Educating Worldshapers 2

Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship Campus Initiatives

The Kauffman Foundation’s Kauffman Campuses initiative aims to transform the way colleges and universities prepare students for success in the American economy. The program was launched in December 2003, when eight universities were awarded up to $5 million each to make entrepreneurship education available across their campuses, enabling any student, regardless of field of study, to access entrepreneurial training.

The eight inaugural Kauffman Campuses are a diverse group, including two smaller universities (the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY, which is a research intensive school, and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, a liberal arts university); three universities with predominantly minority enrollments (Howard University in Washington DC, Florida International University in Miami, and the University of Texas at El Paso); and three larger universities (Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). As part of the initiative’s matching funds requirement, the Kauffman Campuses schools have pledged a three-to-one match, which, combined with the Kauffman grants, is directing a minimum of $100 million for the creation of new interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education programs in American higher education.The Next Generation of Kauffman Campuses

In December of 2006, a second set of universities were selected to receive grants and make entrepreneurship a pan-campus experience. The second round of the Kauffman Campuses initiative features a total of $25.5 million in grants to nine U.S. universities that pledged to make entrepreneurship education a campus-wide opportunity. With matching grants totaling more than $200 million, the effort promises to continue to transform the way entrepreneurship education is taught in the nation’s colleges and universities. The universities selected were: Arizona State University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, New York University, Purdue University, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

A Culture of Entrepreneurship

While entrepreneurship programs traditionally have been the domain of the business school, Kauffman Campuses recipients are developing an astonishing variety of programs aimed at instilling the spirit and skills of entrepreneurial studies into college life. Some universities have chosen to create minor degree programs, offer introductory courses for incoming freshmen, expand the role of technology transfer, or build or expand community-based businesses that benefit students and surrounding communities. Some are broadening existing entrepreneurial activities on liberal arts campuses as well as on technology-oriented campuses. Others are focused on developing Hispanic-American entrepreneurship, African-American entrepreneurship, and cross-cultural business creation. All involve faculty and students from a variety of academic disciplines outside the conventional business curriculum.

Berea College

Entrepreneurship for the Public Good

The need to expand and support entrepreneurial activity as a means for revitalizing Appalachian communities led to the creation of Berea College’s Entrepreneurship for the Public Good (EPG) program with a $7.6 million dollar endowment. The EPG program is a model for making positive change in the Appalachian region through the two summer programs where students learn how small businesses and nonprofit organizations employ responsible practices to provide jobs and build healthy communities. The objective of the program is to teach students from a variety of disciplines about entrepreneurship and develop their leadership skills to equip them to make a positive impact on the Appalachian region…and beyond.

The goals of the Entrepreneurship for the Public Good program are to engage Berea College students in entrepreneurship and leadership activities in order to enable them to:

explore theoretical and practical approaches to entrepreneurship for the public good in the context of economic development in Appalachia and beyond;
identify and seize new entrepreneurial opportunities;
develop and build leadership skills;
prepare for professional careers with a purpose; and
add value to small businesses and nonprofits in the region.

The EPG program helps students become agents of change in the Appalachian region and beyond. The program bridges several curricular and co-curricular areas and makes connections among and across programs. It helps students recognize the value of enterprises that create public benefits, whether they are operating within business or nonprofit frameworks. Indeed, EPG acknowledges that a broad spectrum of entrepreneurial enterprises, both commercial and philanthropic, is critical to the future of Appalachia. During the Summer Institute, which meets daily from 9am-3pm, M-F for eight weeks, students learn about entrepreneurship, leadership and community development through classroom sessions, discussions, field trips in the region, experiential learning opportunities that culminate into a business plan or feasibility study and a community partner project. In the second summer in the program, students apply what they learned during the Summer Institute by serving in an Entrepreneurial Internship with a nonprofit or for-profit organization for 10 weeks.