One BU seeks to create entrepreneurship for all

In this fourth installment of The Daily Free Press’ eight-part examination ofthe recommendations of the One BUTask Force Report, we look at one aspect of the report’s emphasis on professional preparation.

Boston University is looking to put a premium on student ideas with a new entrepreneurship minor that would seek to lower barriers to business education for all undergraduates.

The proposed minor, a recommendation of the One BU Task Force Report, seeks to help spread management education to the many fields administrators say it is becoming part of in the global market.

According to the Task Force Report, BU “may now be poised to further integrate the principles of innovation and entrepreneurship into undergraduate programs across the campus.”

The report characterized the potential minor “as a way of training students to take ownership of and develop their ideas, regardless of the field, learn to assess risk, understand the economics and potential in any project, and build their fields of expertise on top of a sustainable model.”

It also stated that for at least a decade, BU has provided “award-winning” undergraduate concentrations in entrepreneurship, but only for School of Management students.

Now the university will look to extend that opportunity to the rest of the undergraduate population at BU through a program that builds on the “expertise and experience in teaching entrepreneurship to SMG students” that the university already has, the report said.

“Many, many professions, almost every one, can imagine in the back of your head that knowing management’s a good thing,” said BU President Robert Brown. “What you find in the university is that there’s a huge demand at the undergraduate level for minors in management.”

Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education Victor Coelho added that entrepreneurship should not be defined in strictly business terms. Instead, he said, his One BU Task Force recommended it for the entire school because they believed it had broader applications than literal business ownership.

“A really narrow definition [of entrepreneurship] is the traditional business plan approach and how you can get your product to market and things like that,” he said. “At the macro level, at the intellectual level, it’s how to take ownership of your ideas, how to sustain your ideas, how to understand the risks involved and understanding who your audiences are to be able to maximize the potential of your ideas and your work.”

“Those global ideas are becoming really incumbent particularly in the humanities,” he said.

The entrepreneurship programs that SMG already offers are included in the school’s required Core program. The report states that about 25 percent of SMG juniors choose to concentrate in entrepreneurship. The program includes co-curricular activities like business plan competitions, workshops, internships and seminars.

There have already been examples of cooperation between schools to offer entrepreneurial opportunities to students. The College of Engineering partnered with the Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship &’ Commercialization to create a program for technology entrepreneurship.

SMG sophomore Joe Nangle recognized the need for an entrepreneurship minor, too. He said that with the right guidance, students could be a great source of new ideas in the business world.

“I think it’s great. With the power of the Internet, it’s not that hard anymore to start your own business,” Nangle said. “If there’s a need out there, students can find that need, and if they work hard at it there’s nothing that can stop them.”

In middle school, Nangle said, he started his own business selling hospital scrubs and doctors’ coats in the lobbies of hospitals. Through his business, he said he was making several hundred dollars a day.

Now that he is in college, Nangle has continued his entrepreneurial ways by marketing his photography skills. He is also considering double-concentrating in marketing and the entrepreneurial curriculum that SMG already offers.

“I’ve always wanted to have my own business and be my own boss,” Nangle said. “But I’m also very interested in the emerging side of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise, so I just think that having a strong foundation would let me better serve and be able to start strong and socially responsible business.”

Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore said he has recognized the entrepreneurial spirit that inhabits many BU students.

“What I certainly have found in more and more students is that they want to think about being entrepreneurs,” he said. “There’s so many students here who have started their own businesses before they’ve gotten here, who’ve founded non-profit organizations before they’ve gotten here, who have these talents and these skills. And they’re looking to make sense of that as part of their learning experience.”