Dive Summary:
- When journalist David Bornstein began contributing two years ago to the "Fixes" column for The New York Times, using hybrid reporting style that was half-investigative and half-explanatory to explore solutions to major social problems, he received a significant amount of e-mails from academics who were adapting the issues he was covering to their classes.
- On Thursday, Marquette University won a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of a partnership called FixesU that aligns with the school's social innovation initiative, making it possible for the university to team up with Bornstein and fellow reporter/author Tina Rosenberg to work content from Fixes into lessons used by educators from K-12 to postsecondary school.
- Jeff Snell, who heads the innovation initiative and is special adviser to Marquette's president, says the Gates money will be used over the next 18 months to develop the FixesU website, which will allow users to contribute and package Bornstein and Rosenberg's columns into case studies that can be used by educators.
From the article:
Two years ago, journalist David Bornstein started contributing to a column called Fixes for The New York Times that explored solutions to major social problems. More than identifying creative initiatives, the columns addressed why the solutions worked, through a hybrid reporting style that was half investigative and half explanatory. Soon, emails from academics started flowing into Bornstein's inbox: Teachers and professors were examining the issues with their students and trying to adapt them to their classes. ...
