Jerome A. (Jerry) Katz   Coleman Chair in Entrepreneurship   John Cook School of Business   Saint Louis University   katzka@slu.edu

Cross Campus Entrepreneurship Programs Benefit Business Schools and Their Students

Elizabeth Gatewood

By any reckoning the field of entrepreneurship has experienced rapid growth. Entrepreneurship courses are now taught in more than 2000 universities in the U.S. (Cone, 2008) and over 225 business schools offer majors or concentrations in the field (Katz, 2005). Until recently, the majority of students who had access to those courses or programs were business school students, or engineering students in a few select schools. And yet, the majority of entrepreneurs do not have a business degree--- seventy seven percent in one survey of small business owners (Schweitzer, 2007), and more than eighty percent of college-educated Inc. 500 company founders in another (Bhide, 2004).

A small number of colleges and universities, recognizing the need and supported by funding from the Kauffman Foundation, have been broadening the reach of their programs beyond the walls of the business school. An even smaller number are actually embedding entrepreneurship education in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, law, and medicine.

Many arguments have been offered as to why business schools should broaden their programs. Most of the reasons center on how business schools have a chance to help their institution, region or colleagues across campus by sharing experiences and resources. For example it is frequently argued that cross campus entrepreneurship programs meet the needs of non-business students for entrepreneurial training (Mendes and Kehoe, 2009); or that preparing more university grads in entrepreneurship will meet the needs of the country or region for graduates that can be successful in the ever competitive and changing environment (Hynes, O’Dwyer, and Birdthistle, 2009); or that cross campus programs can assist in raising the internal and external profile of the university as an “entrepreneurial university” (Weaver, D’Intino, Miller and Schoen, 2009). But what has been lost in this rationale is what a cross campus entrepreneurship program can bring to business schools and their students.

Nancy Adler (2006) puts forth a convincing argument that the old approaches to business no longer work the way they used to because of a host of reasons: global interconnectedness; domination of market forces; increasingly turbulent, complex and chaotic environments; internal environments that require teamwork; failures of traditional planning models; need for constant innovation; and a yearning for significance and meaning. A new model of leadership and decision-making is required for the 21st century. What she documents is that business executives and consultants are turning to artists and artistic processes to guide their thinking about the new model. Closer collaboration with their creative colleagues may improve the ability of business school professors to teach leadership principles and decision-making that will prepare their graduates for the demands of the new model.

A second benefit that may accrue to cross campus entrepreneurship education is an improvement in entrepreneurial opportunities pursued. Shane (2000) pointed out that a variety of knowledge from different disciplines can help develop the opportunity recognition process. As Page West at Wake Forest says, “Good ideas come from the boundaries between fields of endeavor - between different fields, and between the present and the future of any existing field. Answering the question of where good ideas, in fact any ideas, come from goes beyond understanding the normal content of business discipline courses. And context for venture creation is so important to the process, again something that a pure business education doesn't do well, or at all.” Entrepreneurship programs that have students and faculty from a variety of disciplines may produce better venture opportunities for screening than the typical restaurants, bars, book exchanges, apartment locators, and the other venture ideas typically surfaced in undergraduate entrepreneurship courses. In addition, a diverse classroom offers the potential for more lively engagement about capitalism, the market system, profit motives, ethics, and cultural values, for example.

Finally skills that are needed by business school students for successful entrepreneurial careers can be gained in classes not taught within the confines of the business school. At Wake Forest University, we have a number of liberal arts professors that are teaching courses at the intersection of entrepreneurship and their disciplines. Students enrolled in Free Trade, Fair Trade: The Independent Entrepreneur in the Global Marketplace taught by an anthropology professor gain an appreciation of the diversity of cultural, historical, and world economies. They also improve their writing, communication and marketing skills when taking Writing for a Purpose when they are challenged by a Journalism professor to plan, develop, and write for a social venture in the local community. Business school students are also exposed to the richness of product ideas resulting from the world around us when they investigate biological processes, identify opportunities, and write mini-business plans in Biomimetics: Nature’s Way.

