Professional Documents
Culture Documents
in American
Higher Education
1
to entrepreneurship and to consider truly multidisciplinary approaches that
are responsive to the real needs of a marketplace. After Dean Newton’s
untimely death, William Scott Green, senior vice provost and dean of
Undergraduate Education at the University of Miami, agreed to chair the
Panel and lead in drafting its report. The Foundation and the Panel regard
the report below as a tribute to the insight, conviction, intelligence, and
collegiality of Rich Newton. Without his leadership, the work would not
have been possible.
We hope this report will stimulate fresh discussion and educational
change across and throughout American university and college campuses.
The Kauffman Foundation’s Web site, www.kauffman.org, contains
resources that can usefully contribute to these efforts. The Kauffman
Foundation concurs with the Panel’s judgment that “entrepreneurship is
higher education’s authentic and natural ally” and that our nation’s future
significantly depends on our nurturing that alliance. We hope this report is
a meaningful step in that direction.
Panel Members
• Rodney Brooks, Ph.D., director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• William Scott Green, Ph.D., senior vice provost, dean of Undergraduate Education,
Professor of Religious Studies, University of Miami
• R. Glenn Hubbard, Ph.D., dean of the Columbia Business School at Columbia University
• Dipak Jain, Ph.D., dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
• Linda Katehi, Ph.D., provost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• George McLendon, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Duke University
• Jim Plummer, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering at Stanford University
• Myron Roomkin, Ph.D., dean emeritus, Alfred J. Weatherhead III School of Management,
Case Western Reserve University
2
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................ 4
Conclusion............................................................................................... 15
3
Introduction must teach students how to make sense of and
how to affect the reality in which they will
Higher education is basic to the future of actually live. Education cannot succeed if it
American life. The nation’s ability to prosper and becomes insular and static. To be sure, studying
to thrive in an increasingly knowledge-based great works of the past and the persisting
global society and economy depends on our questions of human nature is basic to becoming
having a progressively well-educated population. an educated person. But a distinctive strength
The values and practices of pure research— of American higher education also should be
discovery, originality, innovation—shape and dynamism and adaptability, a capacity to address
motivate American university learning. The urgent, current questions of nature, society, and
American bachelor’s degree has other objectives human experience as well as classic ones.
as well. Among the most frequently stated are Entrepreneurship is a dominant force in
critical thinking, scientific and quantitative contemporary America. It generates ongoing
reasoning, preparation for citizenship, moral innovation and improvement of our goods,
reflection, readiness for work, respect for diversity, services, and institutions. It makes them more
broad intellectual knowledge, the transmission of efficient, affordable, and, thus, effective.
culture, and appreciation of our national values. Entrepreneurship enhances the quality of our
At the root of all these legitimate and important collective and individual lives. It changes the
goals is an even more fundamental purpose of way we work, the way we communicate, the way
learning: intelligibility. We cannot improve a we live. Innovation and improvement depend
world we do not understand, and we cannot on intelligibility. In the final analysis, we cannot
advance if we do not comprehend ourselves, devise or enhance the incomprehensible. We
our strengths, limitations, and motivations. By cannot repair what is mysterious to us. Because
making the world and ourselves increasingly intelligibility is a fundamental purpose of higher
comprehensible and thereby manageable, education, and generating new knowledge is
education establishes a foundation for human the highest expression of American learning,
growth, creativity, fulfillment, and progress. entrepreneurship and college education are
If intelligibility is a fundamental goal of inextricably bound to one another. Each has an
learning, then American higher education ineluctable interest in the success of the other.
must reflect the experience and conditions of Against this background, entrepreneurship
contemporary life. Higher education cannot should be both a legitimate subject in American
make intelligible a world from which it is undergraduate education and a pervasive approach
removed or does not address. College learning to learning and the management of universities.
4
Why Entrepreneurship Matters novel enterprise that the market is willing to
adopt. Hence, entrepreneurship entails the
Entrepreneurship is the transformation of commercialization (or its functional equivalent)
an innovation into a sustainable enterprise that of an innovation. New ideas, products, or
generates value. An entrepreneur is “any entity, organizational schemes matter little until they
new or existing, that provides a new product or achieve concrete reality in the marketplace—that
service or that develops and uses new methods is, until they are actually used. The market judges
to produce or deliver existing goods and services utility and need along with excellence. It does not
at lower cost.”1 “Entrepreneurs innovate new value—and does not need to value—every good
ways of manipulating nature, and new ways idea. The entrepreneur’s risk, therefore, is not a
of assembling and coordinating people….The gamble but an informed calculation about the
innovator shows that a product, a process, or viability of the new enterprise in the market, about
a mode of organization can be efficient and its capacity to meet a demand or need of others.
profitable, and that elevates the entire economy.”2 Entrepreneurship emerges from the realm
Entrepreneurs take risks to develop a novel, of commerce, but it cannot be restricted
sustainable enterprise—a new or improved there. Business is part of society. Cultural
product, service, or mode of organization that can and social values and economic policies and
exist independent of its originator—that benefits behaviors shape and validate one another. For
the economy and society. entrepreneurship to be a mainstream and routine
Though entrepreneurship can involve—and business practice, it must reflect its society’s
thus often is mistaken for—invention, creativity, view of how the world should work and how
management, starting a small business, or human beings should behave. Social attitudes,
becoming self-employed, it is neither identical political practices, economic policies, and the
with nor reducible to any of them. The defining legal system must support creativity, risk-taking,
trait of entrepreneurship is the creation of a and the implementation of new enterprises.
