The first “Kauffman Take Five Entrepreneurial Year” will be available, only to seniors, starting Fall 2005. The new program will be funded by the $3.5 million grant awarded to UR by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City in Dec. 2003.
“What we’re looking for is people who will use their Take Five year to study entrepreneurship,” Dean of The College William Green said.
“Entrepreneurship isn’t only about starting companies and making money,” Green said in January this year.
UR President Thomas Jackson expanded. “[We define] entrepreneurship [as] transforming ideas into enterprises that produce value,” Jackson said, also in Jan. 2004.
According to Assistant Professor of Political Science David Primo, the Take Five program will enable seniors to take their ideas and see them grow. “There will be courses that will help students in actually transforming their ideas,” Primo said. “This is integral to the Take Five program because the seniors will be able to actually implement their ideas in the fifth year.”
Meanwhile, Green and Primo will also be teaching some entrepreneurship courses next semester.
“Dean Green and I will be teaching a class called ‘The Nature of Entrepreneurship,'” Primo said. “Eventually, there will be four or five more classes added.”
According to Primo, the course is supposed to introduce the concept of entrepreneurship to students.
“This course is a foundational course,” Primo said. “The course will cover the individual and social conditions required for entrepreneurship to strive. Like we’ll explore why there is so much innovation in the U.S. and not in Europe. What is in the culture and economic freedom in America that creates more entrepreneurs?”
These courses will be on a wide-ranging scale. “This is a university-wide program, so there will be courses at the Nursing School, Eastman School and Simon School that will have entrepreneurial themes to them,” Primo said.
Despite the class having already reached its maximum limit of 20 students, Primo looked forward to the new direction UR has taken. “It’s good to start off with a small class because then we can have extensive discussions and so it won’t just be a lecture class,” Primo said. “In the future years, we hope to expand the program to include many courses.”
Madhur can be reached at
smadhur@campustimes.org.
