January 27, 2012

Dear Members of the Babson Community:

Welcome back to all of you who are returning to campus. I also want to extend greetings to all new students, faculty, and staff, as well as to members of our community off campus—alumni, parents, and Fast Track students.

We are introducing a new format for these community messages which I send three times a year—at the start of each semester and at the end of the school year. Scroll down to read this message in its entirety or click on a section link to the right to advance to a specific topic.

 We Did It!

The Babson Rising campaign has come to a close—and what an outcome! The final tally, as many of you have heard, is $216 million dollars in funds raised—an all-time campaign record for the College that exceeds our original goal by $16 million.

The successful resolution of a campaign for any institution is a cause for celebration. Exceeding a campaign goal so dramatically when most of the fundraising occurred during the steepest economic downturn since the Great Depression makes it a remarkable accomplishment. Fundraising everywhere was impacted—yet our community rallied. Bob Weissman ’64, Campaign Chairman, and Diana Zais, Vice President for Development, and her team did an outstanding job.

One of the campaign highlights was $58.7 million in anonymous unrestricted bequests, suggesting that our donors and friends have enormous trust in the institution’s ability to make the right choices around resources. This has the capacity at some point in the future to be transformational in terms of the overall economics of the College.

Special thanks go to all of you who contributed to the campaign. The broad participation across the Babson community—17,500 of our family and friends—was extraordinary. It provided an opportunity for us to connect community members to a vision of what is possible for Babson as we begin to decide “how good we want to be and how fast we can get there.”

Our campaign success gives us the confidence to continue to pursue bold and ambitious programs. In fact, our ability to succeed with this campaign against all odds emboldens us to “think big” about the future and the possibilities for Babson.

 A First for the Undergraduate School

This fall, Dean Hanno put out a call to seniors who would be interested in teaching their passion to other students through a new program known as Senior-Led Seminars. Seniors whose proposals were chosen would teach a not-for-credit five-week seminar in February and March to freshmen and sophomores.

Twenty-three students submitted proposals to teach a seminar and five were chosen: App Development for Entrepreneurs, Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in a For-Profit World, The Food Truck Industry, Political Apathy and the Modern Students, and Basic Theater Concepts Application to Business. Although “entrepreneurship” is not in any of the seminar titles—all five are about being entrepreneurial.

Students responded enthusiastically. Even before the seminars start, we have learned that the topics are of great interest, based on the number of students who registered. While academic credit is not given for the seminars, they do appear on student transcripts, showing that they have studied the topic.

Here’s how Dean Hanno summed up our view of the Senior-Led Seminars in an email to students: “We’d love to see this program flourish and you can learn from this pioneer group of senior instructors about the best way to share your passion with others.”

 Babson’s Presence in Boston Continues to Grow

Babson’s presence on Boston’s waterfront in the Innovation District is expanding—giving the College a higher level of exposure in downtown Boston. It all started last March when Babson subleased graduate student hatchery space at MassChallenge in the Innovation District—the first step for linking Babson students and startups to a broader community of entrepreneurs. In June we signed a lease for 3,500 square feet at a facility on South Boston’s waterfront that features classroom and conference room space. This is only a five-minute walk from our hatchery space at MassChallenge.

Boston Innovation District

Since September, the space has been used to host MBA courses in the evening program. It has also been used for graduate school information sessions and admissions office hours, mainly for our Fast Track and evening programs; Graduate Center for Career Development (CCD) events, where the location makes it much easier to attract corporate executives in Boston and Cambridge to our recruitment activities; and business development.

As an illustration of the multiple opportunities this space provides us, we are partnering with organizations in the district, such as Boston World Partnerships and the Fort Point Channel Business Association, and making connections with other businesses. All of this offers Babson newly-found visibility and institutional networking opportunities. When we make our space available to other organizations, the quid pro quo is that they allow our students to attend their events which then also become a student experience.

Earlier this month we used this space to co-host an event with Mayor Menino to introduce Boston area CEOs to Lemonade Day and to get them to connect financially and with volunteer hours to support Lemonade Day 2012. As you may recall, Lemonade Day teaches elementary and middle school students basic business and entrepreneurial skills by enabling them to run their own business—a lemonade stand. Babson has partnered with the City of Boston as the lead sponsors of Lemonade Day in Boston and surrounding communities.

Looking ahead, this spring we are offering 3 evening courses in our Innovation District facility and our expectation is for increased enrollment in our evening program. We are also considering new programs for the site. The opportunities are there—and, being Babson, we are ready to capitalize on them.

 An Entrepreneur-in-Residence Breaks New Ground with a Focus on Food

Andrew Zimmern

This spring semester acclaimed chef Andrew Zimmern has become an entrepreneur-in-residence at Babson—brought to campus by the Lewis Institute’s Social Innovation Lab.