Entrepreneurship cannot thrive if its society’s
values undermine it.
1
William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm, Good Capitalism, Entrepreneurship is a process of fundamental
Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity (Yale
University Press, 2007), p. 3. This definition reflects the authors’ critical transformation: from innovative idea to
distinction between “‘replicative’ entrepreneurs—those producing or enterprise and from enterprise to value. The very
selling a good or service already available through other sources” and
“‘innovative’ entrepreneurs,” who matter for economic growth. ordinariness of entrepreneurship in American
2
J. Bradford DeLong, “Creative Destruction’s Reconstruction: commerce points to a society that prizes
Joseph Schumpeter Revisited,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, originality and improvement and the human
December 7, 2007, www.chronicle.com; Section: The Chronicle Review,
Volume 54, Issue15, Page B8. traits that enable both. Thus, entrepreneurship
5
is more than a business practice. As a distinct To neglect entrepreneurship or relegate it to
mode of thought and action, it derives from the educational sidelines makes undergraduate
business but can operate in any realm of human learning orthogonal to the world it is supposed to
endeavor. Entrepreneurship merges the visionary help students learn to understand.
and the pragmatic. It requires knowledge, Entrepreneurship has long been overlooked
imagination, perception, practicality, persistence, as a topic of economic study, but recent
and attention to others. Entrepreneurship is a scholarship has underscored its leading role as a
self-actualizing and a self-transcending activity major generator of wealth in the contemporary
that—through responsiveness to the market— economy. The continual creation of new
integrates the self, the entrepreneur, with society. enterprises is a fundamental reason for the
Unavoidably, therefore, entrepreneurship is an economic growth and technological innovation
exercise in social responsibility. To suppress or of the American economy over at least the past
constrain innovation and improvement—and two decades. Entrepreneurship’s centrality to the
their implementation—ignores a society’s needs steady improvement of human welfare explains its
and wants, holds it back, and diminishes its pertinence to American college learning.
future. Entrepreneurship is the unique process Although entrepreneurship has been a
that, by fusing innovation and implementation, relatively standard component of the curricula of
allows individuals to bring new ideas into being business schools, it has begun to emerge as a
for the benefit of themselves and others. It is sui discrete area of study of ever broadening interest
generis, an irreducible form of freedom. and applicability. The increased importance of
entrepreneurship is evident in the academy.
Entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing
Why Entrepreneurship subjects in today’s undergraduate curricula. In
6
good reason to rethink its place in the general fields of learning and as a bridge between theory
undergraduate curriculum. and practice, entrepreneurship is a superb vehicle
Increasingly, universities themselves are agents with which to achieve the aims of the broad,
of entrepreneurship. Through offices of “technology effective, and integrated learning that marks a
transfer,” schools encourage and enable their strong college education.
faculty to create ventures that transform their Entrepreneurship is a distinctive form of human
research into products for the market. Research agency that fuses the human desire for the ever
universities are an important—though not the better with confidence in the human ability to
only—source of innovation and the creation of new fulfill that desire. It mixes optimism with realism.
products and processes that become the foundation As a defining characteristic of American society,
of new firms and enterprises. For universities to economics, and culture, entrepreneurship has a
advocate entrepreneurship as a core activity for valuable role to play in American higher education.
faculty and then fail to teach that activity broadly to
their students disconnects the school’s mission from
its practice and is educationally incoherent. How Entrepreneurship
Finally, although it is among the newer
Fits in College
subjects in the academy, entrepreneurship fulfills
many of the established goals of a high-quality If entrepreneurship belongs in college
education. Entrepreneurship is not an isolated learning, how should we teach it and learn
activity. It is embedded in larger structures. Even if it? Does it need to become a distinct field of
conceived narrowly as solely a business practice, learning, a discipline, in order to find a durable
entrepreneurship ultimately is unintelligible place in the overall curriculum?
without knowledge of the interlocking and Like philosophy or music, entrepreneurship
reinforcing systems of law, economics, politics, is a field of study that generates—rather than
finance, and cultural values that make it plausible discovers or encounters—its subject matter. Unlike
and thereby foster it. Moreover, because history, sociology, or anthropology, for instance,
entrepreneurship has a practical focus, its study entrepreneurship creates what it studies. Because
naturally and easily demonstrates how ideals and of its practical focus, entrepreneurship’s greatest
theories—so called “pure” knowledge—actually exponents are its innovators and practitioners—the
affect behavior. Indeed, entrepreneurship’s focus creators of new enterprises, firms, products, and
on the pragmatic can channel the ambition services—rather than its students. Like music,
and talent of young people away from fanciful but unlike philosophy, entrepreneurship requires
speculation and toward concrete projects. As a more than other professionals to be consequential.
