Social Impact Practicums (SIPs)

What is a Social Impact Practicum (SIP)?

A Social Impact Practicum is a project-based experiential learning opportunity connecting undergraduate courses at Dartmouth with community needs identified by nonprofit organizations throughout the Upper Valley.

Dartmouth students take the skills and content that they are learning in their academic courses and apply them to relevant projects for, and with, local community partners.

In other words, a SIP is a real-world project with real-world impact.

Ideal SIp Projects

Contact DCSI to receive the Community Partner SIP Guide, which outlines the scope of projects that are best suited for Social Impact Practicums.

For organizational needs that do not intuitively align with Dartmouth's liberal arts curriculum, we also partner with Tuck Business School’s Center for Business, Government & Society as well as the Thayer School of Engineering’s Senior Design Challenge initiative to match projects with the Dartmouth resource best-suited to address them.

Get Involved

The Dartmouth Center for Social Impact conducts a Community Needs Assessment every summer to gather the universe of project-based needs for each organization. That said, we understand that needs are an ever-evolving phenomenon so we are always glad to add additional projects to our database during the academic year as well.

To learn more about the Social Impact Practicum (SIP) initiative or to propose projects for your organization, please contact Ashley Doolittle.

Current Courses with a SIP Component

Last year's Social Impact Practicum courses, projects, and partners are listed at the link below:

Social Impact Practicum Course Search

The SIP Course List for 2020-21 will be posted in early September, so be sure to check back then!  In the meantime, for more information or to suggest a course that you think could benefit from a Social Impact Practicum, please contact Ashley Doolittle.

DCSI also collaborates with Thayer's Senior Design Challenge to match human-centered design projects proposed by Upper Valley nonprofits with this two-term  senior-level engineering course.