Andrew will be a tremendous resource for our students interested in virtually any aspect of food. He can bring opportunities to student entrepreneurs, offer the latest insights and thinking on food issues; and provide a wealth of stories to get people interested and eager to solve food-related problems. Andrew is a James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, food writer, and teacher. He is considered one of the most versatile and knowledgeable people in the food world—and is strongly interested in the intersection of food entrepreneurs and social innovation.

A great storyteller, Andrew motivates and activates people by recounting the stories of food entrepreneurs he has encountered in dramatically diverse communities all over the world. He highlights out-of-the-ordinary cuisine from traditional recipes passed down through generations as well as modern dishes resulting from innovation. At the same time, he underscores how ordinary people are taking actions to solve food-related problems. Some may not regard themselves as entrepreneurs, but they have developed innovations for feeding communities and have energized local economies in breakthrough ways. He’s an inspirational example of both Entrepreneurial Thought and Action^® and Entrepreneurship of All Kinds.^® He is also among the most followed chefs on Facebook and Twitter.

On Monday, February 6, Andrew will kick off his new role at Babson with a fireside chat. I invite you to join us from 2:30-4 p.m. in Olin Auditorium to see firsthand why Andrew will be such an invaluable addition to our community. Click here to register for the event.

 New Funding for the Three-College Collaboration

In December, Babson, Olin, and Wellesley Colleges announced the first round of awards in the Mellon Presidential Innovation Project Fund. The Fund—available to faculty, staff, and students of the colleges—is designed to strengthen the Three-College Collaboration and the overall student educational experience.

Proposals were submitted in the fall across the campus constituencies—students, faculty, and staff. We had a strong response, with high quality and variety in the proposals. Of the twelve that were funded, each involved participation from all three colleges with awards totaling almost $59,000. Several build on the Three-College Collaboration’s new sustainability program. Visit the Three-College Collaboration site for more details.

The Mellon Presidential Innovation Project Fund is the latest in a series of initiatives that the three colleges have undertaken since their collaboration was launched in September, 2009. We have made great progress by relying on the enthusiasm and excitement of people inside our communities to surface ideas and to bootstrap funding.

A great example is the undergraduate certificate program on sustainability launched last fall as an outgrowth of a collaborative effort among faculty from the three schools. In addition, students from all three schools participated in an intensive two-week project of their choice earlier this month. They decided to focus on Access to Clean Water and presented their findings at a Three-College Faculty Workshop on January 20. It is not surprising that students selected a topic on sustainability, since there has been widespread student interest in pursuing these kinds of initiatives, reflected also in some of the proposals being funded.

The Mellon Presidential Innovation Project Fund provides a central resource to help continue the development of ideas among faculty, staff, and students. There has never been a shortage of new and potentially impactful ideas on our campuses for our Three-College Collaboration—and this is a great way to move from ideas to action.

Our thanks go to Mary Rose, Babson’s coordinator for the Three-College Collaboration, for guiding this and other Collaboration initiatives.

 More Recognition for Babson’s Faculty Members

Our faculty members in all disciplines do outstanding work. The recent honors and special recognition that follow constitute one measure of the enormous impact our faculty is having on many fronts.

 Save the Dates!

Founder’s Day

On Wednesday, April 18, we will celebrate Babson’s oldest tradition. It dates back to 1947, when a day was set aside to honor Roger Babson, founder and first President of Babson College, and his special passion for entrepreneurship, education, and philanthropy. This year’s celebration will include student business competitions, a community-wide activity, a business fair, and the opportunity to meet and hear from this year’s Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs honorees: Scott Cook, founder of Intuit; Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, founder of Sycamore Networks; and Howard Stevenson, Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration (Emeritus), Harvard Business School. And, for the first time ever, there will be alumni Founder’s Day celebrations in multiple locations around the globe. See the Founder’s Day page for more details. #babsonfd

Lemonade Day

On Saturday, May 5, for the second year, Babson will lead Boston’s participation in Lemonade Day—which, as I mentioned earlier, is a community-wide educational initiative designed to teach youngsters how to start, own, and operate their own business.

The program started in Houston, where it has been incredibly successful and is now operating in more than thirty cities. Our goal this year is to engage more than 1,500 children in Boston and surrounding communities. Phyllis and I are proud and delighted to once again personally lead the Babson-sponsored effort in Boston. You’ll be hearing much more about ways in which you can take part in this entrepreneurial undertaking that is such a natural for this College and our broader community.

Looking Ahead

At the outset, I noted that our campaign success gives us the confidence to keep pursuing bold and ambitious programs. 2012 promises to be a terrific year—a banner year—for the College. So, while Babson Rising has come to a close, the spring semester is just getting underway. As you can see from the stories in this message, we’re off to a great start.

Sincerely,

Leonard A. Schlesinger