Cross campus entrepreneurship programs have the potential to benefit students and faculty from all areas of the campus.

References

Adler, N. J. (2006). The arts & leadership: Now that we can do anything, what will we do. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 5 (4), 486-499.

Bhide, A. V. (2004). Creating new knowledge for one of America's most vital resources. In Kauffman Thoughtbook 2004, pp. 64-68. Kansas City: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Cone, J. (2008). Teaching entrepreneurship in colleges and universities: How (and why) a new acadmeic field is being built. Kansas City: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. http://www.kauffman.org/items.cfm?itemID=716.

Hynes, B., O’Dwyer, M. & Birdthistle, N. (2009). Entrepreneurship education – Meeting the skills needs of graduates in Ireland. Ed. P. West, E.J. Gatewood & K. G. Shaver. Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Katz, J. A. (2005). eWeb's List of Colleges With Majors In Entrepreneurship or Small Business. St. Louis: St. Louis University. http://67.15.250.4/~eweb1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=403.

Mendes, A. & Kehoe, C. (2009). Academic entrepreneurship: Possibilities and pitfalls. Ed. P. West, E.J. Gatewood & K. G. Shaver. Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Schweitzer, T. (2007). Not only the lonely become entrepreneurs. Inc.com. http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200701/loners.html.

Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217-226.

Weaver, K.M., D’Intino, R., Miller, D. & Schoen, E.J. (2009). Building an entrepreneurial university: A case study using a new venture development approach. Ed. P. West, E.J. Gatewood & K. G. Shaver. Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Notes From the Field

Babson College

Babson College Names Trish Costello Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
Babson College has named Trish Costello Director of its Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship. Costello’s professional background includes entrepreneurial, corporate, non-profit and academic experience. She is recognized internationally for her pioneering work in educating and preparing venture capital investment partners, through the prestigious Kauffman Fellows Program. As the founding CEO and now CEO Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education, she expanded the Kauffman Fellows education program to venture capitalists in 10 countries on four continents. Costello was on the start-up team of the Kauffman Foundation’s entrepreneurship center, where for eight years she directed its efforts in venture capital, angel investing, entrepreneur support programs, and programming to accelerate high potential women entrepreneurs.  She has played a leading role nationally in obtaining greater financial equity investments in women’s businesses and in funding initiatives supporting high-growth women entrepreneurs. For additional information on Trish and the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, please visit www.babson.edu/eship.

Babson SEE Programs
In May 2008, Babson College held its flagship program, Price-Babson SEE 24 on its campus in Wellesley, MA. This program is designed to build an international cadre of educators who understand the importance of combining entrepreneurship theory and practice in teaching. Cross-disciplinary educators from around the world attended the program; 62 participants hailed from 12 different countries. The next Babson SEE program will be in Russia at St. Petersburg State University Graduate School of Management. To learn how to participate in the Babson SEE suite of programs please visit www.babson.edu/eship/see.
 
GEM 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship Available
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, launched in May 2008, provides an in-depth global look at women's entrepreneurship and highlights the important role that women play in developing and developed economies. Directed by The Center for Women’s Leadership, Babson College; and the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship, Baruch College, The GEM 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship is available at www.babson.edu/CWL/upload/GEMWomen07.pdf.

Saint Louis University

Angels in Our Midst: The 2008 Gateways Conference
Angel investing is one of the wonders of the modern entrepreneurial age. Angels (informal investors) shoulder the brunt of risk in early stage funding of ventures. Often reclusive, angels are one of the toughest groups to study. To help entrepreneurship faculty do a better job of studying these key players, the 2008 Gateways To Entrepreneurship Research Conference (which was co-sponsored by the AACSB Entrepreneurship Affinity Group, the Kauffman Foundation, the Angel Capital Association, and the Coleman Foundation) looked at the topic of angel investing in two very different ways.

The traditional Gateways program on April 11-12 had the title “Business Angels – The Cinderella of the Venture Capital Market” and featured Colin Mason from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow Scotland. In his keynote address he pointed out that although our understanding of business angels has expanded since the early 1980s, there continue to be huge gaps in our understanding of this market and how it operates.

