President David Caruso is pleased to announce that Curtis Ogden has agreed to be Antioch New England’s 2009 commencement speaker on May 3.

Curtis is a senior associate with the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as a popular adjunct faculty member in ANE’s Department of Organization & Management.

In his role at IISC, Curtis brings people from diverse community groups and organizations together to help them work in concert to make a needed change. According to O&M chair Polly Chandler, Curtis will be an inspiring speaker because he understands and can connect with people no matter where they are at in their lives. “Through his work and teaching, he empowers people to make the changes they want to make in the world,” says Polly. “He can speak to all of us.”

Curtis, who students nominated as a commencement speaker, teaches Change Models at ANE. His clients at IISC have included the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business at Conservation International, the Ford Foundation, the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston, the Institute for Civic Leadership in Maine, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Curtis brings to his work and teaching his previous experience in education, community building, leadership development and program design, as well as his passion for efforts that support environmental sustainability. He has worked as an independent consultant to a number of civic engagement and nonprofit support initiatives, including the Building Movement Project (currently housed at Demos), Nonprofit Quarterly, and Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. Just prior to joining IISC, Curtis served as the program and knowledge manager of the Building Excellent Schools Fellowship for aspiring urban charter school founders.

The son of two teachers, Curtis grew up in Flint, Michigan, but also benefited from early experiences living overseas. After college, he returned to Africa to do community and youth development work in Harare, Zimbabwe. He went on to create ImPACT, a youth service learning program based at The Learning Web in Ithaca, New York. In addition to his work at IISC, Curtis is a board member of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund. He has a BA from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School. Curtis and his wife Emily, a social worker, currently live in Arlington, Massachusetts, where they are raising their three- year-old daughter Annabel and eagerly expecting identical twin girls in early June.

More about the Interaction Institute for Social Change
The Interaction Institute for Social Change is a nonprofit consulting and training organization that for the past fifteen years has been partnering with individuals, organizations, and communities to achieve greater social impact. Its mission is to ignite and sustain social transformation, catalyze collective action, and build collaborative skill to bring alive a just and sustainable world.

According to a new publication by Net Impact, a nonprofit organization of over 10,000 MBAs, graduate students, and executives, Antioch University New England’s Green MBA makes the grade. Net Impact’s just-published Business as Unusual: The 2008 Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs, lists Antioch New England’s Green MBA program in the top five in seven of thirteen categories.

Antioch University New England’s Green MBA ranked first out of sixty-three MBA programs in two categories: faculty support of Net Impact themes in the curriculum and faculty support of Net Impact themes in extra curricula events and activities. ANE’s Green MBA came in second for preparing Net Impact students for ethical and socially responsible leadership, third for student support of Net Impact themes in the curriculum, and fourth for both administrative support of Net Impact themes and for preparing all students for ethical and socially responsible leadership.

Interesting points to note:
ANE’s student rankings regularly topped more well-known MBA programs like those of Yale, Babson, Tufts, and Cornell.

92% of ANE’s Net Impact respondents thought ANE students are enthusiastic regarding social/environmental themes in their curriculum.

100% of respondents think ANE faculty are enthusiastic regarding social/environmental themes in their curriculum.

The description chosen by ANE respondents of the type of student best suited to our Green MBA program: “Someone interested in attending a school where students and faculty are on the forefront of social/environmental issues.”

About the Net Impact guide

The Business as Unusual: The 2008 Student Guide to Graduate Business Programs used a qualitative survey of Net Impact chapter leaders from sixty-three MBA programs to compile the data as well as the results from an online survey completed by another 1,552 student Net Impact members. Graduate students rated their individual MBA programs on five main categories including reasons to attend, administrative support, career services and alumni support, student activities, and curriculum. These categories were broken down into fourteen subcategories. The data, claims the books authors, presents a way to compare student opinions of their schools.

The Department of Organization & Management and its Green MBA program launched a new chapter of Net Impact in November of 2007. Membership in the Antioch University New England chapter is open to all O&M students.

Students at Antioch University New England have launched a Power Vote pledge campaign joining thousands of young voters across the country. As of 9:30 am on November 3, ANE was listed as seventh in Power Vote’s national Top Ten Pledges (by percent of school size) ranking. Power Vote is a nonpartisan, voter education campaign sponsored by the Energy Action Coalition. It seeks to mobilize one million “climate voters” on campuses across the country.

At Antioch New England, student organizers collected close to six hundred Power Vote pledges, which represents over fifty percent of Antioch New England’s students, faculty, and staff. Organizers have asked for pledges by manning on-campus event tables, in individual professor’s classrooms, and through internet postings and targeted emails. ANE President David Caruso, ANE’s faculty senate, ANE’s Department of Education, and ANE’s Environmental Studies Department have endorsed the student Power-Vote efforts.

According to Antioch Power Vote organizer John Lippmann, the 2008 election is a rare opportunity to push for a new national agenda of clean energy, green economy and environmental justice. “Participation in Power Vote,” says Lippmann, “has also helped us gain organizing skills necessary to help make this happen both at Antioch New England and in our communities beyond the classroom.” The ANE Power Vote campaign was begun as a service learning project for professor Steve Chase’s Organizing Social Movements class. Steve is the director of ANE’s environmental advocacy program.

On October 29th at 8:30 pm, Al Gore addressed ANE’s Power Vote group and others across the country in a live web cast. He stressed the importance of young people taking action to halt our climate crisis and called for voters to hold “elected officials accountable for repowering America through our voice and our Vote on November 4.”

