News > January 29, 2004

By Kezia McKeague

News Editor

Entrepreneurship may assume a new meaning on campus with initiatives supported by a $2.16 million grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The university has been selected as one of eight Kauffman Campuses for its proposal to incorporate entrepreneurial thinking into the liberal arts curriculum. For Page West, an associate professor of business and coordinator of the grant proposal, the goal is interdisciplinary and campus-wide.

“We recognize that this is a very traditional liberal arts university,” West said. “We need to work diligently to help people understand that this grant is not about business.”

Instead, the faculty committee composed of professors from various departments, defined entrepreneurship broadly in the proposal’s mission statement: “By entrepreneurship we mean the process through which individuals and groups take advantage of their knowledge and resources to identify and pursue opportunities, initiate change and create value in their lives and the lives of others.”

This understanding of entrepreneurship earned the key support of Paul Escott, dean of the college, who praised activities requiring creativity and innovation as “valuable for all of us.”

Partially matched by university funding, the five-year grant will enhance resources to help students, faculty and staff realize such creative activities.

An expanded Center for Undergraduate Entrepreneurship in the new Kirby Hall will offer advice and space for entrepreneurial work, while increased funding to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library will improve the collection on entrepreneurship. The Office of Career Services will also receive additional funding to attract small businesses to recruit at the university.

West said that new courses, such as a cross-disciplinary seminar on creativity, will raise awareness about entrepreneurship. A network of faculty will be organized for advising students interested in beginning an entrepreneurial project.

The current level of student interest, according to West, is difficult to judge, but the eight students who shared their personal entrepreneurship experiences with the Kauffman Foundation confirm that entrepreneurial activity is not limited to the Calloway School.

“There’s a pretty small circle of individuals running their own businesses from a variety of majors,” senior Matt Hinson said. A history major, Hinson created Wake Works, which employs about 170 people as waiters and bartenders in Winston-Salem restaurants.

Senior Jennifer Woodsmall, a psychology and religion major, founded a company that sells handbags made by Vietnamese women to U.S. department stores. She donates a percentage of the proceeds to the International Federation of Women Entrepreneurs, which assists women in third world countries with an interest in entrepreneurship.

William Conner, a professor of biology, said he participated in the development of the grant proposal largely due to the student interest he has witnessed.

“Many students have approached me about social entrepreneurship ventures and asked me how get a project started,” Conner said. He was impressed, for example, when a freshman recently posed to him an idea to establish a non-profit summer camp for students with incurable diseases.

Another member of the faculty committee, David Finn, an associate professor of art, said that art majors are usually very entrepreneurial-minded. “They have to create their own jobs, create value for their work,” he said. For Finn, organizing an art exhibition or starting a Web site that sells work from university studios is the essence of entrepreneurship.

West predicted wide-spread benefits from the grant. “My great hope is that students over time will develop a greater belief in themselves, independent thinking and a can-do attitude.”

Hinson and Woodsmall said the grant money would help students like themselves.

Though Hinson has seen a significant improvement in the campus atmosphere for entrepreneurship in the last four years, he said his experience as a freshman seeking help was “like pulling teeth.” Woodsmall also found herself scrambling for advice on financial matters, marketing and advertising.

Hinson described entrepreneurship as “an exercise in passion.” As a result of the Kauffman grant, the planners believe, potential entrepreneurs in disciplines across campus will be better equipped for the exercise.