Prior to the Research Conference, faculty were invited to attend “The Power of Angel Investing” seminar put on by the Angel Capital Association, and sponsored by SLU’s new Billiken Angel Network. With Bob Okabe, a Chicago-area angel investor as lead instructor, more than a dozen local angels and business experts spent the day teaching nearly 50 angels and faculty about how angel investing is done as well as the current best practices in angel investing.

The Conference and Power of Angel Investing seminar were made possible by a major grant from the Kauffman Foundation to support the Conference through 2010. Additional support for the Power of Angel Investing seminar came from the Angel Capital Association and the Billiken Angel Network. Scholarships to the 2008 Gateways Research Conference were made possible by a grant from the Coleman Foundation.

Materials from the 2008 Gateways Research Conference will be posted to our Gateways webpage http://www.slu.edu/x19098.xml later this summer.

Work on the 2009 Gateway Conference is already under way, with plans to announce the theme, speaker and date by the Academy of Management meeting in August. The Gateways webpage will also provide the latest information.

 

For this issue of the Entrepreneurship Education Update we asked members of the Affinity Group to share their best practices related to promoting cross-campus entrepreneurship. These are the ideas colleagues wanted to share with you.

Oregon State University
The Weatherford Residential College is a university wide facility. Students living in Weatherford represent over 60 different academic departments ranging from art to zoology. The programs discussed below include students from a wide range of majors and are truly cross campus in their impact. We call it the BA 160 experience and Weatherford Leadership Team

This three course sequence is designed as an experiential introduction to opportunity recognition and realization for freshmen in the Weatherford Residential College. The first course (BA 160) uses a series of structured exercises and competitions to give students hands on experience working with a range of situations.  Some of the contests have the parameters defined, for example the cook off competition where student teams select and prepare a soup or dessert.  Judging and sampling are open then to the whole residential college.  Other exercises are student defined such as the e-challenge where student teams are given $20 and three weeks to generate as large a financial return as they can. Any money generated through the contest is then donated to charity. Through the course exercises and competitions, students learn basic business and entrepreneurial skills including: project management and event planning, prioritization, team skills, budgeting, leadership, delegation, marketing, selling, and dealing with the unexpected.
 
The second course (BA 161) addresses social entrepreneurship. Building upon the idea of donating the proceeds of the e-challenge to charity in BA 160, the course explores the logic and implementation of social entrepreneurship. Students select a project to gain hands on experience within the framework of the ‘heat is on’ contest to identify ways for Oregon State University to reduce its carbon footprint. Through the course exercises and materials students expand their understanding of and explore their ability to include a social perspective in their entrepreneurial thinking.  Topics addressed include: corporate social responsibility, business ethics, triple bottom line, and the relationship between business, government, and economic vitality.
 
The third course (BA 162) gives students the opportunity to take an opportunity they have identified and write a business plan to turn that opportunity into an economically sustainable venture. In addition to the course topics, including: market need assessment, marketing, competitive analysis, financial projections, sources and uses of capital, intellectual property, corporate structure, students have the opportunity to practice investor pitches. Projects in the course have ranged from a camp for teenage girls whose parents are incarcerated to a biodiesel refinery using used cooking oil from OSU Housing and Dining as feedstock.
 
The BA 160 experience and the wide range of programs presented in the Weatherford Residential College would not be possible without the Weatherford Leadership Team. The Team members are upper class Weatherford residents who are competitively selected to plan and present the programs in Weatherford and mentor the younger students.

Saint Louis University
The Entrepreneurship Program and Center at the John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University operates a variety of activities designed to promote cross-campus entrepreneurship. These include:
• Idea To Product™ : Developed at UT-Austin, this global competition looks at new ideas. SLU runs a campus-wide competition in the Fall and the MO-IL Regional Competition in the Spring. Seven of the colleges of the University have contributed funds and faculty in support.

