Summer 2023 SEAS Master Classes and Skills Workshops

For this Master Class, we'll talk about sustainability transitions (and wicked problems in general) as involving a diverse ecosystem of actors, each with different values, interests, and priorities, yet each of whom must participate to co-create workable solutions to sustainability problems. How do you have respectful conversations across diverse groups? How do you find the levers and pulleys that will facilitate just solutions and preserve our species? What is the role of conflict and collaboration across diverse groups?

Charlene Zietsma is the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at SEAS and at the Ross School of Business. Her research focuses on social innovation: the individual, organizational and collective efforts to make (and resist) significant, large-scale change in the context of sustainability and social justice issues. She studies institutional work, institutional change processes, social and sustainable entrepreneurship, and social movements focused on grand challenges and wicked problems. She is interested in how business organizations move towards more sustainable practices, particularly through voluntary governance such as certifications, codes of conduct and cross-sector partnership agreements.