School of Social Innovation

Expand your impact on society, helping to build a better future starting today with real-world experiences, dedicated faculty, and deep community connections.

Choose an education that will transform you into an agent of change.

The School of Social Innovation is for students who care about others: the born educator, the team player, the change maker, the advocate. The world needs more of these passionate and talented people to lead the future toward radical change¡ªpeople like you.

At Champlain, you’ll be challenged to find your voice and use it to make a difference in the lives of others. And to make a difference, you have to break the mold. These majors focus on how to bring social, environmental, and economic justice into the future. If you¡¯re drawn to fields that are in service to others, you¡¯ll need a flexible, modular curriculum that will prepare you to make a measurable contribution to the world.

93%

of School of Social Innovation majors in the Class of 2023 achieved career success within six months of graduation.

86%

of School of Social Innovation majors in the Class of 2023 participated in at least one experiential learning opportunity, such as an internship, before graduating.

Accredited

Champlain¡¯s Social Work program is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education and allows you to earn a master’s degree in social work (MSW) in one year instead of two.

Program directors and full-time faculty try very hard to forge relationships with students so that we can offer advice about careers by knowing what each individual student wants. Once a student talks to me during the registration period about their career aspirations, that stays with me, so when I¡¯m out in the community or in the courts or in a board seat on a non-profit board, if an opportunity for an internship comes up or a job opportunity comes, I can [suggest it] because I know what they want out of their career.
Tony Perriello
Tony Perriello, J.D, Criminal Justice Program Director

Service in Action

All students in the School of Social Innovation, regardless of their major, take two signature service learning courses that bridge the classroom with our surrounding community. These 1-credit courses are service- and action-oriented, designed with service in mind.

  • In EHS 100: Making Connections, students meet together in an interdisciplinary, seminar-style setting to build a foundational understanding of integrative thinking and learning and to begin to make connections among the various elements of the Champlain College student-experiences and competencies. Students will take part in a real-world community awareness or service experience as a class and then examine the experience from the perspectives of social work criminal justice, the law, environmental policy education, and psychology.

  • In EHS 210: Social Justice Intensive, students meet together in an interdisciplinary, seminar-style setting to build a greater understanding of integrative thinking and learning and to add a focus within a social justice context. Students will participate in an off-campus service learning project and critically examine the experience from the perspectives of social work, criminal justice, the law, environmental policy education, psychology, and additionally consider their experiences in Core, and LEAD.

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