Man and woman cleaning up a creek

Certificate in Sustainability and Social Enterprise

The Open Society University Network and the Graduate Programs in Sustainability at Bard College, in collaboration with faculty at other OSUN institutions, offers the OSUN Certificate in Sustainability and Social Enterprise. The Certificate can be earned by undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in participating universities. The Certificate is grounded in project-based learning and features a weekly global classroom including students from Bangladesh, Palestine, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, and the US, among other countries. Students also meet locally and in person with faculty co-instructors to develop their projects.

gps.bard.edu/social-enterprise

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Students currently enrolled in the following Academic Certificate programs must complete their certificate by Summer 2025.

  • Food Studies
  • Global Educational Development
  • Public Policy and Economic Analysis
  • Sustainability and Social Enterprise

The Civic Engagement and Human Rights certificates are currently open for student applications.

New certificate programs in Democracy, Global Humanities, Global Studies, Sustainability and Climate Solutions, and Technology and Society will be announced in Fall 2025.

Students completing the Certificate in Sustainability and Social Enterprise will develop the capacity to: 

1. Create a social enterprise business model for a for-profit or non-profit organization, from ideation to market assessment to financials;
2. Work with internal stakeholders in a business or non-profit organization to help drive change initiatives, applying leading change techniques;
3. Make an effective ten-minute presentation about a new business or non-profit idea or organizational change initiative;
4. Provide and receive feedback to and from peers from different cultures and geographies; 
5. Explain the structure and value of the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework;
6. Apply a systems-thinking approach to characterize the enterprise solutions landscape to a particular SDG in a particular region;
7. Think critically and strategically about enterprise solutions to the SDGs within different cultures and geographies.

Eligibility

Students must be enrolled in a participating university. To find out if your university offers access to the OSUN Network Collaborative Courses, please contact [email protected].

Requirements

Students earn the Certificate by completing this course sequence, including at least three courses drawn from:

Application Portal

For more information, please contact

Eban Goodstein, Bard College
[email protected]