Happy Spring! The Bard MBA in Sustainability Team is thrilled to launch our quarterly newsletter to keep you informed of our latest student, faculty and program updates+partnership opportunities. Enclosed you’ll find news on our New York City activities, NYCLab consulting projects, published works by our students, and application deadlines. We are very grateful for all of your support and interest in our program as we graduate our second class of passionate and mission-driven MBAs. Don’t hesitate to contact us at anytime with questions and ideas. We would love to hear from you.
Bard’s MBA program, in the heart of NYC, is one of a select few programs globally that fully integrates sustainability into a core business curriculum. Please let qualified applicants know it is not too late to apply for next fall: we will accept inquiries as late as June 15th.
Impact NYC
In the spirit of Earth Day, last week two MBA students took their Capstone Projects to TechDay New York. Jeff Leatherwood ’15 showcased his environmental podcast business The Roundary, while Libby Murphy ’14 exhibited her new company focused on sustainable, affordable living: Up Homes. In March, Libby was also featured in Career 2.0 The Climate Scientist Turned Sustainable Entrepreneur. Make sure to check out her inspiring career story!
Earlier in the year, the Bard MBA hosted ISOS’ GRI G4 training in our NYC classroom. We also sponsored the Food + Enterprise Summit at Industry City in Brooklyn, NY. Leading up to the conference, students served as mentors to growth-stage food and farm enterprises and provided feedback about their business plans. Also in the sustainable food sphere, Bard MBA helped sponsor Tedx Manhattan “Changing the Way We Eat.” Amy Davila Sanchez ’15 wrote about the experience for the Bard MBA Blog.
RFP On the Way
The Bard MBA has a deep focus on experiential, real-world learning. One of the our main avenues is our first-year NYCLab consulting course, under the leadership of Laura Gitman, Vice President at BSR. Our students are currently wrapping up sustainability and strategy projects for ConEd Solutions, HSBC, and Inward Point. Look out for our RFP mid-May and consider applying to be a client for the 2015-16 academic year.
Additional experiential learning opportunities are incorporated into our curriculum and program through company visits. This spring we had the pleasure of visiting two B Corporations in the Brooklyn Navy Yard- IceStone and EcoLogic Solutions. Simon Fischweicher ‘16 recounts the experience visiting these two sustainable businesses in The Brooklyn Navy Yard: A Hub for Innovative and Mission-Driven Business.
Staying on the B Corporation theme, we took an after work field trip to Etsy to tour their beautiful Brooklyn headquarters and meet with their Sustainability Director Devon Leahy. First year student, Mariana Souza, tells us about it here.
Student Voices
Bard MBA students have had their work featured in various publications. Jessica King ’15, Executive Director of Assets Lancaster, had a great piece published in Lancaster Online: Big Ideas Needed for Small Enterprises. And Ian Edwards ’15 published Sustainability: What’s the End Game?in TriplePundit.
Through our Sustainable Business Fridays program, students have the chance to develop thought leadership in the sustainability space. Over the last semester, students interviewed Joel Salatin of Polyface Inc., Kristen Sullivan of Deloitte, and half a dozen more sustainable business leaders. Check out their interviews in our regular GreenBiz column, or listen to the podcasts here.
Staying Connected
As our next group of graduates heads out in the world to transform existing companies and build their own mission-driven organizations, they know there is a lot of work to do: rewiring the world with clean energy, reimagining the global food system, reinventing finance. Please alert folks who want to be part of this work about our program. We invite them to apply to be a part of our 2015-16 MBA class and the integrated, low-residency sustainable MBA program at Bard.
We look forward to hearing from you!