The Minor in Creative Enterprise and Public Leadership

The proposed minor in creative enterprise and public leadership (CEPL) seeks to develop students who can engage the creative process to develop innovations for the public good—just at a time when these capacities are needed by employers and society.  

The program offers students the opportunity to develop their core creative capacities:
1) an aptitude to invent and imagine,
2) the expressive agility to communicate an innovation’s advantages and consequences,
3) the dexterity to develop and implement those innovations within their field of choice, and
4) the ability to critically evaluate whether products, practices, and policies positively impact the public good.

The program will be interdisciplinary, harnessing the expertise of faculty and knitting together theories and methods from diverse disciplinary threads: art, communication, design, engineering, ethics, media studies, music, organizational and entrepreneurial studies, psychology, political philosophy, public policy, and sociology.

The minor, focused on innovation, creative enterprise, and public leadership, complements the breadth of liberal arts education and depth of disciplinary specialization offered at Vanderbilt—providing a body of theory and method that can augment any major on campus.

The proposed Minor program consists of 18 hours, including two required core courses and four electives. The requirements are as follows:

Core Requirements—Choose at least two of three (6 hours)

1.    SOC 227 (Creativity, Innovation, and Society) – 3 hours (offered yearly)

2.     CEPL 240 (Creativity, Negotiation, and Networks) – 3 hours (offered yearly)

3.    CEPL 280 (Public Leadership and Innovation) – 3 hours (offered yearly)

Electives (12 hours)

Students must select at least one elective course from each of the following three focal areas, or propose other courses subject to the approval of each student’s CEPL faculty advisor.  The three focal areas emphasize methods and knowledge related to creative enterprise and public leadership, including the dissemination of creative ideas through discourse and media (expressive agility); engaging design, innovation, and creativity for the public good (creative enterprise and public leadership); and invention and implementation of creative projects (creative process and practice).

We are currently expanding the list of electives for the program, and welcome suggestions by faculty and students.  

Students’ departmental honor theses or capstone projects provide an invaluable opportunity to integrate theories of creativity and innovation with students’ major disciplines, and will be considered as electives for the CEPL minor.

The proposed minor is intended to be offered in Fall 2013.