What Happens If You Get Caught With a Fake ID at a Bar?

DAF Lab | Hostile Legislation, Digital Activism, and TransCrip Storie

Bright red poster, featuring three photos of speakers: V. Jo Hsu, Christina V. Cedillo, and Ada Hubrig. Five figures of various identities and presentations are illustrated at the bottom.

Bright red poster, featuring three photos of speakers: V. Jo Hsu, Christina V. Cedillo, and Ada Hubrig. Five figures of various identities and presentations are illustrated at the bottom.Our social media feeds are cluttered with unending news of impending legislation, policy rollbacks, and vociferous attacks on BIPOC, transgender, queer, and disabled people. So-called “anti-woke” schooling efforts have resulted in the dismantling of DEI infrastructures in numerous universities and school districts, alongside statewide adoptions of right-wing curricula that reinvents histories on race and racism in the U.S. Anti-trans actors have successfully lobbied for bans on gender-affirming care and have spearheaded campaigns that target all domains of trans life, ranging across access to bathrooms, medicine, sports, and learning. Our home institutions have declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be over, all while immunocompromised, chronically ill, and disabled people continue to die.

In the midst of this onslaught, how do we survive, much less maintain optimism? This roundtable and workshop considers digital storying as a means for maintaining and amplifying community.

This event will be held on Zoom. We want to make our events accessible to all participants. CART services will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate, please email Giselle Mills at gimills@umich.edu.

Register to attend on Zoom: https://myumi.ch/EPMnk

Ross Impact Gala

Net Impact is thrilled to present the Impact Gala, in collaboration with the Community Case Competition club. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate our Fall Impact projects and strengthen connections within our wider impact community. The event will highlight the impact related work across the Ross community including the Community Case Competition, B+I, Detroit Initiative, and Net Impact Club. Find event specifics below and secure your spot by RSVPing on CampusGroups. We’ve reserved some tickets exclusively for Net Impact club members, so be sure to snag yours from that allocation!

What: Semi-formal gala to celebrate community Impact and connect with peers and members of the community. Appetizers will be served. 

Price: Free! But limited capacity

Who: All are welcome, including community members and partners

When: December 4th, 2023 from 6:00 – 8:00pm

Where: UMMA – Apse Room – 525 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

RSVP Campus Groups

Ross Impact Gala

Net Impact is thrilled to present the Impact Gala, in collaboration with the Community Case Competition club. It’s a great opportunity to celebrate our Fall Impact projects and strengthen connections within our wider impact community. The event will highlight the impact related work across the Ross community including the Community Case Competition, B+I, Detroit Initiative, and Net Impact Club. Find event specifics below and secure your spot by RSVPing on CampusGroups. We’ve reserved some tickets exclusively for Net Impact club members, so be sure to snag yours from that allocation!

What: Semi-formal gala to celebrate community Impact and connect with peers and members of the community. Appetizers will be served. 

Price: Free! But limited capacity

Who: All are welcome, including community members and partners

When: December 4th, 2023 from 6:00 – 8:00pm

Where: UMMA – Apse Room – 525 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

RSVP Campus Groups

Power and Perspectives

What is power? No, we’re not just talking about superheroes here. Join the office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and The Ginsberg Center to talk about social power, how it shows up in your life, and what we do with the power and influence we all have.

Register

Impact Courses You Won’t Want to Miss in Winter 2024

Below is our special listing of highlighted impact courses being offered in Winter 2024.  For a complete listing of all impact courses available to students in Winter 2024, please look at our Impact Gateway Course listing, where you will find over 500 impact courses!

BUSINESS

FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

+Impact Studio Course (BA 670)

Professors: Cat Johnson, Jerry Davis |  Credits: 3
Winter 2024


The +Impact Studio graduate course BA670 prepares students to be architects of an equitable, just, and sustainable future. In Winter ’24, this award-winning course will focus on the green energy transition.  We will be engaging with neighborhood partners in Detroit to design equitable and feasible business models for innovative green energy models that support communities. The course is 3 credits, and will be offered to all graduate students on Wednesday mornings during Winter semester.  This course received an Aspen Business & Society Ideas Worth Teaching Award in recognition of its expansive purpose, innovative thinking, and integrated, multi-disciplinary approach.


FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

LBLE – Living Business Leadership Experience (BA 655)

Professor: Mike Barger  |  Credits: 3
Winter 2024

FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

LBLE – Living Business Leadership Experience (BA 455)

Professor: Mike Barger  |  Credits: 3
Winter 2024

Living Business Leadership Experience (LBLE) is a 3.0 credit-hour Ross elective course where graduate and upper-level undergraduate students from across the University collaborate to shape, implement, and lead high-impact business initiatives alongside company founders and senior leaders. Whether you’re interested in learning business by doing business, working in a cross-functional team, or navigating complex and ambiguous business environments, this course will give you the chance to develop your leadership skills and dive headfirst into the challenges of business.

Learn How to Join. To learn more about upcoming Winter 2024 enrollment, email rossactionlearning@umich.edu.


FOR UNDERGRADUATE & MM STUDENTS

Social and Environmental Responsibility and Marketing (MKT 470)

Professor: Burcu Tasoluk
Credits: 3 | Winter 2024

This course will cover interactions between society and marketing and marketing’s role and responsibility (in both environmental and social issues) in society. We will take a triple bottom line (People, Planet, Profit) perspective when evaluating these interactions. As such, the impact of social and environmental concerns on marketing actions, consumer behavior and company performance will be discussed in detail. Diverse perspectives from business ethics, strategy, economics, psychology, and sociology will help students adopt different lenses while analyzing a complex array of contemporary marketing issues. We will be using case studies throughout the course and students will have the opportunity to work collaboratively with peers and to discuss a broad set of interesting topics. Course topics will include Social Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Consumer Attitudes toward Sustainable Marketing, Social Influences on Responsible Consumer Behavior, Corporate Social & Environmental Initiatives, Marketing & AI, Brand Activism, and Brand Purpose.


FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

InterMission – An Action-Learning Expedition (MO 330)

Professor: Kevin Thompson
Credits: 3 | Winter 2024


InterMission is a self leadership course for students adrift in a sea of expectations who are exceptional at fulfilling goals set by others but find themselves too busy to reflect on whether they are the right thing to do.  The course includes a one-week wilderness expedition in Utah’s Canyonlands with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). The wilderness expedition is strenuous and has an incremental cost.  InterMission has 10 classroom sessions of 90 minutes each and 7 intensive days on the wilderness expedition, which runs at the conclusion of winter term before summer internships. The classroom sessions will utilize and apply three rigorous, science-based frameworks developed at Harvard Business School, Virginia’s Darden School and Michigan’s Ross School.

View the syllabus


SUSTAINABILITY

FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Sustainable Operations and Supply Chain Management (TO 560)

Professor: Ravi Anupindi
Credits: 2.25 | Winter 2024(A)

Firms today face increasing pressure from activists, investors, and customers, to reduce the environmental impacts of their operations and supply chains as well as uphold basic human rights and labor standards for the people who produce the materials / components / products.  How is responsibility (for ensuring sustainability) apportioned across the extended value chain that includes the end consumers? This course examines how to design and manage environmentally and socially responsible operations and supply chains. This course is actually 2.25 credit hours, although it may be listed as 1.5.


FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development and Enterprise (STRAT 566)

Professor: TBA
Credits: 3 | Winter 2024


Challenges to a sustainable human future such as climate change, population growth, biodiversity loss and persistent poverty are characterized by extraordinary detail and dynamic complexity. This course fosters the skills of systems thinking and systems dynamics modeling necessary for understanding global environmental and social change. This holistic and dynamic understanding is employed to chart pathways for sustainable human development and business.


POLICY AND LAW

FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Human Trafficking Lab (Problem Solving Initiative),
(LAW 741.001)

Professors: Elizabeth Campbell (Law), Courtney Petersen (Law), Chavi Nana (Law)
Credits: 3 | Winter 2024

The Human Trafficking Lab is a social justice innovation space where multidisciplinary student teams use design thinking to research, incubate, and build replicable, scalable, and disruptive solutions to reduce vulnerability to trafficking.

The Lab takes an expansive approach to addressing vulnerability. As such, projects cover a wide range of topics, and they vary each semester. Some examples of topics might be helping job seekers expunge their criminal records when they apply for a job, combating misinformation in anti-trafficking narratives, and addressing forced labor in supply chains. Geared towards creating systems level change at policy, service, and industry levels through collaborative partnerships across the nonprofit, corporate, and governmental sectors.


FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

Roadmap to Clean and Equitable Power in Michigan (Problem Solving Initiative), (LAW 741.002)

Professors: Andrew Buchsbaum (Law), Mike Shriberg (SEAS)
Credits: 3 | Winter 2024

Extreme heat. Severe storms. These climate change impacts are accelerating a spiraling crisis: driving higher power demand while degrading reliability and increasing costs, especially for underserved communities. At our current tipping point moment, this multidisciplinary problem-solving course will analyze alternatives to investor-owned electric utilities in Michigan, creating a roadmap to solutions ranging from adjusting incentives to a full public takeover. Students from across campus will apply to partner with climate and energy justice advocates to publish and present their findings.


ENGINEERING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

FOR UNDERGRADUATE & GRADUATE STUDENTS

Socially Engaged Engineering & Design (SEED) Capstone (ENG 490.33530)

Professors: Charlie Michaels, Erin Moore
Credits: 3 | Winter 2024

The Center for Socially Engaged Design (C-SED) is excited to announce the new Socially Engaged Engineering & Design (SEED) Capstone course for the 2024 Winter semester. This 3-credit, elective course will provide students the opportunity to explore complex challenges, engage with real stakeholders, and design people-first solutions.

In the course, you will engage with stakeholders, perform primary and secondary research on contextual factors, learn and practice interviewing skills, present a solution idea and summary of your process and possibly continue your work in a funded Summer Fellowship program! How does it work? The SEED class will be hosted in a hybrid format, is group-project-based and requires significant independent teamwork outside of course hours. You will work on a team in this course. Project topics will be provided; there will also be an opportunity to propose your own team-based project as part of this course. 

Are you interested in joining the SEED Capstone course? To get course registration notifications and more information, please complete this brief interest form.

Rethinking Disability and the Divine Image: Resisting Ableism, Queering Kinship

Photo of Professor Julia Watts Belser

Photo of Professor Julia Watts BelserThe assertion that humanity is made in the image of God has long been a linchpin of Jewish ethical thought, grounding contemporary commitments to human rights, racial justice, gender equity, disability affirmation, and more. But “divine image” traditions rest on a troubling intellectual history, one that traffics in human exceptionalism, anthropocentrism, and intense ableism. This talk critically examines that complex history and imagines richer alternatives, showing how queer, feminist, and ecologically-informed disability wisdom can catalyze a radical recognition of the sacred among human, animal, and earthy kin.

About Julia:
Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, as well as a rabbi and longtime activist for disability and gender justice. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, and disability in rabbinic literature; she also brings classical Jewish texts into conversation with disability studies, feminist and queer theory, and environmental justice. She is the author of several scholarly books, including Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her latest book is Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023).

Join us person in 2022 Thayer or online here: https://myumi.ch/m7MeD

Three MBAs Receive 2023-24 Skip and Carrie Gordon Scholarships

ANN ARBOR – Oct. 23, 2022 – Business+Impact (B+I) is pleased to announce that Robin F. Baker (MBA ’24), Jill Dannis (MBA/MS ’24, Erb),  and Elijah Forrester (MBA/MS ’24, Erb) are the recipients of the 2023-24 Skip and Carrie Gordon Scholarships for outstanding commitment to solving complex social challenges. The award comes with $7,500 for each recipient. Gordon Scholars serve as B+I Student Ambassadors for the 2023-24 academic year. 

Learn more about each of them by reading highlights from their essays:

Robin F. Baker

For nearly a decade, I practiced as a licensed occupational therapist, specializing in stroke rehabilitation within the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area. As a daughter of Liberian immigrants, I felt an innate sense of responsibility to extend my skills as an occupational therapist to the West African community. This inspired me to create GoTHERAPY, Inc., a nonprofit organization committed to improving access to physical rehabilitation and community health services in West Africa, specifically Liberia and Ghana.

My experience in Ghana shed light on the complexities of managing chronic conditions like hypertension and stroke in communities with limited resources. Notably, the center opened its doors on the very day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The center has achieved multiple milestones: it has transformed countless lives, contributed more than $250,000 in pro bono therapy services, and created job opportunities for four therapists.

During my time at Ross, I committed myself to understanding and addressing inclusivity and equity challenges, beginning with my transformative experience in Dr. Chris Rider’s Equity Analytics course in Fall 2022. This would lead me to pursue independent study and work to co-found the First at Ross club with equally passionate and committed students.

