Centers, Institutes, and Special Programs
Accelerated Cooperative Education Program
The Accelerated Cooperative Education (ACE) program offers a unique, challenging, and rewarding experience for business students. Participants receive a program of workshops designed to build, strengthen, and enhance their professional development and leadership skills, introductions to ACE business partner companies for a paid summer internship, mentoring by senior executives, and fast-track admission to the Santa Clara MBA program. Students are selected into this program through an application process.
Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) provides networking, educational, and advisory services for members of the Santa Clara University community and drives entrepreneurship curricula through the moderation of the Entrepreneurship Leadership Team. The program features internship opportunities at Silicon Valley startups and offers a variety of events and enrichment activities including a speaker series, partnerships on campus, and Global Entrepreneurship Week. In addition, the CIE provides students with business plan review and coaching both on an ad-hoc basis and also through its quarterly Office Hours for Entrepreneurs series, networking mixers, field trips, and Silicon Valley event attendance opportunities. The annual Outstanding Student Entrepreneur Award is given at the end of the year and recognizes the graduating student who has made the greatest contribution to the entrepreneurship program. The CIE also serves as sponsoring advisors of the Santa Clara Entrepreneur Organization (SCEO), a student club that provides a forum for learning outside the classroom. The CIE Advisory Board includes distinguished alumni entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, venture attorneys and accountants, corporate executives, and the deans of the Schools of Business, Engineering, Law, and the College of Arts and Sciences.
Food and Agribusiness Institute
The Food and Agribusiness Institute (FAI) offers undergraduate and graduate courses on topics related to the food industry. At the undergraduate level, the FAI sponsors the Food, Hunger, Poverty, and Environment Pathway. At the graduate level, the FAI sponsors a specialization in food and agribusiness for students pursuing the MBA degree. Enrichment programs offer students the opportunity to enhance their educational experience through internships, research fellowships, field trips, and a mentor program. The immersion and field experiences organized by the FAI expose students to the rich diversity of the food industry through domestic and international travel. The FAI also hosts events, lectures, food industry research, conferences, and programs for the campus and for the food and agribusiness community.
Global Fellows
Created in 2008 through the Leavey School of Business, the Global Fellows Program is a premier professional fellowship program open to undergraduate sophomores and juniors of all majors. The Global Fellows Program is a nine-month, mixed disciplinary program dedicated to fostering global citizens of competence, conscience, and compassion.
The Global Fellows Program sends 18 to 30 students to work for a variety of socially conscious organizations across several continents. Each organization varies in its methods and values. All provide an exposure to global citizenship through an enhanced understanding of cultural, economic, social, political, and technological factors that underlie social injustice, marginalization, and privilege. Selected fellows participate in a spring quarter leadership practicum that engages their knowledge of global citizenship and what it means to be a leader in the 21st century. Following spring quarter, fellows head abroad for 5- to 8-week internships with the organization for whom they have been selected. The Global Fellows Program is a unique program, offering a global professional and civic engagement opportunity, comprised of internship, travel, and cultural immersion.
Leavey Scholars Program
The Leavey Scholars Program offers special opportunities for undergraduate business students who have established a record of excellence in their Santa Clara studies. Leavey Scholars are invited to enroll in honors sections of selected business courses that are especially rigorous and academically challenging. Successful completion of the program warrants the designation "Leavey Scholar" on the student's transcript.
Leavey School of Business Community Fellows Program
The Leavey School of Business (LSB) Community Fellows program places business students in paid, year-long internships in community organizations (e.g., government, nonprofit, or education agencies). Students apply business knowledge and skills to real-world situations in local community organizations. Participation in winter and spring seminars is required. Students explore issues of economic disparity, community development, and organizational management as well as reflect on the professional development skills and abilities needed to be effective in a variety of business and work settings.
Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative
Launched in January 2012, the Leavey School of Business Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative (NPI) provides opportunities for students to contribute to and learn from businesses, individuals, and organizations in low-income neighborhoods in the San Jose area about issues of economic prosperity. NPI is part of SCU's larger place-based initiative, the SCU Thriving Neighbors Initiative, which actively promotes strategic ties between Santa Clara University and the Greater Washington Community of San Jose in order to advance the prosperity and education of both SCU students and neighborhood members as whole persons in whole communities. The primary components of NPI are the Field Studies course (BUSN 188) and the NPI Fellows program, which places students in paid, year-long internships in local nonprofit organizations.
Retail Management Institute
The Retail Studies Program offered by the Retail Management Institute is an interdisciplinary minor open to all undergraduates. The minor provides students with a strong business background for a leadership role in the retail industry in fields such as buying and planning, e-commerce, digital marketing, store management, global sourcing, and information technology. The institute facilitates internships with retail organizations and mentoring sessions for students with industry leaders. It brings leading executives to speak at campus events about cutting-edge issues that impact consumers, retailers, and society at large.