About thirty years ago when I arrived on the Wake Forest campus, it was an entrepreneurship desert - just one elective course taught once a year. In 2003 I wrote a successful grant making Wake Forest one of the first eight "Kauffman campuses" to spread entrepreneurship beyond the business school. We hired Betsy Gatewood as Executive Director, and under her incredibly astute leadership an entrepreneurship curriculum became embedded throughout the liberal arts university.
This effort was not without significant challenges, of course, which Betsy, Kelly Shaver and I profiled in our edited book from Edward Elgar. See
https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/handbook-of-university-wide-entrepreneurship-education-9781847204554.html?srsltid=AfmBOoronb6cy0JopRnOdt0uMZ1Y1J95OUeR6NQ74BnljX5VDtjZKByC The university's Center for Entrepreneurship now exists as an independent department, headed by Dan Cohen who joined the effort in 2015. Over 400 students take classes and the university graduates 300 students a year with minors in the field.
https://entrepreneurship.wfu.edu/ Today the university announced that the Center for Entrepreneurship has received a "transformational $30 million gift to expand the University???s Center for Entrepreneurship and enhance access and opportunities for undergraduate students in the academic program." See the attached announcement.
Perseverance in pursuit of a true value-creating idea is the hallmark of entrepreneurship.
Best regards for the upcoming holidays,
Page
Page West, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor, Strategy & Entrepreneurship
School of Business
Wake Forest University
westgp@wfu.edu
336.577.5621 (mobile)
Strategic Management 8e (2024)
www.strategicmanagement.org