Business
Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Degree Program
Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Not Business as Usual
The Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (SISE) program is part of our business department, but we don't do business as usual. The SISE program trains leaders in all sectors to use business skills to analyze complex real-world problems and design innovative solutions for social impact.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (SISE) program is to prepare undergraduate students who desire to address today’s social problems through an innovative, sustainable, and interdisciplinary approach to vocational training for careers creating social impact. Building on a foundation of core courses in social entrepreneurship, psychology, sociology, political science, communications, and business, students choose a concentration that equips them with professional skills for advancing justice, mobilizing resources, opportunities, and stakeholders in their field, and leading social change.
Why Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship?
The SISE program focuses on upskilling student leaders to create social impact through…
- An Interdisciplinary approach that encourages collaboration and design thinking to prepare students for creating innovative solutions to real-world problems
- Experiential hands-on learning that privileges projects and praxis to test theories and frameworks in real situations with matrices for evaluating impact and sustainability and learning goals related to application and adaptation
- Flexible course paths that allow individualized tailoring for the development of skills for a student’s profession built on a foundational set of courses focused on a breadth of topical explorations in social impact with a depth of study in the student’s area of interest on a particular problem.
TLU's Bachelor of Arts in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship is part of our business department but partners with our math, history, theology, dramatic media, and communications departments to create specialized areas of concentration in Faith, Culture, & Diversity, Mental Health Community Interventions, and Media Arts for Change. The degree is interdisciplinary and prepares you for a career in the nonprofit or for-profit social venture arenas.
Customize your bachelor’s degree in social innovation and social entrepreneurship with concentrations in:
SISE Minor: Earn a SISE minor to build expertise in problem analysis, innovative design thinking, and strategy for creating social impact. The minor requires 18 semesters hours: SISE 231: Intro to Social Entrepreneurship (3 hrs); SISE 331: Empathy for Social Change (3 hrs); and 12 additional hours of SISE courses with up to 6 hours from the list of approved courses (MAST, AFAM, ECON, CRCJ, GEOG, BUSI, POLS, SOCI, or PSYC) and a minimum of 9 hours of upper-division coursework (300-level or above).
Download the Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program Fact Sheet
SISE students not only build portfolios of work, write business plans and grants, and specialize in a concentration that provides a career path. They also receive mentorship and gain a competitive advantage for entering the job market through SISE internships and practicums. These experiences allow SISE students to build distinctive resumes, connect with other student leaders on campus, and network with change-making organizations in Texas and around the world. Below are two examples of current opportunities:
Baltimore Urban Studies Internships
Teach Peace Series
The Teach Peace series offers SISE interns the opportunity to identify a sticky social issue that will be the focus of co-curricular learning and events over a full academic year. The program offers campus-wide learning opportunities and activities around the chosen theme to train students to use their vocational path to be peacemakers. Through community organizing and education, students from all majors work together to catalyze positive change and collaborate to develop new solutions to hard problems. Previous interns have focused on racial redlining, social and political determinants of health, war and violence, and mental health.