Building on my academic experience, my summer internship provided another perspective. In my internship, I observed similar challenges that first-generation students face in the corporate realm, particularly in areas such as financial accessibility and availability of resources. Recognizing this gap, I stepped forward as an advocate for underrepresented interns. Whether in the classroom, during my internship, or within the wider community, I have been inspired to challenge the status quo and advocate for equity and inclusivity. I now view impact as the small daily decisions that help shape the lives and experiences of those around us, often in profound yet understated ways.

Professionally, this new understanding shapes my leadership style, characterized by empathy, understanding, and a genuine desire to elevate those around me. As an incoming Regional Director in Detroit, I intend to use my role to coach and mentor frontline employees—often hourly workers—guiding them toward financial empowerment through the company’s career development program.


Jill Dannis

As an undergraduate at LMU, I joined the Belles Service Organization, whose mission is to inspire civically engaged and empowered women with and for others through direct service and domestic violence awareness advocacy. After undergrad, I worked as a mission coordinator at Angel Flight West, worked at The Trevor Project, and managed scholarships at the Point Foundation

After realizing my passion lay more in the DEI space than higher education, I joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to support marginalized young people seeking careers in the entertainment industry. I also completed the AIDS/LifeCycle ride in both 2018 and 2019.

This past year, I was the President of Ross’ Out for Business LGBTQ+ club, a founding board member and VP of Advocacy and Education for Business Leaders for Diverse Abilities (BLDA), a new club focused on disability within business, and VP of Professional Development for Net Impact during the Fall semester.  With the help of the entire Ross community, the OFB club raised $15k for Jim Toy Community Center, breaking previous MBgAy fundraising records. 

As an MBA1, I completed a consulting project for a Detroit nonprofit via the Detroit Initiative at Ross. I became a +Lab Fellow with the Center for Positive Organizations, and have prioritized taking courses taught by CPO faculty. As an MBA2, I lead a team of 4 MBAs in a consulting project for a Ross alum to explore and design recommendations building inclusivity for LGBTQ+ folks in the workplace. In addition, I am currently working as a Teaching Assistant for Professor Andy Hoffman for his course on Management as a Calling. 

Long-term, I hope to be a corporate social responsibility leader at a large technology company to integrate social good at the organizational level in business strategy and culture. In that vein, I interned last summer at Amazon Web Services in their HR Rotational Leadership Development Program (HRLDP).

While I started at University of Michigan as just an MBA student, I realized during my first year that, despite the additional time and money required, the M.S. in Behavior, Education and Communication from the School for Environment and Sustainability would enable me to make an even stronger impact in the business world. I negotiated with AWS to convert my full-time employment offer into a second internship, and will intern on a new Corporate Social Responsibility & Impact team this summer. Outside of work, I look forward to getting involved again in volunteering. I am interested in completing AIDS/Lifecycle again in the future, as well as potentially finding other cycling fundraiser rides. 

 

Elijah Forrester

Early in my career, I worked as a Policy Analyst at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. I worked on the Energy & Environment team, writing bill briefs and recommending policy positions by analyzing state and federal policies for 400+ member companies to understand and act on environmental risks. I received my BA from The Evergreen State College where I majored in Sustainable Development and completed a 6-month study abroad at the University of Copenhagen, studying Sustainability in Europe.

In 2015 I co-founded Volta, a clean energy company in Ghana. I will never forget the moment when I switched the power on for our first customer, a health clinic two hours from the capital city, Accra. By 2017, Volta was named a Top 10 Global Solar Startup at the World Expo in Astana, Kazakhstan. We went on to build more than 400 solar power projects.

From 2015 through 2020, I lived and worked in Ghana, building clean energy projects for farms, hospitals, schools, and businesses. Growing my solar company, Volta, into a leading clean energy company in West Africa has provided many insights and lessons rooted in my experience overcoming the challenges of building a business in an emerging market.

My time at Ross is a launchpad for the next chapter in a life-long path.

I have invested a substantial portion of my time at Ross outside the classroom to deliver impact in a variety of ways. Leadership positions in clubs and communities across campus have been rewarding, yielding robust results on a personal and professional level. Here are some of my most impactful highlights as a dual MBA/MS candidate:

– I founded the Africa Innovation Hub (AIH), a student-led initiative with support from the William Davidson Institute, Zell Lurie Institute, and Business + Impact. AIH is a startup incubator and accelerator for Africa-focused companies.

