The Center for Social Innovation employs three main approaches to accomplish its mission. Within each of the categories, the Center sponsors various research and communication projects and hosts a cross-section of activities and events.
Thought Leadership Vital Signs is the main component of the Center’s thought leadership initiative. In partnership with the community, Vital Signs tracks and analyzes the health and social conditions of populations and communities on Long Island. Through its research, Vital Signs identifies areas of social health need and provides resources and tools to help inform policy-making and to stimulate stakeholder dialogue.
Adelphi is enriched by a diverse, innovative, and robust faculty across academic disciplines. Faculty provide recommendations for Center activities and share their insights at community forums and through dissemination of reports and papers. For example, in 2007, with funding from the Hagedorn Foundation, Associate Professor of Accounting, Finance, and Economics Mariano Torras released The Economic Impact of the Hispanic Population on Long Island, New York. This was followed by the 2008 release of Strengthening Long Island: The Economic Contributions of Immigrants to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, also funded by the Hagedorn Foundation. Both reports highlighted the vast contributions of these groups to the Island’s economic and social well-being.
Student Engagement
Adelphi students directly participate with community organizations through volunteer projects, such as technology training to immigrant clients, and engage in serious study of local and national issues through campus-wide activities, such as freshman reads, including Brother, I’m Dying, by Edwidge Danticat, in 2008, and student discussions and forums. Recently, a student oral history project illuminating the experiences of 66 immigrants was completed and presented in summary at a campus-community forum.
Community Involvement
The Center aims to illuminate the many sides of complex issues by creating multiple moments and spaces for thought and discussion. The Center hosts exhibits, conferences, forums, and panels, always seeking to enhance the public good through respectful dialogue, active listening, and openness to new ideas. For example, in May 2008, the Center hosted an interactive forum open to the wider community on U.S. immigration history and its lessons for the current debate, with a keynote address by Professor Kenneth Prewitt of Columbia University. Two art exhibits on immigrant life—The Otto Frank File from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Archives: Chronicling the Efforts of Anne Frank's Father to Find Sanctuary in America and Migrant Workers of Long Island, Seeking the American Dream—were held on campus in the 2007–2008 academic year.