magnet for the authentic integration of varied Philosophers may write primarily for other
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philosophers, but entrepreneurs and musicians (both Because of its focus on the audience, music has a
composers and performers) require a population of capacity to affect a vast population.
amateurs in order to be complete. For music, that Nearly everything that is true for music
population is the audience. For entrepreneurs, it is also is true for entrepreneurship. At one level,
the market. To see how entrepreneurship can find education in entrepreneurship must be about the
its place in a college curriculum, a comparison of entrepreneur, the practitioner. Entrepreneurship
entrepreneurship to music is instructive. education must give students the practical, how-
Education in entrepreneurship, as in music, to technical skills to create, manage, assess, and
operates along a continuum of learning that extends sustain new enterprises. Among other things, they
from the professional to the amateur. In music, need to learn to devise a product, create a business
at one end of the continuum is the composer or plan, find new resources, build a company, market
the virtuoso performer. At the other end is the their innovation, and so forth. To be sure, skills
audience, which values what the composer and alone hardly generate new enterprises, but they
performer do. Along the way are multiple, discrete surely facilitate their development. At the other end
aspects of music—conducting, mastering a specific of the continuum, education in entrepreneurship
instrument, theory, history, etc.—that contribute to also must be for the amateur, the consumer, who
the overall intelligibility of the subject and improve is the ultimate focus of entrepreneurship. The
performance. Comprehensive and substantive amateurs constitute the market. They consume,
education in music embraces this continuum and and, in so doing, they assess. Just as education can
neglects none of it. It teaches the virtuoso how to help students who are not musicians learn how
improve and the amateur how to appreciate. It to appreciate the skills, intelligence, and artistic
shows how music works, charts its changes, and values that go into the creation and performance
analyzes its elements. Increasingly, it examines the of great music, so education can help students
conditions of music’s creation and persistence. who are not entrepreneurs understand the skills,
In the final analysis, music is not and cannot be intelligence, and the political, cultural, and
solely self-referential. It reaches outwards to non- economic infrastructure that enable the generation
specialists to bring benefit and enrichment to their of new enterprises.
lives. Music also is a competitive field and therefore Entrepreneurship also is a matter of merit, but,
a meritocracy. But its notion of merit is neither as in music, what counts as entrepreneurial merit
pristine nor absolute. It is affected by the audience, is constrained by the market. Between the ends of
which helps to shape the subject and determine this continuum of learning, as in music, there are
the kind and quality of music that will matter. The many discrete elements of entrepreneurship—some
higher the audience’s taste and level of expectation, applied, some theoretical—that can constitute the
the better the music becomes and must become. foci of individual courses and projects.
8
When one views the comprehensive the curriculum, the co-curriculum, and the
framework of entrepreneurship education against management of universities. We aim to be
the diverse institutional types and educational suggestive rather than prescriptive, to indicate both
missions that comprise American higher learning, substantive rationales and concrete measures that
it seems unlikely that any single set of educational universities can adopt to make entrepreneurship
practices or programs can apply uniformly fundamental to what they do and how they do it.
across the board. Different schools have discrete
populations, histories, cultures, and purposes,
and American colleges and universities serve a Entrepreneurship in
variety of educational functions with increasingly
the Curriculum
diverse age groups. For instance, entrepreneurship
in a university with a business school may differ
Entrepreneurship in General Education
from entrepreneurship in a university without one.
Entrepreneurship in community colleges, which All—or nearly all—American colleges and
educate an important sector of the American universities share a basic interest in general
population, may diverge from entrepreneurship education. This is the realm of learning that aims
in a research university. Entrepreneurship to equip American college students with both
cannot be a “one size fits all” discipline. Each a set of skills—quantitative, verbal, analytical,
program will have a particular set of outcomes, a etc.—that is essential to all fields but particular
defined target audience, and will fit into a local to none and a breadth of intellectual experience
ecosystem. Our aim, therefore, is not to prescribe that can help them integrate knowledge from
a single set of educational practices. Rather, we different fields. By definition, general education
want to encourage educational communities, articulates the core educational mission of a
including their faculties, administrations, staffs, college or university. As such, it is the province
students, parents, and trustees, to devise the of no discrete school or department. It represents
kinds of education in entrepreneurship that are institution-wide, trans-disciplinary learning.
appropriate to their goals, populations, heritages, Increasingly, general education requirements
and resources, and that find a legitimate place focus on helping students gain basic competence
in the continuum of learning sketched above. in writing, quantitative analysis, interdisciplinary,
Education in entrepreneurship needs to be as research, globalization, ethics, and citizenship.
responsive to the concreteness and integrity of its General education is where students are expected
diverse contexts of learning—its varied markets— to acquire the fundamentals of learning that they
as entrepreneurship itself. can then apply to more specialized areas of study
This report focuses on three major areas: and to the rest of their lives.
