by Amanda Hagood
photo by Anne W. Anderson
photo by Anne W. Anderson
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| Professor James Welch recently developed several new courses. |
PEL Associate Dean of Faculty Margret Skaftadottir explained that this course also is part of a larger effort to develop a new, more socially-minded focus in entrepreneurship that seeks to address community needs. Welch and Frank Hamilton, Eckerd professor of management in the residential program, recently submitted several course proposals to the College Council. All, including Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset, were approved and will be phased in over the next few terms.
Diana Fuguitt, professor of economics, and Heather Vincent, associate professor of classics, also worked with Skaftadottir and Hamilton over the past few months to explore the connections between social entrepreneurship and a liberal arts education. Designed to be an interdisciplinary program that fosters the vision, creativity, and practical business skills that lead to innovative social change, Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship is listed among the goals in the proposed five-year Strategic Plan that will be presented to the Board of Trustees in May.
"These courses give PEL students majoring in Business Management or Organizational Studies two new focus areas from which to choose -- Entrepreneurship or Social Entrepreneurship," Skaftadottir said.
Entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial thinking
Hamilton gave Habitat for Humanity as an example of social entrepreneurship that found innovative solutions to the problem of how to make owning a home affordable to people whose incomes weren't high enough to qualify them for most mortgages.
Additionally, students in any major who have room for an elective course might find courses like Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset useful. Welch, who brings experience from multiple arenas including non-profit and investment management as well as military leadership into his teaching, believes the course will be of value to students with a wide variety of experience and aims.
"We talk about developing traits like recognizing opportunities, being resourceful, and being tenacious," Welch said.
The Ice House concept
The course is inspired by the work of Clifton Taulbert, a Mississippi-born business consultant who chronicled his own rise to success in Who Owns the Ice House? Eight Life Lessons from an Unlikely Entrepreneur. In a world shaped and limited by legalized segregation, Taulbert absorbed the entrepreneurial spirit and wisdom of his Uncle Cleve, who owned the only ice house for miles around their home community. Students will use stories of everyday entrepreneurs like Uncle Cleve to envision and test entrepreneurial ideas that would benefit their own communities.
These “ice house” lessons became the basis for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Ice House Entrepreneurship Program, upon which the course is built.
Welch attended a three-day facilitator training program last month, which was sponsored and organized by the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative in partnership with Hillsborough Community College (HCC) and the Entrepreneur Collaborative Center, a partner of HCC. Welch's attendance was supported by members of the Academy of Senior Professionals (ASPEC) at Eckerd College.
ASPEC member Ernie Mahaffey, who leads an entrepreneurial group within ASPEC working with the Urban League, the City of St. Petersburg, and other organizations and who also founded the Center for Business Education, Innovation, and Development in northern Illinois, said in a phone interview that Eckerd College's entrepreneurial programs will strengthen ASPEC's work in the community.
"It's the small companies that create new jobs a few at a time," Mahaffey said in a phone interview.
Still, Mahaffey noted that entrepreneurship should not be seen as a "quick fix" to social and economic problems.
"Entrepreneurial ideas take time to develop -- it's done one foot in front of the other," Mahaffey said.
Hamilton said the program is a good fit for Eckerd. "We create students who want to make a difference. Now we have a way to show people how to make change happen, " Hamilton explained. Hamilton also noted that insider understanding of business and government systems can be very helpful in finding innovative ways to effect change. "PEL students often come to Eckerd with that kind of understanding," he said.
Everyone an entrepreneur
“In today’s world,” Welch reflected in an interview, “everyone has to be, in some sense, an entrepreneur.”
He explained that, while in past decades employees might reasonably have expected to stay with the same company for an entire career, today’s shifting labor market has pushed many to continually reinvent themselves across multiple positions at multiple organizations.
Similarly, more businesses have begun to think in an entrepreneurial way, looking at creative, community-focused ways of solving problems.
Hamilton also noted that artists, musicians, and scientists often use entrepreneurial thinking in creating their work and need entrepreneurial skills in promoting it.
"One of our alumni is a biologist who wondered about the effect of sunscreen and other body products on marine life," Hamilton said. "Entrepreneurial thinking led her to have the idea for the research and to the practical development of a line of products that is not harmful to the marine environment."
The course will challenge common perceptions about entrepreneurship, illustrating that most entrepreneurs do not follow the meteoric path of a Mark Zuckerburg or a Bill Gates. The course also contests the myth that all entrepreneurs start young, as the majority of today’s entrepreneurs are 40 years and older.
With featured lessons on developing persistence, putting ideas into action, and taking manageable risks, the course could benefit students in many different disciplines, Welch said. Assignments such as pitching a business idea to 50 people in the space of one week, should push many students out of their comfort zones and develop their capacities for critical and creative thinking.
The courses in each focus area include:
Entrepreneurship: Principles of Entrepreneurship; Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset; Venture Creation; and Entrepreneurial Creativity and Innovation.
Social Entrepreneurship: Social Entrepreneurship; Principles of Entrepreneurship OR Entrepreneurial Creativity and Innovation; Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset; Grant Development
Professor James Welch holds advanced degrees in education, business, management, law, and theology. He also is an Army Reserve chaplain, holding the rank of colonel. Amanda Hagood is PEL's executive director.
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