Although the leadership training and development industry generates billions of dollars each year, some countries lag behind. This article explores one program's attempt to expand leadership training and development opportunities in Nicaragua. The Leadership Trainer Certification Program (LTCP) is designed to prepare those who are responsible for…

Museum educators are well versed in employing multiple techniques for engaging museum visitors. Many use these skills and approaches to support marginalized and vulnerable populations, such as families with an incarcerated adult, families with food insecurity, or unhoused families. Determining how to carry out these beneficial intentions, however,…

Grounded in a close partnership between a university, school district, and non-profit organization, this 5-year mathematics professional development project involves 27 elementary teachers prepared and supported as Elementary Mathematics Specialists (EMSs). The project aims to develop EMSs who deliver ambitious mathematics instruction in their…

This article describes the Social Entrepreneurship for Poverty Alleviation (SEPA) grant-writing program at Austin College. The SEPA program provides a service-learning experience in which students spend a summer writing grants with local nonprofit agencies. In the hope that others might choose to emulate our efforts, what follows is a detailed…

Many social systems, especially education, have an opportunity to significantly improve individual performance and well-being outcomes by attending to and including brain fitness as part of their approach. Brain fitness, like physical fitness, requires exercise. Brain-based "workout" activities improve cognitive development, and their…

The Teach for India (TFI) programme, an important offshoot of the Teach for All/Teach for America global education network, began as a public-private partnership in 2009 in poorly functioning municipal schools in Pune and Mumbai. Like its American counterpart, the programme in India has similar ideas of reform and recruits college graduates and…

An important goal for education innovation is to support the development of today's students into strong and committed global citizens. Innovative programs that build leadership skills and expand foreign policy understanding are critically important to our interconnected future.

Intermediaries--also referred to as bridge builders, boundary spanners, conveners, and other names--fill the critical role of connecting all the parties in the system to empower people with the skills required in the labor force. Those parties generally include employers, educators, workers, and prospective workers. Within these categories may…

There is widespread agreement that collaboration, teamwork and intercultural competence, among others, are essential 21st century skills. Higher education teaching and learning initiatives tend to have a significant focus on developing these skills through assessments and other in-class activities, and yet often do not take advantage of…

Metropolitan universities are well poised in communities to be intermediaries among various actors involved in social innovation. Pace University established one of the first institutes on social entrepreneurship. Its unique position at the university level allows programming to transcend certain institutional challenges. The emerging field of…

Over the last twenty-five years, the Minnesota Historical Society, the University of Minnesota Libraries, and Minitex have developed a partnership centered on creating pathways to higher education by engaging local middle school and high school students in immersive programs at academic libraries. These activities vary in scope and content, but…

Universities throughout the United States operate engagement centers to extend campus faculty, staff and student resources to their communities. In 2014, the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) opened the Barbara Weitz Community Engagement Center (Weitz CEC): a privately funded $24 million, 70,000 square foot facility located in the middle of its…

This article introduces a successful reading program, Family Connections, for incarcerated parents and their children. A comprehensive review of the literature supports the need to implement prison programs from an ecological perspective, in which the needs of inmates and their families are considered. More specifically, the benefits of directing…

After "Zelman v. Simmons-Harris" (2002), civil conflict over use of vouchers and taxes to purchase private education, especially in religious schools, largely remained an issue for state courts' jurisprudence. However, in 2010, it returned to the U.S. Supreme Court when Arizona taxpayers challenged the constitutionality of the state's…

Universities struggle with how to get students more involved and active in the university and community. Providing projects that just collect cans or raise money for a cause, while admirable, are not teaching the students how to be active, how to conduct projects, and give them connections to the community. This paper will describe service…