9
Entrepreneurship is ideal for general education brings entrepreneurship into the mainstream of
because it is a practice that applies to many students’ discourse about their own education
fields and because it provides a revealing lens for and helps them apply it when they turn to more
studying how cultural values, social institutions, specialized study.
economic policies, and legal practices interrelate to For general education, entrepreneurship
shape human behavior. Entrepreneurship naturally has yet another pertinence. In the United States,
and authentically draws together subjects usually entrepreneurship is a primary way in which our
taught and studied separately. free society grows and improves not only our
For example, an introductory, foundational economy, but our cultural and social lives as
course in entrepreneurship—designed for all well. Entrepreneurship is a fundamental means
students—can explore and explain how core by which a free society comes to know itself.
cultural values come to expression in a broad Through the continual innovation, the ongoing
range of human activities—from economics transformation of ideas and enterprises, and the
to law to politics to culture to religion—and persistent testing which takes place in the market,
how these realms must collaborate to make American society learns about itself and its culture
entrepreneurship routine in American society. in the very process of developing that culture.
To take one instance, contemporary American Nothing else we do—even, and particularly,
entrepreneurship depends on the legal concept holding elections—gives us such comprehensive
of “intellectual property,” the notion that ideas collective self-knowledge. By showing students
can be “owned” and their use restricted to how American politics, law, culture, and
and by the owner. Beneath this legal concept economics actually interact—and must interact—
are logically prior notions of the self, the to produce tangible results, the broad study of
autonomy of the individual, and that our ideas entrepreneurship in general education can be a
come from within us and therefore belong to fresh and stimulating way for students to achieve a
us. This range of values and practices is the realistically comprehensive picture of the concrete
context for our practice of entrepreneurship. The machinery of their own economy and society.
entrepreneurial lens illustrates concretely how The study of entrepreneurship thereby helps ready
big theoretical, philosophical, and sometimes students for informed citizenship.
theological constructs become real, practical,
and affect everyday life—in short, how values Entrepreneurship and the Disciplines
matter. In doing so, a foundational course in
entrepreneurship can admirably fulfill the ideals American baccalaureate education is built
of broad, interconnected, and relevant learning around academic disciplines. Whatever else they
that mark a quality general education. It also may do in college, all students pursue a “major”
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or “concentration” in a particular subject or at the level of both the discrete course and the
subjects. Recent scholarship makes clear that disciplinary program, the major or concentration.
disciplinary learning—at least as much as, and The relevance of entrepreneurship to studies in
possibly more than, general education—is central business and economics goes without saying.
to students’ experience. But courses in history or literature could focus
on entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial themes.
…the academic disciplines shape The study of the impact of government policies
students’ educational experience in every on entrepreneurship easily fits within political
way. What students learn about diversity, science or economics. Entrepreneurship is
critical thinking, writing, quantitative becoming increasingly relevant in nursing and
reasoning, information literacy, and the delivery of health care. The broad area of
technology—including how these terms are environmental studies and sustainability is rich
defined—is mediated by the disciplines, as with entrepreneurial possibility. Religion and
are the best pedagogical strategies to teach political science offer interesting options to
students these skills. explore the power of entrepreneurial activity
This mediation is not only true for outside the realm of business.4 A very promising
students’ third and fourth years in college… area that may well become fundamental to
but for the first two years as well….[T]here is entrepreneurship education builds on research in
no such thing as an undergraduate education; psychology and sociology. This area of learning
instead we have many undergraduate analyzes and teaches the traits that correlate with
educations filtered through the lenses of entrepreneurial achievement, such as creativity,
particular disciplines….3 innovation, and self-efficacy.
Integrating entrepreneurship into discrete
If this account is even reasonably accurate— courses—however valuable—addresses only part
and there are reasons to think it is more than of students’ experience with the disciplines. The
that—entrepreneurship must find its place major, the collection of courses that constitutes
among and within the disciplines to become an extended and integrated program of learning,
genuinely mainstream. shapes what students know about their most
Entrepreneurship’s natural and broad important subject and how they know it. The
applicability enables such curricular integration
4
Political movements and evangelical religions, both of which outlive
their founders, may be inherently entrepreneurial, though their markets,
3
Catherine Hoffman Beyer, Gerald M. Gilmore, and Andrew T. Fisher, Inside in the first instance, are not economic. In some forms of contemporary
the Undergraduate Experience: The University of Washington’s Study of Protestantism, the connection between religion and entrepreneurship is
Undergraduate Learning (Bolton, Mass., Anker Publishing Company, 2007), p. 23 explicit. See, for instance, www. pastorpreneur.com.
