[Alumni-chat] Environmental Advocacy (One Version of
SocialEntrepreneurship) at Antioch University
Mark Pomerantz
marklp2 at comcast.net
Wed May 23 00:08:34 EDT 2007
It sounds like they're doing a wonderful job at Antioch New England, and
Steve Chase gives himself a nice little pat on the back. But I was talking
about Antioch College. You know, small liberal arts school in Ohio, 350
students, $30 million endowment, subsidized, however willingly, by the other
branches of the university. That's the campus I was referring to that could
really use a shot in the arm that perhaps a social entrepreneurship focus
could provide. It's something that students, their families, and donors are
really interested in. It's a potential career path as all these separate
movements relating to quality of life and social justice start to meld
together. Why not give them what they want. Of course it's easier to point
at all the similar things that are already being done, even if some of them
are phantoms at the college.
Mark P. '71
-----Original Message-----
From: alumni-chat-bounces at w3.antioch.edu
[mailto:alumni-chat-bounces at w3.antioch.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Brower
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 5:38 PM
To: alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu
Cc: Michael Brower
Subject: [Alumni-chat] Environmental Advocacy (One Version of
SocialEntrepreneurship) at Antioch University
About a week ago Mark Pomerantz and I exchanged emails about his
concern that Antioch College is not picking up
on his ideas about Social Entrepreneurship and not moving assertively
in raising big bucks to hire new faculty and
recruit students for such a program. In one of my responses to Mark,
I wrote the following paragraph about the Antioch
New England (ANE) program in Environmental Advocacy and Organizing.
"Antioch New England (ANE) has a world recognized Environmental
Advocacy and Organizing Program. Our Boston Alumni Chapter is
holding a joint meeting on October 14, at Tufts University, where
Steve Chase, the creator and leader of this program, will be speaking
about it. You are all invited. Just please let me know. I think
that Antioch College and Antioch New England would be wise to develop
more cooperation in this (and other?) fields and faculty sharing."
I sent a copy of this post to Steve Chase at ANE, Director of this
program.
Steve sent me back the following and asked me to post it for your
information:
Michael Brower <mbrower32 at comcast.net> writes:
A couple of months ago Mark Pomerantz '71, in commenting on Arthur
Morgan's legacy for Antioch, included in a longer message, that :
"other colleges are developing various forms of social entrepreneurship,
developmental entrepreneurship, and other environmental and community
development type programs that offer students training to be change
agents as well as a potential career path(s). Antioch is basically
ignoring
this trend except for its service learning programs."
Dear Michael,
Please share this with the Alumni Chat website if you think it would
be useful.
I found Mark's comment really interesting, but when I look at Antioch
University I just don't see what Mark sees. Let me speak first for
the New England campus. This summer we will be launching a new
program in Education for Sustainability to help people already
working as teachers become more effective change agents within our
nation's schools. This will join our already existing program that
trains new teachers to transform public school science education. We
are also launching a new Green MBA program this summer to nurture
change agents in the world of business.
I was also pleased to see that in your own response to Mark you
mentioned ANE's five-year-old graduate program in Environmental
Advocacy and Organizing where we offer professional training to
public interest advocates and grassroots organizers working on issues
of ecological sustainability, social justice, and the democratic
control of corporations. It should be noted that this is the only
environmental studies program of its kind in the entire country. The
program's Advocacy Clinic project has also won awards from Campus
Compact for being an educational leader in community engagement and
service learning education. This program has also just created a new
Antioch/Congressional Progressive Caucus Fellowship Program where
some of our students work for the most progressive leaders in the US
Congress every summer. Antioch University is the only university in
the country that has such an arrangement with the caucus. The
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program is also in negotiations
right now to become a co-sponsor of a new "think and do" tank. The
goals of this new institute will be to 1) research and disseminate
information on the broad theme of corporations and their current
social and environmental impacts: 2) research and develop model
corporate code statues that could be pushed by state and national
corporate reform activists to better address these problems at a more
fundamental level than regulatory law, and 3) research, develop, and
help implement organizing strategies in various states around the
country to help pass versions of these model corporate codes in
several jurisdictions during the next few decades.
The word about our EAOP is also getting around. The program has
already inspired the creation of a similar program within the
Geography Department at the University of Leeds in England. Also,
last year, we received this comment about the EAOP program from Eli
Pariser, the Executive Director of the 3.2 million member group
MoveOn.Org:
"Lots of people care about the future of our country, but not all of
them are as active or effective as they could be. There are just too
few institutions that help inspire, train, and nurture progressive
activists. That's why I'm so excited about Antioch University New
England's Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program. It's a
graduate program that offers in-depth activist training and even
connects its graduates into an ongoing support network. I encourage
everyone seeking to work as a public interest advocate or a
grassroots organizer to check out Antioch's advocacy and organizing
program."
When assessing the nature of our educational programs, I would also
ask folks to consider the fact that students from ANE's Environmental
Studies Department have been granted more Switzer Foundation
Fellowships (a program to support emerging environmental leaders)
than all but two graduate schools in the country. These other two
schools are UC-Berkely and Yale. As I see it, Antioch University is
the Little Engine That Could. ANE also hosts the Antioch New England
Institute, which is a community service consultanting organization
that supports change efforts throughout our region in education,
management, and sustainability. ANEI also involves a number of our
students and faculty.
On the national level, the students in the University-wide doctoral
program in "Leadership and Change" are also doing amazing things in a
wide variety of fields--and this is even before they graduate.
Furthermore, the Carnegie Foundation recently acknowledged Antioch
University as being among a small group of institutions within
American higher education that are genuinely focused on community
engagement and service learning for the common good. Also, later this
month a group of Antioch folks from several different campuses will
be meeting in LA to explore how to increase the programming the
University offers in community change and activist training. And
these are just a few of the things that I know about. Imagine how
many other things are going on our campuses that each of us might not
have heard about.
Can Antioch University do more to train change agents in a wide
variety of spheres of influence? Of course we can. Mark is certainly
right about this. Yet, what Mark might be missing is that his own
goal is still the fundamental mission, goal, and reason for Antioch
University's existence. He may also be missing the fact that we still
are a dynamic innovator in the field of leadership development for
positive social change. This isn't something that died with Arthur
Morgan. Not at all.
I am incredibly excited about doing even more in the years ahead to
make our University become an even stronger leader in this field. I
hope all our alumni--our graduated leaders who are now "out in the
world" making change--will also generously support such initiatives
at the University in any way they can. There is so much we still have
left to accomplish together.
All my best,
Steve
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Steve Chase, Ph.D.
Director, Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program
Department of Environmental Studies @ Antioch University New England
40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431
Steven_Chase at antiochne.edu; 603-283-2336 (office); 603-357-0718 (fax)
* EAOP's Main Website: http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/
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bookstore.cfm
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