• Beyong the basics

Pamela Schindler, professor of management, and Judith O’Connor, assistant provost for off-campus programs, wanted to expand students’ perspectives on business, so they devised a plan.

The result is the new, intensive Summer Entrepreneurship Immersion Program at Wittenberg.

Funded through a Coleman Foundation grant totaling $24,998, the program aims to introduce students between their junior and senior years who are both management and non-management majors to the world of the entrepreneur.

Involvement in the program will be competitive with selection based on academic preparation, maturity, work-skill preparation and compatibility with the demands of an entrepreneurial environment.

Those students selected to participate from a pool of pre-screened applicants will learn about the entrepreneurial environment, including the characteristics and organizational culture of entrepreneurial companies; the distinctive rewards, obstacles and risks associated with self-employment; and the lifecycle of these companies.

They will also analyze and evaluate the problems that pose particular challenges to entrepreneurs, such as the tensions that can be created by the lack of separation between business and family issues in a family-involved business.

Each student selected for the eight-credit program will be designated a Wittenberg Entrepreneurship Fellow and will participate in a one-week, 30-hour class on entrepreneurship followed by a 10 to 12 week, 40-hour week entrepreneurship internship during the summer.

Entrepreneurial internship sponsors will select the interns through on-campus interviews. At least 30 percent of the student’s time will be spent in direct contact with the entrepreneur, according to Schindler and O’Connor.

“We want to ‘attach’ the student to the entrepreneur,” Schindler said. “This is what will set these internships apart from others.”
Schindler also wants to elevate the understanding of entrepreneurship.

What makes entrepreneurs different from other business people? What motivates them?

These are just a few of the questions Schindler and O’Connor have been asking faculty, administrators and alumni currently working as entrepreneurs or in firms considered to be entrepreneurial in their attempt to create a model for the program.

“We want alumni input on the types of topics they think should be covered or the kinds of articles, books or other readings they have found helpful,” Schindler said.

The course will consist of readings, role-plays and other decision-making involvement exercises, panel discussions by entrepreneurs and case or video/film discussions.

Schindler would also like alumni to participate in this intensive immersion program either by being on a panel, networking or by providing entrepreneurial internship opportunities.

“We want to expose these students to these more aggressive companies,” Schindler said, adding that “we’re looking initially for local opportunities in metro areas such as Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, but the students will go where the opportunities are.”

Schindler hopes to identify a pool of alumni to draw from for the program as soon as possible. She encourages alumni to contact her via e-mail at pschindler@wittenberg.edu or call her at (937) 327-7904 with any suggestions.

Although the activities of the Wittenberg Center for Applied Management (WittCAM), which will manage the project, are quintessentially entrepreneurial, and students enrolled in the university’s award-winning Small Business Institute, founded in 1975, frequently consult with entrepreneurial companies, Wittenberg presently offers no formal program in entrepreneurship.

Schindler and O’Connor think that the Entrepreneurship Immersion Program will correct this situation by adding a unique entrepreneurial experience to an active internship program that currently places about 200 juniors and seniors annually in businesses, social service agencies, and health, government and legal organizations.

It also will add a formal, content-based course in entrepreneurship whose format and intensity resemble executive training programs.

In addition, according to Schindler and O’Connor, the program will complement three already established programs at Wittenberg.

These include: the university’s experiential education program, which involves WittCAM, numerous internship initiatives and Wittenberg’s internship web site; Alumni Careers Day, during which entrepreneurial internship sponsors will, for the first time, be able to make entrepreneurship one of the centerpieces of the day’s activities; and a newly energized alumni outreach program that includes Alumni College, which would use the EIP as the basis for new curricular concentration on entrepreneurship.

“We have a good core program,” Schindler said, “but we would really like for this to be special.” The program, which will initially have 10 students, will be offered in May 2000.

About 13 percent of Wittenberg alumni majored in business administration or management, 433 alumni are currently self-employed, and 561 alumni own their own businesses.