11
major brings them into a community of inquiry innovation itself more a part of their educational
and, teaches them an intellectual discourse, the experience and discourse. Again, the analogy
discipline’s language of knowledge. The courses to music may be helpful. Departments of music
in the major reinforce habits of mind, analytical composition cannot make students creative.
practices, and approaches to problem-solving. But studying how great music is made can
Entrepreneurship will have its most durable ignite whatever creativity students possess and
impact on higher education if it not only finds help bring it to expression. The aim of studying
an appropriate place in the disciplinary subjects, composition is to unpack works of genius and
but shapes the major itself. For example, to excellence and thereby lead students beyond
enhance students’ sense of entrepreneurial imitation to originality.5 Students are more likely
possibility, some educators suggest that courses to practice innovation if their education values it,
in commercialization should be available to, if and it is a basic part of their learning. So it is with
not required of, students who major in any of entrepreneurship. Making innovation intelligible
the STEM (science, technology, engineering, may help students to imagine and engage in
mathematics) subjects. entrepreneurial activities they otherwise might not
The issue goes deeper than this. Since the have considered.
major is likely the most influential component The integration of entrepreneurship into
of students’ learning, it is the logical context in the major is more than a departmental matter.
which they can explore and experience what Academic guilds and accrediting agencies
we might call the entrepreneurial move from determine the form and contents of majors
intelligibility to innovation. An entrepreneurial in many fields, particularly those outside of
approach to the major might stress both the arts and sciences and traditionally deemed as
mastery of basic information and insight into the “preprofessional,” i.e., business, education,
new ideas that have altered a field of learning communication, engineering, architecture,
over time. While the major conventionally etc. Any movement to make majors more
gives students extensive exposure to a subject, entrepreneurial will ask the guilds and accrediting
its structure often does not address systemic agencies to rethink the so-called “learning
innovation in a field. Thus, students cannot always outcomes” of their subjects and to establish
see how change and progress have affected new standards and directions of educational
their own learning and thinking. An articulated consequence for them. This is particularly
emphasis in the major on how a field has pertinent to undergraduate business programs,
improved analysis, advanced understanding, and
implemented change could help students learn to 5
This formulation derives from Shelton Berg, dean of the Frost School of
innovate about what they know and thereby make Music, University of Miami.
12
which traditionally attract the nation’s largest want the opportunity to try it out—to actually
numbers of majors, and where entrepreneurship do it. For students drawn to business or engaged
is assumed to have its most natural educational in addressing persisting social problems,
home. Altering certified majors can be a slow entrepreneurship’s emphasis on implementing
process, and we encourage universities, learned new enterprises provides a constructive and
societies, and accrediting agencies not to practical outlet for their natural idealism and its
delay in initiating serious discussions about associated enthusiasm. It can help them see how
entrepreneurial change. to solve problems and get things done. In this
The arguments for entrepreneurship in the regard, the environment outside the classroom
undergraduate major apply with even greater is critical. Again, a comparison to music is
force to graduate and professional studies. As illustrative. Because it depends on an audience,
graduate students craft their own independent music, unlike most other academic subjects,
research projects and thereby fulfill the American thrives outside as well as inside the classroom.
educational ideal of a career in the work of Most American colleges and universities regard
discovery and creativity, exposure to musical performance as a natural part of campus
entrepreneurship may trigger an awareness of life. They routinely sponsor multiple co-curricular,
how their new ideas can have broad impact. non-credit musical groups—from a capella
In principle, graduate education need not be ensembles, to glee clubs, to orchestras, to jazz
inimical to the creation of new enterprises. and rock bands. With a supportive campus
Indeed, in some graduate programs, new products environment, American undergraduates can
are the natural outcomes of research. The increase their musical skills and fulfill their
educational practices of such programs could be interests in music whether or not they study and
adapted and applied to other fields and perform it for credit.
institutions. This is not to suggest that graduate So it should be for entrepreneurship. Students
work must be applied research, but rather that interested in starting their own businesses
an entrepreneurial climate can offer an or other enterprises benefit from a campus
enriched perspective on the consequences of environment that takes entrepreneurship seriously
pure research. and supports it. Some universities have opened
dedicated offices and workspaces that allow
Entrepreneurship in the Co-Curriculum student entrepreneurs to find both the resources
of information and fellowship that help to foster
By its very nature, entrepreneurship in their work. Other schools have established special
college cannot be limited to the classroom. residence halls for entrepreneurs or created
Students interested in it and committed to it will programs of student-initiated and student-owned
13
businesses. Many university career centers can help students become independent and
provide regular opportunities for students to meet innovative risk-takers. The more comprehensively
and learn from local and alumni entrepreneurs. students encounter entrepreneurial concepts
The Enterprisers program, offered by Cambridge and behaviors in their college experience, the
University, is a useful example of a short, focused more likely they are to assimilate them. The
co-curricular program with consequential results, proliferation of offices of technology transfer
particularly in concert with internships and other suggests that universities increasingly recognize
practical experiences.6 These activities easily can the economic benefit of entrepreneurship. But
be applied to students’ efforts in the nonprofit most students and faculty encounter technology
sector as well. All university efforts along these transfer only indirectly. The more basic issue is
lines help student entrepreneurs find substantive how entrepreneurial values can become broadly
advice and meaningful encouragement to persist integral to a university’s culture.
with their projects. Entrepreneurship is about devising
The universities also benefit. Student and implementing new ideas and practices
entrepreneurs bring a distinctive vitality and or improving old ones. In a progressively
energy to campus life. They help make a college technological, scientific, and interconnected
campus fun and exciting. Entrepreneurship is world, the quality of innovation in large measure
among a handful of careers—most of which are increasingly relies on superior advanced learning.
not represented in the curriculum—that students A strong educational foundation helps ensure
can pursue while they are in college. Student that new ideas will be effective and substantive.
entrepreneurs integrate learning with the off- Because entrepreneurship promotes, implements,
campus world of work, problem-solving, and and rewards innovation, it necessarily
achievement. They add a rich and leavening correlates with education. In this light, a key
dimension to a campus culture. task of American higher education surely is to
continue to stress and reward innovation and its
implementation as a core educational goal.
