Opinion > October 18, 2007

By Page West | Guest columnist

With some trepidation I write in response to the Opinion piece authored by Professor of English James Hans (“Seeking utility in ideas crushing liberal arts,” Oct. 4). I say trepidation because my sense is that business faculty must tread very lightly on the ground of liberal arts. There is clearly an image that exists of business people, in large part foisted on the public by frenzied media providing extraordinary coverage of a few individuals who have demonstrated unconscionable lapses in judgment and ethics. Casting all people interested in business – including business faculty and students – in with this minority would of course constitute an unjustifiable form of stereotyping.

Yet entrepreneurship is stereotyped in much the same way. It is so often associated with business, and I suppose by association it is indicted for many of the same reasons. Too bad. In evaluating entrepreneurship by reference to what we know about it from the media or by what we think it must be – without ever having gotten close enough to it to really understand it – we do our community a disservice.

Hans implies that entrepreneurship “reflects the fundamentally self-centered, economic imperatives that are the focus of our lives today.” And the rhetoric used by Hans is, well, frightening: the “narrow grid of economic profit or loss,” “chained to the economic procedures through which money is made,” the “material conditions of their lives,” “creation of economic value in a world that has long since lost sight of any larger imperatives.” Does this truly describe the Wake Forest community, or entrepreneurs more broadly? Research studies regularly find that people are not motivated to engage in entrepreneurial behavior for economic rewards. Entrepreneurs are simply people who see new possibilities through their worldviews, who want to create change, who want to make a difference. Often this approach has nothing to do with profit or financial reward. Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006 for his efforts through his startup Grameen Bank, creating economic and social development by providing credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh without any collateral. Teach for America and Habitat for Humanity were started by entrepreneurs uninterested in profits. Within the Wake Forest community student Hillary Francis started up Backpacks Abroad to provide school supplies to African children, while Professor of Mathematics Ken Berenhaut started up an online journal, Involve, that publishes high quality student research. If one is seeking to connect entrepreneurship and money, one can always find examples; however, this does not mean that entrepreneurship is only or always connected with money.

Hans argues that connecting thinking with action, which is what entrepreneurs do, is “different from activities we might previously have considered important.” Since when? For much longer than I have been here, “Wake Forest has been dedicated to the liberal arts (which) … means education in the fundamental fields of human knowledge and achievement….” (Wake Forest Bulletin, p. 13). It is hard to imagine what achievement must be if one never takes action. Neither Hans nor I would be publishing these articles in this newspaper and online if Johannes Gutenberg and Bill Gates – and many, many others in between – had not acted.

Hans also assumes that the recent interest in entrepreneurship on campus implies that students, faculty and administration now believe that “thought is a waste of time,” and that “there is absolutely no point in quietly and calmly reflecting on the nature of the universe.” This is a false dichotomy, of course, because the one does not preclude the other. Nor should it. I have been an entrepreneur, and I love the study of entrepreneurship. But I love reading and contemplating nature and life’s meaning so much more. Let’s give people credit for being thoughtful and multi-dimensional.

In the final analysis, entrepreneurship happened to be walking by one day when liberal arts education had been roughed up by modern events in general. And so it is convenient to strike out at entrepreneurship; it feels good to stick it to those business guys. I believe this is misdirected, because in many ways entrepreneurship can enhance the ideals of liberal arts.

Entrepreneurs ask why, are open to new ideas, collect and evaluate evidence, seek to appreciate the perspectives of others, recognize complexity and grapple with it, admit error and pursue new understandings (which they then act upon).

When the faculty committee that first considered its appropriateness for Wake Forest concluded this is what entrepreneurship was all about, it used these words. Sound familiar? They also are found in the college bulletin, describing the nature of liberal arts education.

Based upon these characteristics, it seems to me that those engaged in entrepreneurial behavior are thoughtful and reflective about the world and their own context within it.

In The Prelude, Wordsworth reflects on youth, hoping the young may come into “knowledge not purchased by the loss of power.” For Wordsworth, power represents the energy and enthusiasm of youth and the unfettered desire to explore things new.

As we mature we gain wisdom and knowledge, but we may lose the energy and enthusiasm that often leads to asking new questions and to discovery. When we faculty prepare new generations of students, we should seek to encourage the energy and enthusiasm of discovery. In this way knowledge becomes the rudder while power becomes the sail.

Page West is a professor of business residing in Winston-Salem.