Consulting Projects (CPBU)

CPBU 4000. ST: Consulting Project. (3 Credits)

CPBU 4001. Fair Trade and Microfinance 1. (3 Credits)

This course examines the structure of Fair Trade as an alternative form of commerce which specifically expresses solidarity with the poor. The course is concerned with running all aspects of a small Fair Trade business. The class acts as employees on a team which seeks to make profit sustainably, yet effectively. Readings support a greater understanding of the realities of poverty.

Attributes: ENT, PJEC, PJST.

CPBU 4002. Fair Trade and Microfinance 2. (3 Credits)

The second semester of this course looks at ways to invest the profit we have created from selling our Fair Trade goods, and all the varieties of microcredit. We investigate new partners and new products. As a further motivation for managing the business (the university is basically out niche market), we continue to absorb new information about the causes of economic injustice.

CPBU 4003. Spirituality and Fair Trade. (3 Credits)

This course is designed to ignite a spiritual awareness of economic injustice which ultimately motivates action, large or small. We begin by exploring the mechanisms of poverty, and looking at alternative forms of commerce. We look at why Fair Trade is able to answer some of the human rights issues associated with poverty. Readings highlight spiritual leaders from the past, and the models for action that their life stories provide. How should business students evaluate their lives and their careers? What might ”solidarity with the poor” mean, in variety.

Attributes: ENT, PJEC, PJRJ, PJST.

CPBU 4004. Entrepreneurship and Fair Trade. (3 Credits)

This course focuses on the entrepreneurial response to economic injustice, as expressed in the Fair Trade movement. The class will be divided into teams, to consult with emerging Fair Trade businesses in the New York area, ongoing throughout the semester. Against this backdrop we learn from problems solving methods of entrepreneurs who have involved themselves with using business structures as a means of fighting poverty.

Attributes: ENT, PJEC, PJST.

CPBU 4005. ST:Fair Trade Entrepreneurship. (3 Credits)

Fair trade is a global response to social injustice and poverty. Whether it is capital for “startups” or markets for fair trade coffee, the fair trade movement promotes socially and environmental responsibility business practices here and abroad. This course reviews the fair trade movement’s successes and failures to find alternatives to business as usual that reduce poverty and build a sustainable global economy. Students focus on country specific examples of fair trade and microfinance social innovation that reduce poverty by creating viable livelihoods. Marketing, insurance, finance and management can all be applied to build a socially justice and sustainable global economy. “We urgently need a humanism capable of bringing together the different fields of knowledge, including economics, in the service of a more integral and integrating vision” Pope Francis argues in his recent Encyclical Letter, this course explores this vision.

Attributes: ENT, PJEC, PJST.

CPBU 4999. ST: Consulting Project. (0 to 3 Credits)

The project is organized around a societal sustainability challenge represented by the needs of an outside partner, such as a corporate or non profit organization that serves as sponsor of the practicum. The students meet with organization executives, alumni mentors, Fordham faculty and staff who guide them through the process of designing innovative solutions that meet the needs of the challenge.