Entrepreneurship and the Curriculum is the basic enterprise of
14
budgetary practices and incentive structures to
Conclusion
reward faculty and departments for curricular
innovations, fresh interdisciplinary partnerships, There are compelling reasons to make
experiments with new modes of instruction, etc. entrepreneurship a mainstream subject and an
A more explicit educational focus on innovation animating force in American higher education.
and its implementation—to be sure, in ways As the world’s natural resources ebb and
that respect the integrity of the varied academic technology advances, humanity increasingly
disciplines—would help encourage university will live by its wits. Human understanding,
faculty and academic departments continually to ingenuity, and inventiveness will become ever
adopt, apply, and assess methods of teaching and more critical to creating a sustainable future. But
learning that foster creativity and originality.7 innovation alone will not suffice. We will need
The same considerations should apply to people who know how to implement new ideas
the areas of research and tenure. One obvious and make them accessible to large populations.
consequence of universities’ new emphasis on An entrepreneurial society will not emerge or
technology transfer is a fresh perspective on and persist by accident. We will have to build it
appreciation of translational research. In our view, and maintain it. To do both, we will have to
universities should treat translational research as understand why entrepreneurship matters, how it
basic research, and the “measure of impact” of works, and how to sustain it. That understanding
research should be part of the review for tenure is the result of education.
and promotion. Advanced education is one of our nation’s
An academic culture animated by greatest cultural resources. Students from all
entrepreneurial values not only enhances over the world come here to learn in the unique
innovation in research, it also creates a research-based and research-driven educational
comprehensive educational climate for students. framework of American universities—an
Good teachers are more than sources of environment defined by free inquiry, autonomous
information for students. They can be important thinking, intellectual passion, and originality.
role models as well. Entrepreneurial students will In American education, intelligibility is a basic
learn most from entrepreneurial teachers. goal, and innovation and discovery are the
most consequential results. Entrepreneurship is
higher education’s authentic and natural ally.
An entrepreneurial education is an enabling
education. The union of the two is our best hope to
bring humanity the greatest benefit from the finest
7
For example, see the work of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at
Stanford University: www.stanford.edu/group/dschool/projects/labs.html outcomes of independent and creative learning.
15
Profiles of Innovative Entrepreneurship
Education Programs
During the past two decades, tremendous growth has occurred in the
number of entrepreneurship courses offered by colleges and universities. In
1985, studies indicate there were about 250 entrepreneurship courses offered
across all college campuses in the United States. Today, more than 5,000
entrepreneurship courses are now offered in two-year and four-year institutions.
The profiles on the following pages offer a few examples of innovative
courses and programs in entrepreneurship that colleges and universities
now offer to introduce and engage students into the process, opportunities,
and excitement generated through entrepreneurship. While these are by no
means the only exciting things happening in universities across America,
these profiles do illustrate concretely how the suggestions in this report can
and have been implemented.
16
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona p.a.v.e.—The Performing Arts Master of Healthcare
www.asu.edu Venture Experience Innovation
Year Founded: 1885 When the founder of Phoenix’s Progressive Can the future of healthcare be in the
Enrollment: 64,394 Theatre Workshop needed funding to get hands of an architect or an engineer?
his venture off the ground, he became part Faculty at Arizona State University’s College
InnovationSpace of something that is progressive in its own of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation think
When a group of students from Arizona right—p.a.v.e. so. They’ve teamed up with the College
State University interviewed female of Design and the Hugh Downs School
p.a.v.e. (The Performing Arts Venture
firefighters, they discovered that most of of Human Communications to offer the
Experience) is the arts entrepreneurship
the equipment and clothing firefighters Master of Healthcare Innovation, a unique,
program of the Arizona State University
wear is typically too big for women thirty-three-credit master’s degree program
School of Theatre and Film, which seeks
and smaller-sized men. In response, aimed at creating innovators who can
to educate students, artists, and educators
they developed Aeroflex, a lightweight, transform the way problem-solving and
about ways that entrepreneurship can
streamlined, ergonomic backpack-oxygen innovation occur in both traditional and
help them in the development of artistic
system designed to be fully adjustable to nontraditional healthcare organizations.
ventures of all kinds.
fit men and women firefighters of all sizes. Unlike traditional approaches to nursing,
In addition to funding the Progressive
These students are part of Arizona this program will teach both nursing and
Theatre Workshop, p.a.v.e. awarded
State’s two-semester, trans-disciplinary non-nursing students to think beyond the
grants in support of a performance festival
InnovationSpace program co-taught by status quo by encouraging them to approach
for greater Phoenix, an interactive art
faculty from industrial design, visual and systemic issues in healthcare from multiple
installation on sustainability, and a media
communications design, engineering perspectives, including business, leadership,
marketing concept, all with the intent
entrepreneurship, industrial engineering, technology, and system design programs.
