Great at Good: 11 Ways Rollins Prepares You to Make a World of Difference

This fall, Rollins became one of the first colleges in the world to launch a major in social innovation. This interdisciplinary degree program equips students to seek out and address societal problems in creative, systemic, and sustainable ways, and it’s the latest example of our commitment to preparing Rollins students to lead lasting change in communities in our backyard and around the world.

The advent of the new major prompted my counselors and me to take stock of Rollins’ social innovation, social entrepreneurship, and community engagement credentials. From immersive alternative breaks and courses that help you put your ideas to work in the world, we discovered a changemaking resume that stacks up to any college in the country.

By Faye TydlaskaVice President for Admission and Financial Aid, Rollins College

Student volunteers break apart a mattress at a furniture recycling center.

1. Seeds of service

In the 12 years since Rollins founded SPARC Day, nearly 9,000 Tars have contributed more than 37,000 hours of service to an average of 24 community organizations each year. Anyone who has participated in the annual day of service knows that the event’s impact stretches well beyond what numbers alone could ever indicate. Each year, SPARC Day plants the seeds of service in the hearts and minds of a new generation of Rollins students, giving them a small taste of what can happen when they put their ideas to work in the world—all before they ever set foot in a classroom.

Students with shovels help convert a residential lawn into a urban farm.

2. A campus committed to change

Back in 2012, the College’s social innovation ecosystem and pioneering business culture received the largest possible vote of confidence. Rollins became the first liberal arts college in the South and the first college in Florida to earn Ashoka U’s Changemaker Campus designation, which is awarded to institutions that are dedicated to making higher education the next global driver of social change. Rollins joined the likes of Cornell, Duke, and Johns Hopkins as one of the first 15 colleges in the country to earn the elite designation from Ashoka U, the world’s leading network of social entrepreneurs. Ashoka U renewed the College’s Changemaker Campus designation in 2016, reaffirming Rollins’ place on the cutting edge of social innovation and changemaking.

Students brainstorm around an outdoor table.

3. Business not as usual

Rollins’ social entrepreneurship degree program is the first of its kind to earn accreditation from AACSB International, the premier evaluator of quality business programs for more than a century. Yes, you heard that right. Not Harvard or Oxford, MIT or Penn. Rollins is leading the way in this new breed of business degree. Founded in 2013, the social entrepreneurship major combines entrepreneurial thinking and action, cutting-edge problem-solving techniques, and best practices from business skill sets. Graduates from the program are well positioned to find—or create—careers that apply innovative and sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.

Students brainstorm in front of a white board at the Florida Hospital Innovation Lab.

4. A winning idea

This past spring, Nikki Hall-Elser ’18, Matias Meirelles Van Vliet ’19, Dayra Diaz-Marquez ’18, and Kinsley Gerks ’20 bested teams from nearly 50 international institutions, including Yale, Cornell, Brown, and UC Berkeley, to win the San Francisco regional of the 2018 Hult Prize, the world’s largest engine for launching for-good, for-profit startups that emerge from universities. Now, their social enterprise, BatterEASE, is working to bring sustainable energy to the 2.2 billion people who live without reliable access to power while also keeping electronic waste out of landfills.

Professors and students brainstorm around a table.

5. Solutions central

Rollins students looking to channel their passion for social change into solution-oriented action need not cross the Atlantic like Team BatterEASE—a short stroll across campus will suffice. Rollins’ on-campus incubator for changemaking, the Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Hub provides students, faculty, and staff with tools and resources to address local and global social issues with big, innovative, system-changing solutions. Next fall, the Hub will be a key tenant of the renovated Mills Center, where it will share a floor with several like-minded programs such as the Center for Leadership & Community Engagement, the Social Entrepreneurship Program, and the student-run Sustainability Program.

Students test a walking tour app of Hannibal Square in Winter Park, Florida.

6. Being a good neighbor (and getting credit for it)

This fall, students in theater professor Marianne DiQuattro’s Create With Me course are examining the growing field of drama therapy while co-creating theater with a group of individuals with disabilities from Opportunity, Community, Ability (OCA), an Orlando nonprofit that services children and adults with special needs. Each semester, Rollins offers dozens of community engagement courses like this, partnering Rollins students with some of Orlando’s most innovative organizations and helping Tars apply what they’re learning in the classroom to make a difference right in our backyard.

Two students plant trees as part of conservation efforts in Moab, Utah.

7. Going all in

From addressing access to safe drinking water in the Dominican Republic to helping preserve one of America’s most dramatic landscapes, Rollins’ Immersion experiences allow students to engage some of the world’s most pressing issues through weekend and sometimes weeklong journeys of education, reflection, and action. These transformative trips have become bucket-list experiences for Tars, which is a big reason why the College has ranked No. 1 nationally for the highest percentage of students who participate in alternative breaks for four of the past six years.

Sunny day in Florida, green grass and big oak trees overhead, students walk along a shaded path in front of the Rollins Olin Library.

8. Learning to lead

During her first year at Rollins, studio art major Meredith Ewen ’19 developed an immersive art program for an Orlando nonprofit that serves children and adults with special needs. A year later, computer science major Sam Sadeh ’18 founded an after-school coding program for students in local Title I schools that earned funding from Google. Both Ewen and Sadeh learned how to lead powerful change in their community through Rollins’ Bonner Leaders Program, a four-year community service opportunity administered through the Center for Leadership & Community Engagement to provide scholarships and enrichment to students passionate about volunteering.

Four students are in view during a class, and they all have a hand in the air to answer a question.

9. Squad goals

This fall, a cohort of 15 Rollins students is working to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through a prestigious leadership development program called the Millennium Fellowship. Students from 285 campuses across 57 nations applied to the highly selective fellowship, which was launched this year by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) initiative and the Millennium Campus Network (MCN). Rollins was one of just 30 colleges worldwide selected to host the global pilot program. From reducing hunger and inequality to increasing access to quality education and clean water, Rollins’ Millennium Fellows are tackling more than half of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.

Aerial view of students tending to a community garden.

10. Sustainable success

Over the years, Rollins’ student-run Sustainability Program has spearheaded everything from the College’s Fair Trade-campus designation and bike-share program to an urban farm that supplies fresh, organic produce to campus dining services. Expect that already impressive impact to grow. In the renovated Mills Center, these environmental entrepreneurs will have a dedicated workspace to dream up new and better ways to help save the planet.

Two students pose with an American flag while monitoring election day results.

11. Electoral prowess

While Rollins’ resume is packed with cutting-edge changemaking credentials, the College is also uncommonly good at engaging students in one of the more traditional means of effecting change: voting. Rollins is one of just 150 campuses nationwide to be named a voter-friendly campus by a pair of national nonpartisan organizations, the Campus Vote Project and Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. Members of Rollins’ student-led Democracy Project create a comprehensive, strategic road map to engage students in the electoral process, from monthly voter-registration drives to hosting debates between local candidates to providing transportation to the polls.