Opinion > October 18, 2007

By Betsy Gatewood | Guest columnist

I read with respect Professor James Hans’ column last week (“Seeking utility in ideas crushing liberal arts,” Oct. 4). Hans provided a very good articulation of our mission but an incomplete version of our definition of entrepreneurship. On our Web site we explicitly point out that our definition of entrepreneurship is broad and our consideration of value produced from entrepreneurial activity includes social value, artistic value, intellectual value and knowledge creation, as well as economic value. Although we do not preclude that some entrepreneurial activities produce economic returns (although economic loss is just as common), we recognize that value in society is not limited to economic returns.

We consider our program to cover a wide range of possibilities, including but not limited to a new theatre production or art event, the development of new educational programs, leveraging findings in basic science to develop a new life science company, founding a not-for-profit or investigating theories of entrepreneurship.

Rosita Najmi, ’04, founded Project Bokonon as a result of a trip to Benin, West Africa when she was a student at Wake Forest.

She was shocked by the medical conditions she had witnessed – reused syringes, plastic storage bags substituting for sterile surgical gloves, patients packed into hospital rooms on the floor or on beds without mattresses with chickens and mosquitoes everywhere, pharmacies with bare shelves.

She resolved to make a difference by finding a way to provide medical supplies and ultimately to fund the building of a medical clinic. I don’t think we can reduce her endeavor to “strategic thinking whose goal is economic value in a world that has long since lost sight of any larger imperative.” Nor can we put her actions down to an “entirely self-interested orientation.” Najmi is just one example of a student who used her entrepreneurial spirit to make a difference in the world.

There are many other examples of faculty and students – for example, Jean Simonelli, a professor of anthropology, whose interest in improving the lives of the people who live in Chiapas, Mexico, has led her to study the role of the independent entrepreneur in the global marketplace or Ray Kuhn, a professor of biology, and his students who are searching for products for the aquaculture industry that will increase fish yields and reduce the amount of antibiotics used routinely in fish ponds, which is not good for the consumer or the fish farmer. Although personal economic wealth from some of these activities is always a possibility, profit motive was not the driving force behind their entrepreneurial spirit.

We recognize the need for and value of courses that are focused purely on the phenomena of the world and the nature of our lives.However, we also think there is a place in the curriculum for investigating how that knowledge can be and is applied, and to discover and direct one’s passion to create a pathway in life.

We do not see the liberal arts and our program or similar efforts taking place at Wake Forest as mutually exclusive. We believe that there is a place in our classrooms for discussions from multiple viewpoints – that’s what liberal education is all about.

In fact, we would argue alongside Hans that we must maintain our firm commitment to the liberal arts. However, we feel that a superior education may be gained if entrepreneurial skills are taught in addition to (not instead of) the liberal arts. These methods of inquiry actually complement each other. We advocate not a burial for the liberal arts, but a continued commitment to them along with an expanded educational model that will best help shape our world’s future leaders.

Elizabeth Gatewood is the director of entrepreneurship and social enterprise. This column was read and endorsed by Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance Sharon Andrews, Associate Professor of Art Bernadine Barnes, Visiting Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance Lynn Book, Associate Professor of Physics David Carroll, Professor of Biology William Connor, Reynolds Professor of History Paul Escott, Associate Professor of Art David Finn, Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy Dwayne Godwin, Assistant Professor of Physics Jed Macosko, Professor of Physics Daniel Kim Shapiro and Professor of Anthropology Jeanne Simonelli.