Stone and Nelson Present Case Study at Management Conference

At the annual meeting of the EURAM in Dublin, Ireland, Anne Stone, communication professor and faculty director of the Social Impact Hub, and Melissa Nelson, staff director of the Social Impact Hub, presented a paper about the potential of life design that incorporates the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Ashoka’s “Everyone a Changemaker” world model. Stone and Nelson collaborated with Sebastian Kernbach, a professor from Switzerland’s University of St. Gallen who focuses on design, creativity, and knowledge visualization.

As a foundation for their research, the group had conducted a case study at Rollins wherein students in Rollins’ Professional Advancement program were introduced to the U.N. SDGs during an Introduction to Liberal Studies course. The resulting paper illustrates how design thinking and life design, with a special focus on prototyping and iteration, can help solve problems and address the SDGs creatively, demonstrating how students can overcome procrastination and take action. Using critical findings and reflections from the case study, educators can develop programming focused on educating the next generation of changemakers as they tackle today’s greatest challenges.