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Center for Social Entrepreneurship receives scholarship endowment gift

Kaila Frisone, For The Miami Student

Alumnus Arthur D. Collins, Jr. (1969) has donated $250,000 to the Farmer School of Business's Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

This gift will provide financial assistance to Miami students who wish to gain experience in Miami's international social entrepreneurship programs.

The financial assistance will work as a half-loan, half-scholarship process. Students will receive 50 percent of their aid as a scholarship and the other 50 percent will be paid back.

"The main reason it is set up that way is for sustainability," said Brett Smith, director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

Smith said this method is also consistent with other social entrepreneurship programs.

Miami students can participate in several different international programs with the Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

Smith said most students choose the Social Entrepreneur Corps program that began in 2009. Students complete their coursework online and study in developing countries for four to eight weeks.

Students earn academic credit and gain hands-on experience in social entrepreneurship. They work side-by-side with distinguished international and local social entrepreneurs in Latin American countries.

In summer 2009, students went to Nicaragua.

Miami University junior Brooke Prouty went to Guatemala in summer 2010.

"I learned more in two months than I've learned in my entire college career," Prouty said.

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In summer 2011, the center hopes to expand the program to Eucuador.

Collins hopes his gift to the center will provide more opportunities to Miami students to study abroad and learn from these experiences.

"The reason it is so important is that it allows more students to participate in the program," Smith said.

Students who wish to apply for financial assistance for an international social entrepreneurship program should contact the Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

Smith said it is premature to know how the application process for the financial assistance will work, but there will be an application.