Dear Friends of Miller Center,
I am delighted to announce our new cohort of Global Social Benefit Fellows.
These 16 talented and visionary Santa Clara students come from such diverse academic departments as Finance, Marketing, Communication, Public Health Sciences, Environmental Science, Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies. Seven of the Fellows are members of the University Honors program.
The COVID-19 pandemic means that their field research experiences, normally conducted June-August, have been postponed until the next academic year. A majority of the 8 GSBI alumni social enterprises hosting fellows have requested remote engagements, research projects that can be initiated now and conducted over zoom and with other distance technologies. The fellows have demonstrated remarkable resilience! They are learning to navigate the ambiguity of this present moment, all while pursuing projects that can add value to the social enterprises. The fellows are learning in real time the real world lessons in how social enterprises manage crises brought about by COVID-19.
Two teams of fellows are working with social enterprises (Eggpreneur, Teach A Man To Fish Foundation) that are apprenticing Catholic Sisters in East Africa in the principles of social entrepreneurship. These fellows are actively contributing to the Sisters Blended Value Project.
Please join me in congratulating the Global Social Benefit Fellows as they pursue their passion for social entrepreneurship — even as they have to navigate the uncertainties of this pandemic.
A documentary about our award-winning fellowship program aired on the show Bay Area Bountiful in 2019. If you missed the show, check out the 12 minute director’s cut here — it follows the transformational journey that fellows undertake.
Peace and all good,
Keith
