Careful, Avaya, you could dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back like that!
Hey, if acrimone had not made our jobs sound so utterly worthless, I wouldn't have had to defend them so vigorously! :-)
On the serious side, though, I know many faculty at my school who have changed student lives. I just had a student last week who told me about how he lost an internship at the last moment, and my colleague went to hell and back to find him a new one since he needed the credits and would not graduate on time. Turns out he fell in love with the company and will now work for them when he graduates in December. He said, "If it weren't for Prof. X, I'd be doing something totally different with my life, and I wouldn't have this job I love!"
And you are right that it is the students that do the real work. (I thought I said that in my post, but sounds like it didn't come across very well.) You can get someone an internship or teach them about microfinance or whatever else and if it's not *in them* no change will happen.
Has anyone noticed this thread is now totally hijacked?
