Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Understand the World.
Work Across Systems.
Create Meaningful Change.
Discover the Social Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship (SISE) Minor at Tulane University’s School of Architecture & Built Environment — a transformative program designed to prepare students to lead change in a complex, interconnected world.
Through the minor, students gain practical skills to analyze systemic challenges such as climate change, inequality, and urban resilience, and learn how thoughtful interventions can make a real impact.
Why SISE?
Today’s most pressing challenges — climate change, housing, health inequity, urban resilience, and technological disruption — are not isolated problems. They are systemic problems.
They cannot be solved by a single discipline, profession, or organization.
SISE trains students to:
- analyze complex social and environmental challenges
- collaborate across sectors and communities
- design interventions that are ethical, sustainable, and effective
- turn ideas into implementable solutions
Students graduate not only with knowledge, but with a framework for understanding how change happens.
We provide students with interdisciplinary skills
to create a just and equitable society for all by
introducing them to social innovation, human-centered
design, and social impact leadership.
SISE is open to undergraduates from all majors, empowering students to move beyond theory and develop actionable solutions. The curriculum guides students from understanding societal systems to leading innovative change:
- In the initial courses, students explore how social issues—such as public health and environmental crises—persist and identify leverage points for disruption.
- They then design and test solutions using tools like the Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup, balancing social impact with sustainability.
- Building leadership capacity, students learn to navigate cross-sector collaboration among government, nonprofits, and businesses.
- Practical engagement with communities in New Orleans fosters trust, facilitates dialogue, and co-creates meaningful solutions.
- The program culminates with students imagining future worlds through storytelling, art, and speculative design, inspiring innovative thinking.
What makes SISE unique is the focus on intervention—arming students with a rare blend of analytical, systems-thinking, and leadership skills to enact real change. Graduates are prepared for careers in nonprofit work, urban development, policy, consulting, design, or graduate studies, adaptable to a rapidly evolving landscape.
Open to all majors—no prior experience required—the program emphasizes real-world projects, community partnerships, and experiential learning. Students leave with the confidence, practical skills, and leadership mindset to understand and improve the world.
Join SISE and become part of a community dedicated to creating a more just and sustainable future. Explore the Social Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship Minor today.
SISE Minor
Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (SISE) is an interdisciplinary minor for undergraduate students from across the campus. The SISE minor provides students with skills to create a just and equitable society for all. SISE courses introduce students to concepts of social innovation, mindsets of human-centered design, and frameworks for social impact leadership. Students in the minor develop an understanding of complex problems while developing a toolkit to create positive social and environmental change.
A minor in SISE consists of six courses for a total of 15 credit hours. This minor includes three core courses, one service learning course, and two elective courses.
The SISE Minor has been developed in partnership with the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking. SISE students are encouraged to utilize opportunities and resources provided through the Taylor Center, and many SISE courses are located at the Taylor Center in Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Room 406. Students wishing to declare the SISE minor can consult the SISE Director Versé Shom.
Graduate Certificate in Public Interest Design
The Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (SISE) program, in collaboration with the Architecture and Historic Preservation programs, launched a new graduate certificate in Public Interest Design in Fall 2023. The certificate is designed to educate the next generation of practitioners in the field of public interest design, or the design for the benefit of the broader public good. Students working toward a Master of Architecture and/or a Master of Science in Historic Preservation students can add this certificate to their degrees.
Students wishing to earn the certificate can consult the SISE Director Versé Shom.
