September’s Design Thinking training organized by the Lewis College of Business (LCOB) in conjunction with its Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (iCenter) for faculty and staff, revisited an important element of our college’s mission and vision – Societal Impact. Much of what we do as scholars and educators at the LCOB directly or indirectly benefits society. Being in a region characterized by low economic development, the LCOB is well positioned to drive social change. The college works closely with students and community partners to identify and solve problems facing local businesses and the broader community. The college’s curriculum, scholarship, and engagement activities support the region’s socio-economic development and are informed by it.
Before the training, we tracked the college’s activities in the last five years to take stock of our social contributions. We found that our faculty conduct research on a wide range of pertinent social topics, including gender inequality, urban innovation, educational attainment, foreign aid allocation, the opioid crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, health care accessibility, recycling and sustainability, and indigent defense. This research is widely disseminated through conference presentations and research articles published in high-impact journals.
In addition to these intellectual contributions, the college has also engaged in activities that may be linked to high social impact. The iCenter won a state grant for training potential entrepreneurs to capitalize on business opportunities in their community and beyond. The college organized a Design for Delight (D4D) Innovation Challenge engaging entrepreneurship faculty and students across state colleges to inspire and equip the new generation of entrepreneurs with skills that boost the local economy. The LCOB also partnered with Harvard Business School students on their Fight Covid-19 project that provided support to small businesses and non-profits across the nation. LCOB’s Beta Alpha Psi student organization partners each year with the United Way of the River Cities on the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, providing free tax preparation assistance to low- and middle-income families in the area. And the list goes on.
The above-mentioned activities in research and engagement map to one or more categories of social impact outlined in the current AACSB standards. In 2020, AACSB formally adopted societal impact as a focus area, guiding all accreditation seeking schools to integrate it into their operating principles. Schools are to choose the preferred area(s) of social impact (Standard 1) and embed them into their curriculum (Standard 4), scholarship (Standard 8) and engagement activities (Standard 9). These standards are based on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework that defines 17 categories of social problems.
At the recent design thinking workshop on societal impact, faculty applied D4D tools to identify strategies for integrating the SDGs into our teaching, research, and service. We (Nabaneeta and Kevin) had the opportunity to attend this session that gave us food for thought and prompted this blog post. We would like to turn it into a college-wide discussion and invite comments from our readers.
The workshop focused on three categories of SDGs where West Virginia faces some of the greatest challenges: 1) Gender Equality; 2) Decent Work and Economic Growth; and 3) Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. The target outcome under these categories were: 1) closing the gender wage gap; 2) increasing employment; and 3) increasing faculty competitiveness for high-impact research grants. At the start of the training, a college faculty with experience in each of the relevant areas was briefly interviewed. Then the workshop participants self-sorted themselves into three groups (one for each area) to quickly brainstorm potential strategies. Once completed these strategies were discussed with all participants.
What are some small steps we could take towards integrating the identified SDGs more widely into our teaching? For instance, we can introduce the topic of wage inequality in our human resource classes under equal employment laws. We could organize career advising sessions to train our students how to combat unequal pay in the job market. As another example, we could adopt a more career-oriented perspective when discussing job placements with our students to help them find gainful employment. Long story short – there are so many ways in which we can start incorporating some of these items into our teaching in the current AACSB cycle and these are just a few minor thoughts on how as it relates to our classes. There may be other ways that are impactful in your classes.
As a global phenomenon, business schools are stepping up from not just creating bankers, consultants, and CEOs to delivering cohorts of high-impact leaders by integrating social impact into their education. Dedicated social entrepreneurship and innovation tracks are trending at many schools while others are integrating social impact training into their existing curriculum. The objective is the same: to bring social change and equip the next generations of business leaders with critical changemaking skills.
We, at LCOB do not see ourselves making leaps and bounds into societal impact right away as we are just getting our footing in this area. But we do see an opportunity for embedding the key elements of social impact into our courses and to start moving the needle forward in line with AACSB standards. We have great potential for social impact but require collective effort to bring it to fruition. We would love to hear other thoughts on how our faculty members can adopt one or more of the SDGs in their teaching.
Nabaneeta Biswas and Kevin Knotts