• Coleman Fellows Program: This 3-year program provides expertise, network and financial supports to faculty from across the campus who are developing modules, courses or majors related to entrepreneurship. This program has led to the creation of a new engineering entrepreneurship major and a new certificate in Arts Entrepreneurship.

• Billiken Angel Network: This new university-affiliated angel group will provide financial and expert support to business ideas from the SLU community, including alums and retired faculty and staff.

• Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization: The campus wide student entrepreneur club.

• BIGideas Grant Program: A year-old campus-wide entrepreneurship social competition.

• Feasibility & Business Plan Development: Student teams have developed feasibility studies and business plans for faculty, students, student organizations, and University units (tech transfer, recreation center, bioterrorism center, etc.).

• Speaker series: Topics include an annual “Business & Love” session on Valentine’s Day (makes a cheap Valentine’s date), and other topics decided by faculty from across the campus involved in entrepreneurship activities.

• SLU Entrepreneurial Alumni Hall of Fame: This program lets all schools on campus (deans and development officers are individually invited to submit) to nominate alumni who have distinguished themselves for their entrepreneurial spirit and accomplishments in a variety of settings (corporate, high-tech, social, emerging firms, etc.).

• Home for “Orphans”: As Universities get rid of programs, their alumni often do not feel they have a home on campus. Where those program involve entrepreneurship (e.g. Construction Engineering) we have adopted the alumni to reconnect them to the University.
For more details on any of these programs you can refer to our website, http://eweb.slu.edu, or contact our Program Chair, Prof. Jerome Katz at katzja@slu.edu.
 

Temple University
The Fox School of Business’s Entrepreneurship program has been ranked repeatedly as one of the best in the nation by various publications. Part of the success of the program is based on the successful introduction through the efforts of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute of the TU cross-campus entrepreneurship initiative which currently is managed and monitored by the Temple University Council on Entrepreneurship http://www.fox.temple.edu/tuce/ .

TUCE meets every two months and is composed of senior administrators or professors, one from each school or college of TU, plus senior officers of the university tech transfer office and other university-wide relevant programs. TUCE is chaired by the Executive Director of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute, who also sets the agenda. The program is supported by the University President and all deans.

The tangible results of such close cooperation among schools are many and include:
1. Approval and offering of a cross-university Certificate in Entrepreneurship at both graduate and undergraduate levels for students of any TU school or college;

2. Introduction of specialized entrepreneurship courses in most colleges such as Entrepreneurship in the Health Professions, Entrepreneurship for Engineers, Entrepreneurship in Science & Technology, Entrepreneurship for Educators, etc. These courses are all tied to the Certificate of Entrepreneurship;

3. Joint conferences or seminars with various schools throughout the year, such as Biotechnology Conference (Business/Medical/Science schools), Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference (Business/Tourism/ Communications/Liberal Arts schools), Boot camp for Music Industry Entrepreneurs (Business/Music/Communications schools), Boot Camp for Sports industry Entrepreneurs (Business/Tourism/Sports Management schools), Legal Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs (Business/Law schools), etc;

4. Business plan competitions are open to all students from all schools;

5.  Collaboration of students from various disciplines in business plans and class projects;

6. Access to successful alumni entrepreneurs from all schools as mentors to student start-ups in any discipline.

Finally, we would be happy to share our experience with any school that would like to contact us at the information below.

Chris Pavlides, Executive Director
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute & Mid-Atlantic Diamond Ventures
Fox School of Business

Temple University
201 Speakman Hall, 1810 N. 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122
215-204-1035
www.fox.temple.edu/iei

University of Florida
The mantra of the University of Florida’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) is to teach, coach and inspire students to be entrepreneurial. Recognizing that many of the world’s successful entrepreneurs continue to come from fields other than business, CEI pushed to overcome the existing educational barriers and three years ago launched the online Entrepreneurial Learning Network (ELN). This offering, a 7-week introductory course titled The Entrepreneurial Opportunity, is delivered utilizing our electronic platform and provides much more flexibility for non-business graduate students as they often have timing conflicts with courses in their own respective programs, are located in disparate parts of campus, or, in some cases, are located at satellite campuses (e.g. Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Jacksonville). The program has been very successful to-date, averaging almost 100 students per year (primarily from the Colleges of Pharmacy and Law) and it is our belief that this is a valuable learning opportunity providing many of the students with a complementary set of skills that will allow them to be more innovative in their future careers. For more info on the UF Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, please visit: http://www.cba.ufl.edu/fire/entrepreneurship/

