Through the partnership, students in a new academic course and a complementary practicum—both focused on sustainability and funded by BMW—will work in teams to enhance features of BMW’s new fleet of electric vehicles, the i3 and i8 series. The students will then have the opportunity to share their ideas with BMW representatives.

“Students have a natural understanding about products [like BMW-i]. We don’t need to explain to them what an electric vehicle is and why it’s needed—they all get it,” said Tadhg O’Connor, BMW-i area manager for the Eastern region, during a visit to the Rose Hill campus.

“They’ve grown up consuming these products and they’re used to thinking about how to integrate them into our cities. Their intuition is very valuable to us.”

Carey Weiss, sustainability initiatives coordinator and the instructor for the Social Innovation Practicum, said that the students’ inherent awareness of sustainability is apparent even in these early weeks of the practicum, which is open to both undergraduate and graduate students on all Fordham campuses.

Regarding urban mobility, “Our younger students have brought up the fact that they may never own their own car and have instead talked about ideas like group shares of cars—entirely different models for ownership,” Weiss said.

“These are issues that other generations might not see, but to these 20-year-olds they’re front and center.”

The fact that this generation of college students is immersed in an increasingly urban and sustainably minded society makes partnering with a university ideal, O’Connor said. Fordham is an especially good partner in these efforts, he added—in addition to being designated an AshokaU Changemaker Campus, Fordham has an established a history of operating sustainably, such as prioritizing energy efficiency and powering the Ram Van fleet with bio diesel fuel.

In addition to the practicum, the partnership with BMW underwrites a new academic course, Sustainable Business Foundations, which provides students with a panoptic view of the efforts to make businesses and communities beneficial for “planet, people, and profit” alike.

“The course gives students a perspective on the current challenges related to sustainability, things like urban mobility, infrastructure, food, and public policy,” said course instructor Michael Pirson, PhD, an associate professor of management systems.

“It also helps them gain a keener awareness of the environment—natural as well as social and political—which they’ll need to respond to in whatever career they choose.”

For their midterm projects, students in the class will work in teams to identify a real-life problem for either BMW or the city of New Rochelle, New York, and design a sustainable solution. So far, students have floated ideas about making charging stations for electric vehicles more common and developing smartphone technology that allows drivers to remotely check how much further they can travel before needing a charge.

“We’re trying to change the way we educate not only through academic rigor, but also through applications—providing real-life challenges that we need to figure out and that the students can work on,” Pirson said.

An exotic black car was spotted doing laps around the Rose Hill campus on Oct. 1, but it wasn’t a cause for concern.

The sleek black sedan seen quietly ferrying Fordham juniors and seniors to and from Hughes Hall was a Tesla S60kw, an electric car that travels 300 miles on a single charge.

The visit was part of Sustainable Business Foundations, a class taught by Michael Pirson, Ph.D., assistant professor of management systems at the Gabelli School of Business.

The class, which is the foundation of a sustainable business minor that is open to both Fordham College at Rose Hill and Gabelli students, surveys the principles of sustainable business around three P’s: Planet, People, and Profit.

“We use a theoretical basis for sustainable business and invite companies that represent those to come speak to class. The final assignment for the class is to come up with a sustainable business idea and write a business plan around it,” Pirson said.

Whereas past company representatives have addressed students from the confines of the classroom, the Oct. 1 class was a little more hands-on. As Steve Treacy, a senior at Gabelli who works as a product specialist for the 10-year-old San Carlos, Calif.-based car company, gave students rides around campus, other students peppered Tesla representative Jeff Cuje with questions about the company.

Cuje explained how the S60kw, which has a base price of $70,000, can be charged overnight at any home with a 240-volt connector, at a public charging station, or at one of the company’s “Supercharger” stations opening around the country.

And even though many homes still get their energy via coal-fired plants, Cuje said that, in the long run, it’s still cleaner than cars with traditional internal combustion engines powered by petroleum products.

In addition to Tesla, Pirson has hosted representatives from companies such as Whole Foods, Eileen Fisher, and Green Soul Shoes. Tesla embodies the challenges that sustainable businesses face when tackling issues of transportation and energy, and their advertising model is an example of how many sustainable businesses follow unique paths.

“They’re doing it all word-of-mouth, which is a great strategy because it doesn’t cost as much,” he said.

John McConnell, a senior at Gabelli majoring in finance entrepreneurship, counted himself as a fan.

“The idea of finding a car that runs on a sustainable energy source is not going away, so Tesla is really at the forefront. A lot of other companies have electric models, but that is not their core competency. Tesla’s core competency, as far as what they’re making, is electric cars,” he said.

“It’s really a forward-thinking company.”

After graduation, McConnell hopes to work for a company that is focused on solving the problems of today with the future in mind. General Electric’s “Ecomagination” program, for example, examines companies’ products to see how they might be replaced with something more sustainable.

“Some of them aren’t textbook-sustainable products,” he said. “Fluorescent light bulbs, for instance, aren’t really good for the environment; they just use less energy. But I want to be part of a company that’s looking to solve those issues,” he said.