New Perspectives from Gen Z and Millennials
Santa Clara University students work at the intersection of innovation and mission. The university strives to develop leaders of competence, conscience, and compassion. Through experiential learning projects, students have the opportunity to work in their communities to make a difference. Thanks to a long-standing alliance with Dr. Kumar Sangee of the Leavey School of Business, Readability Matters was again honored to work with Santa Clara business students.
In the fall of 2020, Readability Matters was the case study for the Product Innovation course in the Executive MBA program. This year, Kumar connected Readability Matters to Chuck Byers and his marketing classes in the undergraduate and MBA programs. Kumar and Chuck saw Readability Matters’ nonprofit mission to improve reading for people of all ages and abilities as an opportunity for the marketing students to apply their coursework to a social impact project.
Former Santa Clara University electrical engineering graduate turned social entrepreneur, Readability Matters co-founder Kathy Crowley, worked closely with both classes. Kathy shares, “as an undergraduate at Santa Clara, we learned early on that we had a responsibility to not only excel in our field but also to create a better world.”
The marketing students’ projects were to help increase awareness of the power of readability enhancements in creating better reading outcomes. Since Readability Matters works across the ecosystem of tech, publishing, education, nonprofits, and academic research, the project challenged the students to think broadly about the other important partners critical in this world-changing effort.
The creativity of the Gen Z and Millennial students brought new ideas and perspectives to inform Readability Matters’ marketing and communications strategies. Kathy commented, “It is a wonderful partnership. We are grateful for Kumar, Chuck, and the SCU students for their commitment and recommendations. We appreciate their working on our tech-for-good goal of making the world a better place by improving reading outcomes for everyone.”
