Like any good entrepreneur, Jessica Glass has spent the last few months networking with other interested parties throughout Shippensburg. As director of the Shippensburg University Entrepreneurial Learning Center, it’s been up to Glass and her small team to develop partnerships and collaborations that would help make the ELC successful.
“I think we have a culture that’s willing to support entrepreneurship, and the administration has been extremely supportive,” says Glass. “We’ve got the support of many deans and faculty members who have raised their hands and said they’d like to be involved in programming and kept in the loop.”
The ELC was launched earlier in the fall semester with a goal of promoting a sustainable entrepreneurial culture. It actively encourages innovative applied thinking and the entrepreneurial lifestyle among students to establish and build PA-based businesses. The ELC’s launch event included the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, which brings in the country’s top young entrepreneurs and was well-received by attendees.
Housed inside Shippensburg’s Small Business Development Center and a partner of the center, the ELC has worked closely with the school’s Students in Free Enterprise to bring in entrepreneurial speakers and the Murata Business Center incubator in Carlisle.
Glass says her team is focused on preparing to launch the ELC’s non-credit certificate program that will be offered to students next fall. The program will explore the nuts and bolts of entrepreneurship, from business plans to financial projections. In addition, Glass is looking to create a campus group to network together and with professionals throughout the region and promote participation in business plan competitions later in the year.
A for-credit, interdisciplinary minor degree is also a possibility in the near future. But first the ELC must fund its future. Its founding grant lasts through Feb., 2012, and Glass says the center will need to sustain its own funding.
Today, the ELC hosts its first roundtable discussion on business ethics. Also, the ELC partnered with Murata’s Dream It, Do It series for a Q&A with local entrepreneurs on Nov. 18.
Source: Jessica Glass, Shippensburg University Entrepreneurial Center
Writer: Joe Petrucci
