These short-courses are normally 3 weeks long, meeting 2 days a week (T,TH or M,W) from 2:15 to 4:05. Find out more about teaching a short course: Short Course Information and Frequently Asked Questions.

I am always interested in learning about new groups on campus that use the concept of enterprise. Less than a month old, a student group, the Social Entrepreneurs of Grinnell enthusiastically embrace the principles of microfinance as a means of raising the standard of living of individuals in less developed countries. Thus far SEG has raised funds to help five persons, four of them in Africa, with small loans to help them enlarge their agricultural and craft businesses. See the SEG portfolio at http://www.kiva.org/lender/socialentrepreneurs8132 .

The concept of microfinance became popular with the work of Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, awarded The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006. Social entrepreneurship in general has become a movement, sparked by such books as David Bornstein's How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas (2004).

If any alumni are or have been deeply involved in social entrepreneurship, please contact me (caulkins@grinnell.edu). I would be interested in seeing if your work would be appropriate for an on-campus presentation or a three-week short course.

These short-courses are normally 3 weeks long, meeting 2 days a week (T,TH or M,W) from 2:15 to 4:05. Find out more about teaching a short course: Short Course Information and Frequently Asked Questions.

Douglas Caulkins, the newly appointed Donald L. Wilson Professor in Enterprise and Leadership at Grinnell College, invites alumni to participate in two courses, "Organizational Cultures" and "Enterprise and Leadership," during the coming academic year.

We want much of the course content to come from alumni, through videoconferencing with the class, presentations/discussions on campus, and through essays written by alumni.

If you are interested in helping build a syllabus for one of these courses during the fall semester 2006, e-mail Doug Caulkins a brief paragraph describing how you might contribute. Please refer to each course as they are linked to a recent essay in the national press and have different deadlines. If you have difficulties in obtaining the articles, please contact Sondi Burnell

The course on organizational cultures will incorporate extensive reading on social capital, particularly concerning the difference between 'bonding' and 'bridging' social capital.

Anna Quindlen's Newsweek Column: "Life of the Closed Mind"

In "Life of the Closed Mind," Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen (May 30, 2005) reflects on the consequences of the 9/11 attack: "The intolerant, the monomaniacal, the zealots driven by religious certainty engineered the worst attack on American soil, and the result has been intolerance, monomania, and zealotry driven by religious certainty."

America has been "hijacked by those who cannot tell the difference between opponents and enemies, between disagreement and heresy, between discussion and destruction" as a consequence of America's increasing polarization and diminished ability to engage in rigorous intellectual analysis.

Quindlen cites evidence for this tendency in a 1998 study of first-year students at Grinnell College concerning models of discussion. In the most common model, students stated what they already believed and did not learn from or explore the views of those with whom they disagreed. Being comfortable in class, rather than being challenged, was a key value for 84 percent of the first-year students. Quindlen asserts that this attitude of 18-year-olds is now increasingly characteristic of the nation at large. Read Carol Trosset study of Grinnell first year students at http://www.findarticles.com

As liberal arts graduates, Caulkins asks, what can we do to promote engaged and openminded analysis and action? Do you agree with Quindlen's analysis or find it lacking? What can we do in our capacities as individuals or as members of business, governmental, or nonprofit organizations to reverse the trend toward polarized thinking, the closing of American minds? Can you provide case studies of how your organization is making a difference?

Help build the syllabus for this course for fall semester 2006. Please email Doug Caulkins with a brief paragraph explaining how you might contribute to the dialogue on 'Life of the Closed Mind' after you have read Anna Quindlen's article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7935070/site/newsweek/

A course on "Enterprise and Innovation" in spring 2006 will incorporate alumni thinking on these issues. "We will read relevant scholars, such as Richard Florida's The Flight of the Creative Class, but I hope that much of the course content will be from the alumni," said Caulkins.

Participating Alumni and Distinguished Visitors this Spring will be:

Dan O’Brien & Pete Ferrell, Ecology/marketing Bison Ranching
Clint Korver '89,: Innovation and Decision-making
Mark Schwartz '77, President and CEO, Bayhill Therapeutics, Palo Alto, Innovation in biotechnology
Leslie Berlin, Robert Noyce and Silicon Valley
David Rosenbaum '78, Intellectual Property Law
Steve Korstad' 72, Plasma Gasification
Monique Shore '90, Green Manufacturing

Thomas Friedman's New York Times Article: "CEOs, MIA." "What is the matter with big business?" asks New York Times correspondent Thomas Friedman provocatively in a May 25, 2005 op-ed article. He is not asking about the board room excesses that have led to such infamous failures as Enron and WorldCom. "I am worried about the disappearance of an internationalist, pro-American business elite," Friedman asserts. The CEOs of major corporations have been MIA-missing in action-or absent from a leadership role on the important national issues, he contends. Friedman cites national health coverage, funding for science and innovation, energy policy, the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement, budget deficits, closure of our borders to the world, and hostility toward other countries as policy issues on which business has been all too silent.

"Yet with a few admirable exceptions," he writes, "American business has not gotten out front on these issue. Neither are businesses providing the kind of leadership needed for maintaining America's economic competitiveness and appealing way of life." "If business does not respond to this challenge, he contends, "the costs to our country will exceed anything that can [be] measured on a balance sheet."

Has Friedman diagnosed the problem correctly? Or would you quarrel with his analysis? "In either case," Caulkins asks, "How would you suggest that the business community and the nation go about addressing some of the problems that Friedman or you identify? Be very concrete: What are you or your organization doing or planning to do? How can your leadership be leveraged to bring others along?

A course on "Enterprise and Innovation" in spring 2006 will incorporate alumni thinking on these issues. "I want much of the course content to be from alumni, through, videoconferencing with the class, presentations/discussions on campus, and through essays written by alumni.," Caulkins said.

If you would like to participate in the dialogue on societal leadership of the business community, read Friedman's article on New York Times and then e-mail Doug Caulkins a brief paragraph describing how you might contribute.