– I am a founder of the Student Carbon Neutrality Network (SCaNN), a network of student organizations sharing a common goal for a just transition to carbon neutrality.

– I am a Graduate Student Advisor to President Santa Ono on the Campus Planning Committee, where we focus on key topics like affordable housing, accessible transportation, and sustainability.

– I am a Graduate Student Advisor to the University of Michigan CFO Geoff Chatas on the executive search committee.

– I am organizing a learning and impact retreat for 25 sustainability students in Vermont this October. We will visit local food producers to learn from farmers about their work and how they approach sustainability.

– As a Board Member and VP of Partnerships of the Energy Club @ Ross, I organized and hosted two panels for our annual flagship event, Ross Energy Week.

– I am a board member of the Africa Business Club (ABC) and serve as the VP of Finance and Operations. I organized our annual flagship event, AfroBeats, an African dance competition.

My post-graduate plan is to join a Fortune 500 company that is actively investing in its climate goals and working on a net-zero emissions plan. My long-term career goals are to become a Chief Sustainability Officer at a large organization, driving the transition to a socially and environmentally responsible business, and becoming an agent of change within the global business community.

Understanding ESG: what is ESG data, and how can I use it?

SORRY, THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.

Nearly all major corporations release ESG reports, and global ESG (environmental, social, governance) assets under management are projected to pass $50 trillion in 2025. Some see ESG data as an essential tool to guide corporations toward positive social impact. Yet the investment strategy has become controversial, and some states have banned the use of ESG standards for government funds. What is ESG, how can I get and use ESG data, and why is a seemingly niche investment strategy suddenly so political?

Find out at this hands-on workshop:
Date: October 30, 6:00-9:00
Place: Blau Colloquium

The workshop, sponsored by Ross Business+Impact, Business+Tech, and Just Capital, provides hands-on experience with ESG data to answer three questions:

  • How can I evaluate a specific company’s ESG performance (e.g., a potential employer)?
  • How can I assess ESG mutual funds and ETFs that I might invest in?
  • How can I use ESG data to create a portfolio that matches my values?

The workshop assumes no prior knowledge of ESG.

SORRY, THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT.

(Note: participation is limited to the first 50 registrants.)

A More Just Future: A Keynote Address from Dolly Chugh

A More Just Future - Dolly Chugh Event Flyer

A More Just Future - Dolly Chugh Event FlyerWe are pleased to welcome Dolly Chugh to the University of Michigan for a discussion on how we affect social change. Dolly Chugh (she/her) is a social psychologist and management professor at the New York University Stern School of Business and the author of A More Just Future:  Psychological Tools for Reckoning with our Past and Driving Social Change. She teaches MBA courses in leadership and management. Dolly’s excellence in teaching earned her the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2020, one of six professors selected from thousands at NYU. She was also one of five to receive the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award in 2013.

Dolly’s research focuses on “bounded ethicality,” which she describes as the “psychology of good people.” Her work has been published in the leading psychology, economics, and management journals, and cited by many books and authors. She has been named an SPSP Fellow, received the Academy of Management Journal Best Paper award, been named one of the top 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics by Ethisphere Magazine, and received many other research honors.

Dolly is best known for her two books The Person You Mean to Be:  How Good People Fight Bias (HarperCollins, 2018) and A More Just Future:  Psychological Tools for Reckoning with our Past and Driving Social Change (Simon & Schuster, 2022). 

This event is co-sponsored by Business+Impact.

Register

Do ESG Ratings Do Any Good? Examining the Organizational and Social Consequences of Rating Corporate Virtue

Ben Lewis

Ben LewisIn the early 1990s, ESG ratings were originally seen by proponents as a market mechanism that would help motivate improvements in corporate accountability. However, recent critiques have questioned validity of these ratings, raising concerns about whether they incentivize improvements in corporate behavior. In a series of studies, we examine the organizational and social consequences of rating corporate social performance, particularly within the domains corporate philanthropy and board gender diversity. We find compelling evidence that firm behavior and broader social norms can shift in response to these ratings, albeit, not always in ways that were intended. In light of recent critiques and the rise of the anti-ESG movement, we consider the limitations and potential future of ESG ratings.