A basketball court isn't the most likely place to find an MBA student at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. Unlikely, that is, unless the student is Elizabeth Lombardi. That's when the co-ed Haas team she put together for Berkeley's intramural basketball league played its games. "We competed a lot against undergraduates. On some nights, we really felt our age," she says. "But we had fun, and it was a great way to get to know people."

Athletics is a passion for Lombardi. In 2006, she was on a five-woman team that competed in the 24 Hours of Northstar mountain bike race in Lake Tahoe. "Mountain biking is a sport without a lot of women," Lombardi recalls. "The race sparked Clif Bar's campaign to encourage more women to ride and to donate to the Breast Cancer Fund."

That sort of socially responsible marketing is what Lombardi explored in her MBA coursework. "Haas gave me the tools to be a change agent," Lombardi says. "My classes laid a foundation for building my dreams."

Lombardi admits that the beauty of the Bay Area and its proximity to beaches, mountain and open space were part of her attraction to Haas. But she notes that this is also "a hotbed of social entrepreneurship and a focal point for social innovation. If I'm going to make change happen, this is a good place to do it, and Haas is the best preparation."