Stanford Business

AUGUST 2006


This Isn't Your Father's Daytona Beach


Daryn Dodson, MBA class of '07, is in protective gear for gutting houses in New Orleans.
Photo by Anthony Abraham

Spring break at the Business School used to mean golf on the Pacific Coast, skiing in the Sierra, or surfing in Hawaii. But today’s MBA students are more likely to devote that glorious 10-day hiatus to serious pursuits. Last spring found Stanford MBA students learning by example from social entrepreneurs in Brazil, gutting a house in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, and experimenting with prototype water distribution systems in rural Myanmar.

Terry Cumes, MBA ’04, acted as tour guide and translator for the Brazil trip, one of two trips in the brand new Service Learning Program sponsored by the Public Management Program (PMP). Cumes accompanied PMP Director Peggy Reid, Lecturer Rick Aubry, and 16 students on visits to three social entrepreneurs in Brazil. One of their hosts created computer learning centers throughout the country to teach technology skills and better inform citizens of their rights. Another installs solar power panels on rural homes that have no electricity. The third helped build an association of small farmers to improve their standard of living through sustainable economic development.


A child trying a treadle pump to lift water from a canal near Pyay, Myanmar, during a student trip by Professor James Patell and five students from the class Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability.
Photo by James Patell

Students on the New Orleans service learning trip, accompanied by faculty member Jim Baron, spent a good part of the week in the city’s hard-hit Ninth Ward. Working with Common Ground Collective, a community volunteer organization that sprang up in the week after Hurricane Katrina, the students gutted houses, removed sludge and debris, and salvaged what little they could. After four full days of filthy, smelly, rewarding work, they met with community leaders to try to put the experience in perspective. As they noted in the blog of their trip: “Our favorite question that we posed to each other over dinner was, ‘If you had $1 billion to spend on rebuilding New Orleans, how would you spend it?’ We had 22 students and 22 different answers.”

Professor Jim Patell’s trip to Myanmar was not an official Service Learning Program trip but was, says PMP Director Reid, “very much aligned with the spirit of the service trips.” Patell accompanied two Business School students and three from the School of Engineering to meet their client, nongovernmental organization International Design Enterprises–Myanmar, in preparation for the spring quarter course Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability. The class will work on a prototype for an efficient and economical water distribution system to be used in rural areas of the country.