Housing & Residential Education Student Affairs

Impact and Prosperity Epicenter

The Impact & Prosperity Epicenter is home to students and professionals driven by a shared mission to leave our communities and planet better than we found them. It’s a place dedicated to inspiring students to live, learn, and collaborate with purpose. Considered the “soul” of campus, the Epicenter is an ecosystem that prepares students to become thoughtful global citizens committed to enriching the lives of others.

Programming at the Epicenter is driven by two flagship teams coming together to create curriculum to help you find your community and your passions to solve the world’s great challenges.

1. The Center for Business, Health, and Prosperity focuses on integrating innovation and entrepreneurship with health enabling practices in pursuit of economic, social, and political well-being. Led by Professor Stephen Alder, Ph.D., MBA and supported by a team of full time professionals, the Center for Business, Health is dedicated to promoting prosperity - discovering what makes this type of progress happen and ways to expand it.
2. The Sorenson Impact Institute believes capital can be a major force for good. Led by Katie Macc and supported by a team of expert practitioners, the Sorenson Impact Institute’s mission is to expand the market for impact, accelerating toward a future where impact principles are fully integrated across sectors worldwide. Join us as we work to connect capital to measurable social, environmental, and financial outcomes.
   The Center for Business, Health and Prosperity and the Sorenson Impact Institute are both headquartered at the Epicenter and eager to engage with students passionate about these fields of study.
   Programming

The Epicenter offers three areas of in-depth programming for students wanting to connect with others with a shared passion. Known as our themed communities, these bring together residents around a shared area of passion to live together in a community within a community designed to deepen your connections in the field. The themed communities included:

1. Health Development Community
   Students passionate about engaging in approaches for elevating health around the world are invited to be part of the Health Development Community. Students will be able to join activities centered around exploring and solving complex health issues and their solutions. This community will draw on the vast health and medical expertise of the University of Utah and its global partners.

The Health Development Community will:

• Investigate challenges currently being faced across the world that limit health and well-being,
• Explore the emerging leverage-points for improving health, and
• Engage in activities designed to increase holistic health in local and global communities.

Living at the Epicenter environment will allow those in the Health Development Community to enrich their University of Utah experience by connecting with influential world changemakers who are shaping new realities in health, getting first-hand access to the extensive capacity at the University of Utah and its expansive global network to impact health, becoming personally involved in creating and implementing solutions, and so much more!

Impact Capital Community

Want to help save the Great Salt Lake? Improve food systems? Reduce economic disparities? All of these are much needed solutions, and all require funding – a lot of it. Understanding how capital can be a force for good is critical to implementing lasting change.
The Impact Capital Community invites students to live among peers interested to learn methods that utilize capital to create an impact. Students engaged in this community will have an opportunity to explore topics such as venture capital investing in companies that create social or environmental value, outcomes-based financing, and other creative financial structures that create social value. The community with use a live-time collaboration with an entrepreneur in the social sector to provide real-world experience and connections with entrepreneurs and funders. It’s your world - Learn how to fund it.

Interfaith Community

The Impact & Prosperity Epicenter welcomes students of all faiths, spiritual practices, world views, and philosophies from around the world to be part of the Epicenter Interfaith Community. This community provides an opportunity to gather, share, learn, and celebrate each other in an inclusive, respectful setting and to join in service to others. Incorporating an interfaith-based community provides an opportunity for establishing positive relationships and mutual understanding across diverse ways of being and cherished practices. Interfaith Community residents will have opportunities to meaningfully engage and learn about different faiths as a means for educational and spiritual growth and development. Having a formal religion or a belief system is not required. All are welcome who would like to respectfully engage with this community.

Scholarship/Sponsorship opportunities

The Epicenter provides a wide range of internship opportunities through the Sorenson Impact Institute and Center for Business Health and Prosperity. Both internship tracks give preferential access to Epicenter residents.

The Sorenson Impact Institute internship program guides students to be impact leaders in their chosen fields. We believe social impact is a growing field of study that affects every industry. Whether you are a graphic design student interested to apply your design talents to raise awareness of social causes or a finance major interested to apply capital to scale impact-centric organizations – a Sorenson Impact Internship will equip you with hands-on experience and connections with a wide network of impact professionals to prepare you for a career in impact. Learn more about internship opportunities here.

The Center for Business, Health, and Prosperity’s internship and global programs offer a unique opportunity for students to develop real-life skills to support their future career and educational goals.

Prosperity U Interns work with sponsoring organizations (government organizations, non-profits, or entrepreneurs) to help them improve prosperity while earning university credit. Stand out from the crowd with an internship in one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Prosperity U Global Experiences gives students the opportunity to participate and focuse on building prosperity as a means of addressing global poverty. Students study how value creation through innovation and entrepreneurial approaches that improve health and well-being across impoverished communities. Find out more about the Prosperity U Global Spring Experience here and the Prosperity U Global Summer Experience here.

Internships are also available to residents to support the operations of the building itself. These range from supporting the social media / marketing for the Epicenter to working as part of the Hospitality team supporting front-desk operations.