University of New Hampshire
The Whittemore School Holloway Prize Innovation-to-Market Competition is designed to stimulate entrepreneurship throughout the campus. Open to all graduate and undergraduate students at the University of New Hampshire who have a plan for bringing an innovative product or service to market, the competition helps students to gain first-hand experience in commercializing new products and services, provides access to faculty advisors and industry experts, and gives students the chance to win up to $10,000 in seed money.

The competition consists of four rounds: A poster session at the Undergraduate Research Conference, an opening round, a challenge round, and the championship round. Teams have ten minutes to present before a panel of judges comprised of local business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs. The presentations are followed by fifteen minutes of questioning by the judges, designed to create opportunities for the students to network and get involved with the judges beyond the competition. This year's finalists included both undergraduate and graduate students from the Whittemore School of Business and Economics and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.

Established to honor New Hampshire entrepreneur Paul J. Holloway's achievements and contributions to the University and to the regional economy, the competition stimulates, recognizes, and rewards the entrepreneurial spirit manifested in Mr. Holloway's career. Now in its 20th year, the competition has become an integral part of the student experience at UNH. The rigor of the competition maximizes educational value, prepares students for the realities of the business world, and helps to generate new business opportunities.

Wayne State University
We’ve begun a student advertising agency to work with new business start ups in TechTown (our University’s business incubator). Advertising students enroll in a Directed Study class and receive credit, and thanks to several grants, they receive a modest ‘salary’ for a small portion of their hours worked. The student advertising agency has an office set up at TechTown, and my students are working to develop integrated marketing communications programs for several new business clients. We have begun with a modest staff of four students, but plan to add a PR student specialist from the Communications School and a technical student specialist from the Engineering School this coming year. The ultimate goal of course is to help make new businesses successful and to remain in the state.

Richard F. Beltramini
Professor of Marketing and Interim Academic Associate Dean
School of Business Administration

Wayne State University
206 Prentis Building; 5201 Cass Avenue
Detroit, MI 48202-3930
phone: (313)577-6275
fax: (313)577-4557
busassocdean@wayne.edu

Washington University in St. Louis
The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies is structured as a wholly independent, cross-discipline Center at Washington University in St. Louis. The Center reports directly to the Chancellor to remain pure to its cross-campus mission and maintain transparency with preference given to no one school. Students may take courses in any school, promoting peer learning and collaboration among all students and increasing creativity and innovation.

The cross-campus nature of the entrepreneurship program and the experiential components, both in and outside of class, make Washington University a place where students don't just learn about entrepreneurship, they "do" entrepreneurship. The Center’s flagship program - IdeaBounce® - allows anyone to post and pitch an idea for a new business, social venture, or invention. IdeaBounce® events connect students, creators, inventors, implementers, investors, business people, artists, service providers, customers, mentors, and others - the web of innovators who transform ideas into reality, create value, and bring ideas to market. The event concludes with a reception for all and a private dinner for the top five idea bouncers and judges. Bouncers receive feedback, counsel, and support for moving their ideas forward.

Our newest innovation is the Skandalaris Internship Program, which pairs undergraduate students with startup/entrepreneurial commercial and social ventures. Since these organizations often have limited funding, the Center subsidizes more than 80% of the total Program cost. The program is made possible through the generous support of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Skandalaris. Beyond their work experience, the Program provides two additional learning opportunities for the students: a collaborative living environment on campus and a weekly series of collaborative discussions and opportunities to connect. This and all Center programs support the regional entrepreneurial environment.

Please visit www.ideabounce.com or www.sc.wustl.edu for more information.