Entrepreneurial education "hot" on UW-Whitewater campus
Released: November 5, 2007
An entrepreneur experiments with different approaches to achieve business results, often challenging assumptions and taking risks to exploit opportunities. Entrepreneurs have a preference for innovation, a high need for achievement and are driven for success.
Entrepreneurs at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater are seizing their opportunities and pursuing their passion for start-up businesses by participating in several pilot courses and engaging in a new student organization.
"We wanted to build from the bottom up with young students and give them an option to be part of an entrepreneurial organization," Jimmy Peltier, Irvin L. Young professor of entrepreneurship and professor of marketing at UW-Whitewater, said. "For the curriculum, an emphasis in entrepreneurship was offered, but it was not well developed or well defined."
In recent years, most of the new job growth has been in small businesses and the small business enterprise is constantly growing. Consequently, there has been a definite need to expand the educational outlets for students interested in becoming entrepreneurs. Many of the top business schools, like Harvard, are already involved in this popular trend, offering courses in entrepreneurship at undergraduate and business school levels. Statistics indicate that today more than 2,000 United States colleges and universities are offering at least one course in entrepreneurship compared with 300 in 1985.
In direct response to students' changing needs, Peltier helped add new courses, re-craft old ones and rename others to better fit with the program at UW-Whitewater. As part of the transformation, Marketing 460, or entrepreneurial marketing, was added to the curriculum and the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization was started, an organization on campus for students interested in owning their own business.
"Entrepreneurial education is very hot in the academic community and universities all across the country are trying to find ways to make a difference," Peltier said. "We see an intensive effort in trying to find hands-on experience for students that translate what they learn in the classroom to real entrepreneurial experiences."
The new course offers students a more hands-on approach to learning by focusing on key marketing strategies relevant for new businesses and or new product launches. The course enables students to apply marketing concepts to the wide range of business challenges facing entrepreneurs. Through experiential learning opportunities, the course enables students to apply what they learn for developing comprehensive entrepreneurial marketing plans.
"With this class you can correlate to the real world and think more abstract about yourself and how other businesses are able to find success and be the best," senior Logan Wikel said.
Entrepreneurial marketing is not the typical lecture-based class, as there is no textbook, no weekly quizzes or even periodic exams to monitor a student's progress. The course is suited for the student possessing entrepreneurial spirit, or persistence to assume the risk for new business ventures.
As a pilot course, it introduces new ways of thinking and methods to set up, launch and implement entrepreneurial concepts in new businesses. The class combines three elements to form the basis of evaluation for students: (1) participation; (2) a comprehensive marketing plan; and (3) a simulation involving the day-to-day experiences in starting and running a small business.
"The final success of the students won't be known until the end of the road, and because the class is more hands-on, it will be harder to locate an unmotivated student," Peltier said. "My hope is to develop a different mindset so students can think about new business ideas and apply concepts in real-life situations."
To help explore how marketers uncover opportunities and respond to change in a new business, students must develop a plan for a new business and complete a situation analysis and a marketing plan for the new venture. Business ideas for the current semester range from a hybrid piece of agricultural machinery to an all-in-one paint ball shop and field. The project will provide students the opportunity to learn how to write a realistic business plan, observe successful entrepreneurs and understand how venture capitalists operate.
"A class like this offers a better approach to teaching and students know what they are comfortable with. I think the class allows you to be more creative with what you can teach yourself by offering real-life experiences," senior Kim Stricker said.
For more information, contact Peltier at (262) 472-5474 or peltierj@uww.edu.
- Patti Schenker,schenkerpl07@uww.edu
