To many in academia who are accustomed
to thinking of entrepreneurship in business terms, the
notion of entrepreneurship in the liberal arts might
seem incongruous, even heretical. But consider this
definition, which the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
espouses and we at Wake Forest University embrace: "An
entrepreneur is one who takes advantage of knowledge
and resources to identify and pursue opportunities that
initiate change and create value in one's life
and those of others." This definition suggests
something broader and more inclusive than one might
think. Value in this sense connotes not only economic
value, but also social, intellectual, artistic, and
spiritual value--value in any sector of human endeavor.
The person who mounts a theater production, develops
a novel database that is useful for researchers, or
founds a nonprofit philanthropic organization is every
bit as much of an entrepreneur as the one who starts
a business.
And what are the qualities of the
successful entrepreneur? Willingness to ask questions.
Openness to new information and the viewpoints of others.
Eagerness for gathering data with which to make connections
and draw conclusions. Critical thinking. Seeing the
big picture. Thinking outside the box. Perceiving issues
and finding creative ways to deal with them. These all
sound a lot like the goals and outcomes of a liberal
education, don't they? More importantly, the concept
of entrepreneurship embodies the value of freedom that
is also at the core of the liberal education. Just as
a liberal education is intended to break the shackles
of parochial thinking and broaden the individual's
perspective entrepreneurship is about freedom from institutionalized
ways of thinking and acting. Like liberal education,
entrepreneurship is concerned with empowering individuals
to see new possibilities and to effect change for the
good.*
In a world where the best opportunities
are increasingly entrepreneurial, the importance of
an entrepreneurial component in a liberal education
cannot be overstated. Our economy will prosper only
to the extent that we are able to cultivate entrepreneurial
enterprises to replace large traditional employers who
are on the wane or are moving their workforces overseas.
About 12 percent of American adults today are actively
involved in the startup process. Close to 40 percent
will engage in an entrepreneurial endeavor at some point
in their lives. Not all of these individuals are--or,
some would argue, should be--products of business
schools.
Recognizing this trend, the Kauffman
Foundation in December 2003 elected to support eight
schools, including Wake Forest, in developing programs
to promote entrepreneurship outside the traditional
business school environment. A four-year, $2.16 million
matching grant to Wake Forest will facilitate development
of a host of curricular and extracurricular programs
to achieve that purpose in our liberal arts institution.
By the end of the grant period, the university will
be equipped to support any student from any discipline,
from freshman year through graduate school, who wants
to learn about and engage in entrepreneurship in any
field of endeavor.
To be sure, entrepreneurship is
not a revolutionary concept at Wake Forest. Examples
of successful student ventures abound. Within the last
couple of years, undergraduates have created a nonprofit
corporation that provides medical services and supplies
to a West African country; a company that markets and
distributes designer handbags made by Vietnamese craftswomen;
an Internet dial-up access service; a new community
program for getting citizens more involved in the democratic
process; a provider of temporary banquet labor; and
some of the most popular youth-oriented Web sites on
the Internet, among other ventures.
What the Kauffman program provides
is structure and support to enable any budding entrepreneur
to bring an idea to fruition. William Conner, a biology
professor who serves on our steering committee, tells
of a young woman who was one of his freshman advisees
last year. At their first meeting, she told him she
had a dream of starting a summer camp for children with
incurable illnesses, but didn't know where to
begin. Now, as Bill notes, she can start with an introductory
entrepreneurship seminar, proceed with a program of
coursework, practical experience, mentoring, and plan
development, and be ready to go by the time she graduates.
What many faculty members are most
enthusiastic about is the program's emphasis on
interdisciplinary collaboration. An endless array of
interesting opportunities can be found at the boundaries
between disciplines. One art graduate has a successful
practice in the visual communication of complex medical,
scientific, and technical subject matter. She had double-majored
in art and biology, and based on the connections she
made between the fields, went on to study medical illustration.
Another effort centers on education for learning-disabled
children, and represents a collaboration between education,
computer science, and business.
The program has gotten off to a
fast start in its first year. A center for entrepreneurship
that will function as an incubator and a provider of
extracurricular assistance for campus entrepreneurs
who are in the early stages of idea development and
feasibility assessment has been launched. Communication
and promotion have been major emphases. Members of the
entrepreneurship steering committee have already met
with representatives of departments comprising about
75 percent of Wake Forest's total undergraduate
faculty to explain and promote the concept.
A "best ideas in the liberal
arts" contest will award up to one thousand dollars
for novel thinking and innovative ideas for using the
Internet to create value in liberal arts studies. To
inspire others and provide examples, faculty members
have been invited to "tell a story" about
an especially creative entrepreneurial activity of someone
from their discipline; the stories will be disseminated
in print and electronically.
Guest speakers on campus this year
have included Jose Rivera, an award-winning film and
theater writer who spoke of the intersection of his
art and business, and Bill Rancic, a business and social
entrepreneur and winner of the inaugural round of The
Apprentice. Scheduled for next year are David Finckel
and Wu Han, a classical music couple who started their
own Internet-based record label, founded a summer music
festival in Silicon Valley, and serve as artistic directors
of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Presentations
on the program to alumni and parent groups have generated
enthusiasm--a solid foundation for building the
internship and mentoring networks that are planned.
In the classroom, four first-year
seminars and one upper-level seminar on entrepreneurship
themes have been developed and taught this year, with
a half dozen or so planned for next year. A biology
professor this spring is mentoring an interdisciplinary
group of student entrepreneurs who are forming a biotechnology
company to manufacture disease antibody company to manufacture
disease antibody testing kits for the fish-farming industry
and is leading a seminar in which six faculty members
from various disciplines are developing courses with
entrepreneurship components.
Four new liberal arts faculty positions
will be added to provide enhanced teaching resources
for entrepreneurship curriculum initiatives. The first
of these, a creativity expert in the theater department,
has been advertised and interviews of finalists have
begun.
In a sense, the Kauffman-funded
program of entrepreneurship in the liberal arts at Wake
Forest University is a metaphor for the very subject
it concerns. It is a bold and creative exercise in the
process of perceiving and responding to opportunity
and need. The need is society's and our students'.
The opportunity is ours.
*We are indebted to William
Green of the University of Rochester for these ideas.
Please contact Dr. Green at w.green@rochester.edu for
his working paper on this subject.
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