Preparing graduate students to be change agents, leading cross-sector innovation throughout their organizations, businesses, and communities

Social innovation (SI) is an emerging professional field focused on impact-driven, cross-sector careers (e.g. governmental and nonprofit work, socially-focused entrepreneurship, B Corps). Social innovation is engaged in addressing complex social problems such as: childhood hunger, illiteracy, domestic violence, air pollution, food deserts, contaminated drinking water, racism, poverty, and homelessness.

The SI Program is housed in SCLD: The School of Community Leadership and Development. It is a signature GVSU program and the only social innovation program in Michigan. 

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Social Innovation Program Overview and Admission Requirements

STUDENT RESOURCES

Resources available to prospective and current students in the Social Innovation Graduate Program:

The Graduate School

New Student Orientation

Grad Student Resources

Advising Guide

22-23 Course Offerings & Registration

Course Descriptions

Student Handbook

Meet the Program Director

Internships

Master's Projects

Events

Meet the Graduate Program Director

Dr. Azfar Hussain is currently Director of the Graduate Program in Social Innovation and Associate Professor in the Integrative, Religious, and Intercultural Studies (IRIS) Department within the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies (BCOIS) at Grand Valley State University (GVSU). 

Recipient of GVSU’s Outstanding University Teacher Award (2018) and former Fulbright scholar, Dr Hussain is also Vice-President of the US-based Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS)—an international consortium of academics, artists, and activists committed to debt-free education, innovation, and social change. He previously taught English, World Literature, Ethnic Studies, and Cultural Studies at Washington State University, Bowling Green State University, and Oklahoma State University. He held the title of Summer Distinguished Professor of English and Humanities at the University of Liberal Arts-Bangladesh (ULAB) from 2017 to 2019 while he held the “Neoliberalism in the Neighborhood” Distinguished Lectureship at the Evergreen State College in January 2017. Dr Hussain brings a deep commitment to graduate education, including extensive work in graduate teaching and mentoring at multiple universities both in and outside the US.

Dr Hussain’s primary passions are philosophy, politics, and poetry, while his other three passions include music, mathematics, and Marx. At GVSU, he has taught a wide range of interdisciplinary courses, among which particularly popular ones are “The Two Great Bobs—Bob Dylan and Bob Marley” (INT 401) and “Creativity and Innovative Problem-Solving” (INT 310). In addition to authoring and editing several books in both English and Bengali, Dr. Hussain has bilingually published hundreds of academic, popular, and creative pieces, including English translations of creative works from several non-western languages. He has written on a broad range of topics from Native American poetics to political economy to cultural politics to theories and practices of interdisciplinarity and innovation, while he has written extensively on Bengali literary authors and works.  

Dr Hussain is also an internationally known public intellectual who has long been involved in a variety of advocacy campaigns and lectured on social justice issues around the world. He is currently working on a book provisionally entitled Insurrectionary Interdisciplinarity—a work that addresses, among other things, the relationship between interdisciplinarity and innovation in the interest of social change. He received his MA and PhD—both with distinction—in English and World Literature from Washington State University while he obtained his BA and his first MA in English from Dhaka University, Bangladesh.

Most importantly, Dr Hussain is passionate about supporting his students. He believes that teaching—like love—transforms life, and that the joy of living is the joy of learning new things every day. 

Link to a lecture by Azfar Hussain:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_cgQoUsvQg 

Read more about Dr. Hussain