute of Technology

    For a different approach to valuing the work of entrepreneurs, SEE: Valuing the Closely Held Firm by Mike Long and Tom Bryant

    On Jul 24, 2009, at 11:12 AM, Hansen, David J wrote:

    This fall I'm teaching a course titled "Ecopreneurship." I currently have 20 undergraduates (capacity) and 8 grad students. The undergrads are a mix of business and non-business (some are environmental studies minors) majors, the grads are all in a masters of environmental studies program. I'm looking for suggestions on how to best integrate these students. My hope is to essentially cross-fertilize between business and environmental studies students. Does any one have experience doing so?
     
    Thanks,
    Dave
     

    David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
    College of Charleston

    Office: Tate Center 308
    Phone: 843-953-6447




  • 4.  Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class

    Posted 07-24-2009 13:24
    Dear Dave,
    One thing you might do is take the group to the solar decathalon in DC this
    October. There is plenty about ecopeneurship and cross-disciplinary skill
    building. The business skills that were required to put this show together
    are mutliple... e.g., financial feas studies, web design/IT, marketing,
    negotiation, $ raising, coordinating working groups on complex projects,
    etc. And the experience of seeing what 20 groups of college kids plus
    volunteers have done will have a large impact. THere is plenty on the web
    to research in advance.
    Good luck.
    Sharon


  • 5.  Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class

    Posted 07-24-2009 13:49
    David,

    Would you be willing to share your syllabus with the list? I would certainly find it helpful.

    Regarding your request, I have only taught one combined upper division/graduate class, although I have proposed several. As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources I took several such courses, and always found them tremendously helpful. The questions and experiences that the graduate students had and shared were extremely valuable, and helped foster involvement of the undergraduates. My personal view is that classes on specialized topics such as business sustainability, ecopreneurship, etc. are ideally suited for UG/grad crosslisting.

    The one combined class that I taught (Managing Organizations for Sustainability) only had three students, all from Mexico. Because of hesitancy about their English abilities, two of them very not very vocal, but one of them was and added a great deal to the course. The only thing that I did differently was to target some questions to them having with to do with Mexico. They also had an additional paper due, to reflect an expectation of a higher grad student workload.

    Hope this helps. Good luck with the course!

    Gordon

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "David J Hansen" <HansenD@COFC.EDU>
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 10:12:16 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
    Subject: Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class


    This fall I'm teaching a course titled "Ecopreneurship." I currently have 20 undergraduates (capacity) and 8 grad students. The undergrads are a mix of business and non-business (some are environmental studies minors) majors, the grads are all in a masters of environmental studies program. I'm looking for suggestions on how to best integrate these students. My hope is to essentially cross-fertilize between business and environmental studies students. Does any one have experience doing so?

    Thanks,
    Dave



    David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
    College of Charleston

    Office: Tate Center 308
    Phone: 843-953-6447
    http://charlestongreenbiz.blogspot.com/


  • 6.  Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class

    Posted 08-02-2009 19:07
    Gordon and others on the list,

    Thank you for all the suggestions. Several people have asked me to post my syllabus. I have a syllabus that I used last year. That course was really an experiment and the syllabus reflects that. I made it as short as possible, both to keep it flexible and to minimize printing needs. The 8 students, including one grad student, that took the class all seemed to be very interested and engaged, even though they came in to the class not knowing what "Sustainable Business V" meant (the name of the course was cut to fit character limits in the registration system - the "V" was for Venturing).

    The design of the class was to first introduce basic concepts of sustainability and general environmental issues, particularly as they applied to the local area. I then had them learn about several 'green' or 'greening' industries (e.g., solar, biofuels, hospitality) again focused on the local area and then pick one to research further. Much of the general environmental and industry information came for a series of speakers I brought into class, in addition to the reading and research they did. From there they conducted market research and used the information to generate ideas for new businesses. The course owes plenty of inspiration to Tom Dean (Colorado State). The idea of looking at industries came from a course of his and the focus on opportunity recognition/development was his suggestion for me to focus on what I know.

    I used two popular press books: Green to Gold and The Clean Tech Revolution. This year I'm reusing The Clean Tech Revolution, and replacing Green to Gold with Cradle to Cradle. I'm also adding a reduced version of the Timmons and Spinelli 8th edition Entrepreneurship text, particularly the first 7 chapters. They include chapters on Clean Commerce and Social Entrepreneurship. I also plan to have them work in teams this year since the course has considerably more students. I will likely make sure that teams comprise at least one environmental studies student and one business student.

    If you're interested, I am going to talk about my class at a PDW at the Academy meeting next week. The session is "Teaching Social and Sustainable Entrepreneurship" and will be from 8:00 - 10:00 Saturday, August 8th in Skyway 269 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

    I'm looking forward to several interesting sessions at the meeting to pick up more ideas for making this year's course even better than last year. Also as a new member of ONE I look forward to meeting other members in Chicago.

    Dave

    David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
    College of Charleston
    Office: Tate Center 308
    Phone: 843-953-6447
    Blog: http://charlestongreenbiz.blogspot.com

    ________________________________

    From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion on behalf of Gordon P Rands
    Sent: Fri 7/24/2009 1:49 PM
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class



    David,

    Would you be willing to share your syllabus with the list? I would certainly find it helpful.

    Regarding your request, I have only taught one combined upper division/graduate class, although I have proposed several. As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources I took several such courses, and always found them tremendously helpful. The questions and experiences that the graduate students had and shared were extremely valuable, and helped foster involvement of the undergraduates. My personal view is that classes on specialized topics such as business sustainability, ecopreneurship, etc. are ideally suited for UG/grad crosslisting.

    The one combined class that I taught (Managing Organizations for Sustainability) only had three students, all from Mexico. Because of hesitancy about their English abilities, two of them very not very vocal, but one of them was and added a great deal to the course. The only thing that I did differently was to target some questions to them having with to do with Mexico. They also had an additional paper due, to reflect an expectation of a higher grad student workload.

    Hope this helps. Good luck with the course!

    Gordon

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "David J Hansen" <HansenD@COFC.EDU>
    To: ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 10:12:16 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
    Subject: Recommendations for combining grads and undergrads in an Ecopreneurship class


    This fall I'm teaching a course titled "Ecopreneurship." I currently have 20 undergraduates (capacity) and 8 grad students. The undergrads are a mix of business and non-business (some are environmental studies minors) majors, the grads are all in a masters of environmental studies program. I'm looking for suggestions on how to best integrate these students. My hope is to essentially cross-fertilize between business and environmental studies students. Does any one have experience doing so?

    Thanks,
    Dave



    David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
    College of Charleston

    Office: Tate Center 308
    Phone: 843-953-6447
    http://charlestongreenbiz.blogspot.com/