UMW Associate Professor of Economics Shawn Humphrey knows students can imagine a future without poverty. He hopes a new conference will help turn those ideas into reality.
IMAGINE Social Good, which takes place this weekend in Richmond, joins experts with like-minded students from across the country, including several from UMW, to promote social justice and enterprise, and help “build a more just and livable world.” True to form, Humphrey, who’s known for pushing pupils outside their comfort zones and arming them with real world experience, has put his own special spin on the event.
“It’s unique in the sense that we flip the conference,” said Humphrey, the first VCU daVinci Center “changemaker in residence.” “If you’re a student, you listen to keynotes, you hear the experts talk and – if you’re lucky – you can ask them a question. Here, the experts are lucky if they get to connect with you.”
That’s something senior economics major Alli Jakubek is looking forward to this weekend, when she presents the interactive financial literacy game she designed for disadvantaged youth. “Dr. Humphrey inspires his students to get up, go out and do.”
A first-generation college student, Humphrey believes his blue-collar background gives him a perspective on poverty that many academics can’t share. He maintains that professors can learn from their students as well as the other way around. The IMAGINE conference mirrors that philosophy, putting student presentations front and center. Experts are there to provide feedback and guidance.
UMW seniors Mark Herring and Liam Missios will present their plans for a nonprofit to provide small, short-term loans for underserved people in the Fredericksburg area. Juniors Logan Burum and Hannah Rothwell will discuss the ethics of bringing service-based organizations to new communities.
“He doesn’t just teach you the material, he teaches you how to be a person,” Rothwell said of Humphrey, who hopes to bring the IMAGINE conference to Mary Washington. “He wants to build a better world, and that starts by building better people.”
UMW alumni Santiago Suiero ’12 of Prosperity Now; Jeff Paddock ’15 of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción and Megan Vaughn-Albert ’08 of Booz Allen Hamilton will host workshops. Sarah Alvarez ’12 of the Aspen Institute and Tatiana Faramarzi ’12 of National Geographic will serve as mentors.
Initiatives Humphrey has launched at Mary Washington, some of which have spread to other campuses, include La Cieba, implementing economic and educational service programs in Honduras; the Two Dollar Challenge, where students live on $2 a day to better understand the effects of poverty; and the Public Poverty Action Conference, a venue for sharing student work. Humphrey also developed the Sidekick Manifesto, which asks for promises to support, not to lead, efforts to alleviate poverty.
Hundreds of students – in middle, high and graduate schools, as well as in college – registered for this weekend’s conference, for which Humphrey harnessed his “network of impressive people.” Keynote speakers include a Goldman Environmental Prize winner, 501(c)(3) bank founder and international grant-maker director.
Humphrey was on sabbatical from UMW when daVinci Center Executive Director Garret Westlake approached him about becoming the center’s first “changemaker.”
“[The position] is designed to challenge and inspire faculty, students and the larger community to examine the role of innovation in advancing social good,” Westlake, who was an Arizona State University dean when the school embraced Humphrey’s Two Dollar Challenge, told VCU News. “[He] is an incredible catalyst for innovation and social change.”