social Impact Programs
eCornell’s social impact programs aim to affordably provide education opportunities at scale to people who have great potential but who, without support, would not otherwise have the opportunity to improve their lives and communities through continued education. This mission-focused priority will empower our organization and team to proactively seek ways to work with partners to share knowledge in the most impactful areas of study to underserved populations. Three target audiences are emerging at the convergence of our social impact goals:
- Pre-college students, ages 16-19, in underserved communities
- Adults who may be working but are not earning a sustainable wage
- Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Service Institutions where we might consider embedded programs
Collaboration across Cornell will be fundamental in growing our capacity to fulfill our shared mission of “any person, any study”!
Get Involved
Our social impact team is always looking for faculty interested in designing or teaching a class, however there are other ways to get involved as well. As part of eCornell’s offerings, we are increasingly creating courses and certificates with content that makes a difference, such as sustainability, climate change and social justice. One of the simplest ways to support our social impact mission is to utilize content our team has already partnered with you to create and adapt it for a specific audience.
If you have a topic that would support the greater good or have undergraduates who want to get involved in supporting our existing programs, please reach out to Sally Berkowitz at sally.berkowitz@cornell.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions
We seek to serve communities and populations locally, nationally and internationally that would otherwise not have access to Cornell education due to limited resources. As you can imagine, that is a broad definition. The social impact programs team and eCornell leadership evaluate each opportunity as they come to determine what level of investment our organization can make and define the level of priority. We target three primary audiences:
- Pre-college students, ages 16-19, in underserved communities
- Adults who may be working but are not earning a sustainable wage
- Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Service Institutions where we might consider embedded programs
For most social impact programs, we pursue partnerships with non-profit or government entities which are well-respected and have expertise regarding and access to the audience we are trying to reach. The goal is for eCornell to partner with the NGO on program development. eCornell handles the educational and academic success components of the program, while the NGO is primarily responsible for marketing to and identifying/recommending students, as well as supporting their social needs.
Opportunities arise in many ways. These include:
- Faculty and staff proactively identifying a need and/or partnership opportunity
- Being approached regarding collaboration by a prospective funder
- Independently identifying a funding opportunity, usually a grant
- Evaluating an eCornell product’s usefulness in supporting a critical social need
Our current priorities include, but are not limited to:
- Underserved and low income pre-college students and working adults
- Indigenous students and organizations committed to supporting communities of color, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions
- People and organizations with a physical location in and around an existing Cornell University campus
- eCornell’s corporate clients that have social impact goals in the communities where they live and work
eCornell already supports several social impact programs that exist across the University and within the External Affairs division:
- Bank of America Women’s Entrepreneurship Program
- Hanga Ahazaza Hospitality Program in Rwanda
- National Ed Equity Lab
- New York State Citizen Public Health Leader Training Program
- Lagos State University Partnership in Nigeria
- Real Estate Certification in partnership with Historically-Black Colleges & Universities
- Education supporting Ithaca-area NGOS
We partner with well-respected and renowned NGOs all over the world to ensure that this content is made available to vulnerable communities and individuals who demonstrate need.
For example, we have a relationship with MExoxo, an international nonprofit aimed at educating, empowering and connecting women. As their primary educational partner, we offer programs on scholarship to women from a variety of geographies who have not otherwise had access to post-secondary education due to financial barriers and oppression.
We work with academic units to determine compensation for faculty supporting our Social Impact mission. This could involve teaching relief or compensation, as an example, but the exact compensation is situation-dependent. Faculty may always choose reduced compensation or to donate their time to the social impact mission of eCornell, but this is neither expected nor required. We also do our best to structure Social Impact programs to ensure as little burden as possible to the faculty instructor. For example, with pre-college courses, we engage graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates to conduct office hours, class discussions and tutoring, as well as perform grading where appropriate.