of providing grantees with real-world
and marketing. experience as art entrepreneurs. Even the way the degree is taught is
In this program, senior-level students work innovative. Students enrolled in the
Beyond its grant program, p.a.v.e.
in teams to create unique, real-world, program will participate in four-to-five
sponsors a lecture series featuring
money-making products that contribute to day immersion sessions at the beginning
arts entrepreneurs, workshops, live
a better society. In addition to preparing of each semester, followed by two-day
performances, symposia, and various other
a comprehensive proposal, they also sessions mid-semester. The rest of the
events aimed at helping both students and
present their products to private sector coursework will be delivered over the
faculty better understand where the arts
groups and university researchers with the Internet, using voiced-over lectures,
and entrepreneurship intersect.
hopes that someday their products will be discussion boards, and other online course
commercially available to those who need p.a.v.e.—The Performing Arts Venture delivery and management tools.
them most. Experience
Master of Healthcare Innovation
http://theatrefilm.asu.edu/initiatives/pave.php
Innovation Space http://nursing.asu.edu
Contact: Kimberly Loui
http://innovationspace.asu.edu Contact: Kimberly Loui
kimberly.loui@asu.edu
Contact: Kimberly Loui kimberly.loui@asu.edu
(480) 965-8688
kimberly.loui@asu.edu (480) 965-8688
(480) 965-8688
17
Cornell University Lake Erie College Purdue University
Ithaca, New York Painesville, Ohio West Lafayette, Indiana
www.cornell.edu www.lec.edu www.purdue.edu
Year Founded: 1865 Year Founded: 1856 Year Founded: 1869
Enrollment: 20,638 Enrollment: 1,100 Enrollment: 69,594
19
University of Miami University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill Launching the Venture
Coral Gables, FL
www.miami.edu No matter how good the idea, if you
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Year Founded: 1925 don’t have the right knowledge, skills, and
www.unc.edu
Enrollment: 15,400 connections, chances are you won’t succeed.
Year Founded: 1789
That’s why the Carolina Entrepreneurial
Enrollment: 27,700
The Greatest Story Ever Initiative at the University of North Carolina
Told…Retold First-Year Seminars at Chapel Hill offers Launching the Venture.
While entrepreneurs are traditionally Offered jointly by the Kenan-Flagler
How does entrepreneurship fit into the
thought of as individuals with a product Business School and UNC’s Office of
study of Biology? English? If you’re
or service to sell, the University of Technology Development, this two-
thinking it doesn’t, think again. At the
Miami is reframing how its students semester program is designed to help
University of North Carolina, freshmen in
see entrepreneurs. Students enrolled UNC–Chapel Hill faculty, staff, and students
the College of Arts and Sciences have an
in a special topics course, “The Nature successfully launch commercial and
opportunity to examine the relationship
and Foundations of Entrepreneurship,” nonprofit ventures.
between entrepreneurship and more
reexamine the traditional view of an than 300 areas of scholarship across all The program is broken down into Feasibility,
entrepreneur, while also considering how disciplines through the First-Year Seminars Launch, and Venture Finance phases. In
someone’s ideas may lead to an enterprise program. the Feasibility Phase, teams refine and test
that generates intellectual, social, cultural, their ideas for market acceptance in weekly
religious, or economic value. Offered through the Carolina
workshops. In the Launch Phase, those with
Entrepreneurial Initiative (CEI), First-Year
The course is cross-listed in the potentially viable ventures are coached by
Seminars give students the chance to
departments of Management and experts and MBA student consultants to
explore topics of interest in small groups
Religious Studies and is taught through develop a business plan and launch strategy.
with a senior faculty member.
a series of readings, case studies, guest In the Venture Finance Phase, students learn
lectures, and independent research. Students can choose from a variety about the various types of private financing
Students review a range of definitions of topics relating to a wide range of available and develop a plan to attract it.
of entrepreneurship and examine how disciplines. For example, in Biologists
All of this knowledge is no guarantee that
economics, law, history, and culture as Entrepreneurs students learn how to
the business will succeed, but the chances
interact to affect, generate, or suppress write grant proposals to support research,
are definitely increased. Since its inception,
entrepreneurial values and behavior. and in Economic Saints and Villains: The
more than forty new ventures—both
Through the study of comparative Entrepreneurial Spirit in Early English
commercial and nonprofit—have been
examples from different nations, the Literature, they explore how England—
launched.
