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Center to focus on entrepreneurial education as academic discipline
Mark
Reutter, Business & Law Editor
217-333-0568; mreutter@illinois.edu
3/4/2004
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CHAMPAIGN,
Ill. — Developing entrepreneurial education as an academic discipline
is the goal of a center being established by the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.
The Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership Development is in its initial
stages following the award of a $4.5 million grant in December from
the E. Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo. The center is
designed to serve as a national model to provide practical skills for
students and faculty and aid in the economic development of Illinois
and elsewhere.
Ironically in the land of Horatio Alger, entrepreneurship has been little
studied or taught by higher education, said Paul J. Magelli, interim
executive director of the academy.
Of 3,100 two- and four-year colleges and universities, fewer than 16 offer degree programs in entrepreneurship for non-business graduate students. A survey conducted for the Kauffman Foundation found that only 37 doctoral students nationwide are enrolled in entrepreneurship programs.
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Illinois
hopes to put its stamp on the new field through a multi-pronged effort,
according to Avijit Ghosh, dean of the College
of Business. While the business college will coordinate the program,
the academy is aimed at “building entrepreneurial capacity and
culture” across all departments and disciplines on campus.
Among the academy’s objectives:
• Preparing current and future faculty to teach entrepreneurship within
their own disciplines and conduct research that contributes to the development
of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline;
• Teaching skills that will enable faculty and administrators to improve
their ability to manage research facilities and intellectual property;
• Creating a scholarly database on entrepreneurship that will be available
online and marketed to other academic libraries;
• Encouraging Ph.D. and professional students to establish business start-ups
in such fields as veterinary medicine, social work, fine arts, education
and law;
• Expanding opportunities for undergraduate students to pursue entrepreneurial
interests;
• Bringing alumni who have started businesses to campus to mentor faculty
and students.
As one of the original land-grant institutions, Illinois has long sought
to bring basic research into the wider realm of commercial development.
The process of transferring new research and knowledge has accelerated
since 2000 at the behest of the Illinois Legislature, which has invested
state funds in advanced facilities on campus to improve the state’s
business competitiveness and opportunities for students.
“Research Park on the south campus, IllinoisVENTURES and other
activities are the bricks and mortar for entrepreneurship on this campus,”
Magelli said. “The academy will support these activities with
the development of critical instructional skills that will help move
ideas toward viable business enterprises.”
Some of the broad questions to be answered by scholars at the academy,
he said, will include: “What is the elusive set of characteristics
that best seem to describe the potential entrepreneur? How do we study
and teach the development of critical knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship?”
Ghosh’s interest in entrepreneurship has been longstanding. Before
he became dean of the business college in 2001, he had served, among
other capacities, as the director of the Center for Entrepreneurial
Studies at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.
“There are a lot of similarities between entrepreneurs and university
research professors,” he said. “Both are very passionate
about their ideas, for instance. The business schools of today have
to reach out to other parts of the university and not exist in isolation.
That is the way they will have a real impact.”
Ghosh envisions interdisciplinary courses taught by faculty in different
colleges. Emphasis would be placed on how to let students learn from
each other and how to teach students basic business practices.
“The business world is changing, and so is our university program,”
he said. “We must help students focus on functional skills.”
Several programs have been established at Illinois to promote the interdisciplinary
approach. For example, the Technology and Management Program brings
engineering and business undergraduates together to learn about each
other’s discipline and tackle projects for commercial sponsors.
The program leads to a minor degree in technology and management.
To support existing classwork and encourage innovation in teaching,
the academy will establish a fund to seed promising programs in academic
units identified as priorities, including those with large numbers of
women and ethnic or racial minorities and disciplines where students
need more career alternatives.
Illinois will also collaborate with Howard University and the University
of Texas at El Paso to develop graduate programs in entrepreneurship
at these institutions. A major focus will be to offer practical training
to minority students. At the same time, the academy plans to work with
the University Extension Program to help Illinois farmers begin start-ups
and new agribusiness opportunities.
The Kauffman Foundation has awarded $25 million in grants to eight universities
that pledged to make entrepreneurship education available on their campuses.
The Illinois grant was the largest award.
“We are looking to Illinois to be a national leader in making
the entrepreneurial spirit part of the fabric of higher education,”
said foundation spokesman Anthony Mendes.