You can sign the Power Vote pledge at www.powervote.org or by signing at a Power Vote table set up in one of ANE’s common spaces. To help with the ANE Power Vote effort contact: powervoteane@gmail.com

The Power Vote Pledge
The pledge is just three sentences long: “Our generation needs a brand new vision for our future. We need to lead the world towards a just, clear energy economy that moves beyond dirty energy, creates green jobs for all, and secures our climate. I pledge to vote, hold our leaders accountable through my sustained involvement, and create a Power Shift!”

Courage to Teach is a professional renewal program for teachers founded by Parker J. Palmer. The program includes a series of retreats held over the course of two years. The goal is to give teachers time to reflect on their profession and discover new ways to sustain their careers and personal lives. The Tomey Center and LinWood School project is funded by the New Hampshire Humanities Council (NHHC).

Prior to this NHHC project, teachers who participated in national Courage to Teach (CTT) retreats gathered from different schools from across the country. What makes the LinWood School project is that never before has the CTT program been launched in one school for a group of teacher colleagues. At LinWood, 40% of the faculty is participating in the retreat series.

Jean Haley, an independent Courage to Teach facilitator, and Polly Chandler, Director of the Tomey Center, have worked together to implement the retreat series. Jean facilitates the retreats and Polly is a participant observer as part of a comprehensive program evaluation. The LinWood project has also created a hands-on evaluation opportunity for ANE alumni and current students. OM alumna Elizabeth Schon Vainer ’04 and current students Sarah Gates CP ’08 and Dave Chase ’08 have supported the evaluation of the project, and are considering the question of how the Courage to Teach retreat program impacts the climate and culture of a school.

In early October, eight LinWood teachers and LinWood superintendent Michael Cosgriff, joined Polly Chandler at the Boston Public Library to meet Parker Palmer and participate in a reception for the newly released Center for Courage and Renewal publication Leading From Within…Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead.

Parker Palmer took time during this busy event to talk with the teachers about their experience. He asked how the retreats were going and what they thought of the program. One teacher replied….”it’s been transformative”. There is great enthusiasm and national curiosity about the New Hampshire Humanities project because of the implementation in one school.

The participants continued with their retreat series at Geneva Point Center in Moultonborough, New Hampshire in October. The next gathering will be at the center in January 2008 and the retreats will continue through August 2008.

The Tomey Center is proud to be a part of this innovative work and look forward to sharing the results of the evaluation with ANE and the national Center for Courage and Renewal movement.

Participants at The Green Organization symposium
discuss how individuals and businesses can work
together to build a more sustainable, greener, future.

In September 2007, a group of Organization and Management students agreed to launch a new chapter of Net Impact. Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world.

Net Impact members are current and emerging leaders in Corporate Social Responsibility, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, international development, and environmental sustainability who are actively improving the world. Professionals and students are welcome to join the organization, so there are rich opportunities for students to work and learn with organizational leaders.

David Morrill ’09 and Anne Nordstrom ’09, both Green MBA students, volunteered to be the chairs of ANE’s first Net Impact group. Currently there are ten student members from the Organizational and Environmental Sustainability (Green MBA) program, the Leadership and Management programs and the Organizational Development Certificate program. The students have joined the network for a variety of reasons, including having the opportunity to network with like-minded business students and professionals online, via conference calls, at events and at Net Impact’s annual conferences.

Next year, Antioch hopes to send two Net Impact students to the annual conference in Philadelphia. The conference is designed to help members expand their vision of what’s possible through the world of business. It mobilizes students and professionals through an exciting array of keynotes, panels, case studies, simulations, and special events. This event is also linked to Net Impact’s comprehensive career center. The career resources and job placement opportunities are a key benefit for our student members.

Each student chapter must host four events per year. Anne Nordstrom and David Morrill are working with a committee of students to plan a variety of Net Impact events for the coming year. The first event was November 28 and spotlighted seven regional businesses in discussions about organizational and environmental sustainability. In addition, the students must establish infrastructure for sustaining the chapter through the transition of graduating classes. Anne and David are working with the members to create that structure so that Net Impact becomes a tradition for all O&M students.

Watch for upcoming Net Impact announcements on the Organization and Management Department web page or visit the ANE Net Impact for more information.

Two key members of Antioch New England’s new Organization Development certificate program will be among the presenters in Baltimore at OD Network Conference 2007 in October.

Pat Bidol-Padva, PhD, faculty member in the Department of Organization & Management, will be part of a panel presenting The Power of WE: Engaging the Minds, Hearts, and Spirits of Stakeholders in Whole-System Change. Using the Ohio Education Association as a model, the panel will explore ways that everyone in an organization can be empowered to help guide change, from envisioning possibilities, to gathering input from all stakeholders, to implementing a strategic action plan.

Edith Seashore, guest lecturer in the OD Certification Program, will be involved in two events associated with the conference. A pre-conference session, Back to Basics: Principles for Powerful Practice, will cover the definition and reinforce the fundamentals of organization development, as well as provide a review of a meta-model of planned change. Edie will also join other past recipients of the OD Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award for an interactive group presentation, Learning from the Lived Experience of Luminaries in OD. Recent research on lived experience and reflective practice, involving several Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, will also be presented.

The Organization Development Network is an international association of professionals in organization and human systems development. It offers professional development and networking opportunities, publications, and other resources, as well as its annual conference.