The Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education honored Horn Entrepreneurship’s Social Entrepreneurship Initiative with its 2023 Excellence in Curriculum Innovation in Entrepreneurship Award.
The award recognizes an “exemplary commitment to, and success in, developing and offering innovative educational courses and programs that foster entrepreneurship education across the institution.” Horn Entrepreneurship’s Social Entrepreneurship Initiative features interdisciplinary pathways for students to find their place in social innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware. The award winners were announced earlier this summer at the 12th Annual Deshpande Symposium.
“This award recognizes the commitment that Horn Entrepreneurship has to interdisciplinary perspectives and building meaningful partnerships across the campus,” said Stephanie Raible, assistant professor of social innovation and entrepreneurship and UD’s faculty director of Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. “The diversity of majors and perspectives amongst our students brings the best of interdisciplinarity to our classroom, and our curriculum and program offerings in social innovation and entrepreneurship reflect the breadth of interests and orientations that our students have.
“We have been continuously improving the social entrepreneurship course curricula every semester, as well as having undergraduate (minor and certificate) and graduate (certificate) options that offer students the opportunity to complement their studies beyond taking one class in the area.”
“There are a lot of problems in the world. We can either do the same thing and hope they get better or attract and support social innovators who are working to disrupt the status quo and make the world a better place for everyone. This is the intent of our social entrepreneurship initiative,” said Dan Freeman, founding director of Horn.
The Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education is a joint initiative of the Deshpande Foundation and the University of Massachusetts Lowell that focuses on bringing together academics, policy planners, and practitioners to discuss best practices in integrating entrepreneurship throughout their college and university communities.