course attempts to identify how distinctive from the sixteenth to the nineteenth
aspects of different societies shape centuries—envisioned new economic Launching the Venture
entrepreneurial culture and practice. orders through plays and novels. www.unc.edu/cei/launch
The course culminates in a final project Contact: John Kasarda
First-Year Seminars in Entrepreneurship
and presentation, either individual or John_kasarda@unc.edu
http://www.unc.edu/fys
collaborative. (919) 962-8201
Contact: John Kasarda
The Nature and Foundations of John_kasarda@unc.edu
Entrepreneurship (919) 962-8201
www.as.miami.edu/religion
Contact: William Green
wgreen@miami.edu
(305) 284-2006 (office)
20
University of Rochester
Carolina Challenge Rochester, New York Kauffman Entrepreneurial
Not all learning takes place inside the www.rochester.edu Year Program
classroom. Sometimes, the best way Year Founded: 1850 What’s your passion? Is it music? Is it the
to learn a concept is to do it. Carolina Enrollment: 8,700 environment? Is it community service? Now
Challenge, a student-led entrepreneurial imagine being able to spend an entire year
business plan competition at the University Eastman School of Music New pursuing that passion, with an eye toward
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides Venture Challenge creating a successful entrepreneurial venture
students with just such an opportunity. based on it. For students participating in
The days of the starving artist are coming
A program of the Carolina Entrepreneurial the Kauffman Entrepreneurial Year Program
to an end. Thanks to programs such as The
Initiative, Carolina Challenge is designed (KEY) at the University of Rochester, the idea
Eastman School of Music New Venture
to identify and support outstanding is fast-becoming a reality.
Challenge at the University of Rochester,
entrepreneurial ventures, both commercial musicians today are learning how they can Students participating in the program
and nonprofit. Teams—which must orchestrate their own futures. receive a fifth, tuition-free year during which
include at least one North Carolina they have the opportunity to define and
faculty, staff, or student—compete The New Venture Challenge is a contest
develop their ideas into an entrepreneurial
annually for top honors and $50,000 in to promote innovative ideas designed
venture. The hope is that students will use
total prize money. to revolutionize the world of music.
their entrepreneurial creativity to pursue an
Through this contest, students have the
Activities leading up to the competition endeavor about which they are personally
opportunity to transform their ideas into
begin in the fall with recruitment and passionate while solving a problem that will
entrepreneurial enterprises.
team-formation events designed to attract affect future generations.
the best ideas. Teams are encouraged to The contest is open to all full-time
Take, for example, the team of students
include members with a variety of skills students in good academic standing
conducting research in the area of renewable
and a broad knowledge base who can enrolled in an Eastman degree program.
energy. Their goal is to have the University of
implement the venture idea. When the Individuals or teams of up to three
Rochester join a small number of universities
teams officially enter the competition in students can participate.
formulating a comprehensive solution to one
December, they are given access to a wide To take part in the contest, students of the most important scientific and social
range of resources to help them turn their create and present a business plan challenges of the 21st century.
ideas into viable business plans. demonstrating creativity and the
To accomplish this goal, the students formed
Teams compete by presenting their plans to potential for success. These plans are
the University of Rochester Virtual Institute
panels of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, then evaluated by a panel of judges in a
for Energy (URVIE) and will work with a
philanthropists, and foundation executives, preliminary round. From this group, three
number of researchers, government agencies,
many with the hopes of successfully student entries are selected to participate
and others to study opportunities to create
launching their venture in the future. in a final round where the enterprises are
sustainable energy for future generations.
evaluated on the written plan as well as
Carolina Challenge an oral presentation. Winners receive cash Kauffman Entrepreneurial Year Program
www.carolinachallenge.org prizes to help launch their ventures. http://www.rochester.edu/college/ccas/
Contact: John Kasarda AdviserHandbook/KEY.html
John_kasarda@unc.edu Eastman School of Music
Contact: Duncan T. Moore
(919) 962-8201 New Venture Challenge
moore@opitcs.rochester.edu
http://www.esm.rochester.edu/iml/
(585) 275-5248
entrepreneurship/kauffevents.php
Contact: Duncan T. Moore
moore@optics.rochester.edu
(585) 275-5248
21
University of Washington University
Wisconsin–Madison in St. Louis
Madison, Wisconsin St. Louis, Missouri
www.wisc.edu www.wustl.edu
Year Founded: 1848 Year Founded: 1853
Enrollment: 42,041 Enrollment: 11,010
22
Kauffman CampusesSM—An Overview
The Kauffman Foundation has spent much of the last fifteen years
helping accelerate the development of entrepreneurship programs at
colleges and universities, most recently operating on the belief that teaching
students about running an enterprise and thinking innovatively should not
be solely the province of business schools.
In 2003, the Kauffman Foundation announced its commitment to the
idea of cross-campus entrepreneurship programs by launching the Kauffman
CampusesSM Initiative, awarding a total of $25 million to eight American
institutions of higher education. The recipients were selected after a high-
profile competition among twenty-six colleges and universities. Building on
the success of those grants, the Kauffman Foundation awarded at total of $23
million in Kauffman CampusesSM grants to eleven more schools in late 2006.
“Kauffman Campuses II,” as the program has been dubbed, not only builds
on the best aspects of “Kauffman Campuses I,” it significantly leverages the
Foundation’s investment through partnerships with other funding sources.
By involving others in the program, the Kauffman Foundation hopes
to leverage its commitment and get foundations and other entities thinking
entrepreneurially as well. The goal, as it always has been, is to create a cultural
transformation on college campuses that results in graduates who are dynamic
thinkers and risk-takers—no matter what major areas of study the students pursue.
23
25
4801 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, Missouri 64110
www.kauffman.org 070810M CM