Towson U's Entrepreneurship Track: One Facet of an Innovative Program

By Reed Hellman, STAFF WRITER



Towson University has undertaken a multi-faceted, innovative commitment to teach entrepreneurship. The first innovation offers a basic "entrepreneurship 101" course across the campus; only rarely do universities make that type of course universally available. Planned for fall 2008, opening the course is a big move for the College of Business and Economics because, for the first time, it will be serving large numbers of non-business majors.

Within the College of Business, the Department of Management offers a major in Business Administration with an Entrepreneurship Track, the university's second innovation. Completing the track requires the Business Administration major courses plus 24 credits in Entrepreneurship, 15 of required courses and nine of upper-level electives.



Coursework

Professor Kevin H. Kennedy is responsible for the two programs. Formerly at Ohio University, Kennedy came to Towson to build a service learning-based degree track focused on research and training contemporary entrepreneurs. He spent 12 months developing the courses and getting the needed approvals at all academic and administrative levels. The first students came in the fall 2007 semester.

"Historically, there has always been one entrepreneurship course offered in the College of Business," said Kennedy. Now, Towson plans to offer a full academic track. In two semesters, 60 students have signed up for classes, and Kennedy hopes the program grows to 200 to 300, after a planned aggressive marketing effort. "Until now it's all been word of mouth. We haven't yet begun getting the marketing," he observed.

The Entrepreneurship Track offers five required courses:

¥ Entrepreneurship and Small Business: The original single course offered by the College of Business.

¥ Entrepreneurial Finance: New to the department, this is a more non-traditional offering.

¥ Sales Management: This course was developed in response to focus groups that said they wanted to spend time learning about sales.

¥ Consulting Workshop: This provides consulting opportunities with the Maryland Small Business Development Center (SBDC), also located on the Towson University campus.

¥ Project Management: This course addresses the quantitative aspects of entrepreneurship.

Upper level electives for the track will include:

¥ Family Business Management: This topic was deemed very important in this region because Baltimore has many family-owned businesses. Family business management has become a strong and respected research field.

¥ International Entrepreneurship: This is Kennedy's field of research. He has formed TowsonGlobal, an incubator similar to the SBDC, but international in scope.

¥ Entrepreneurship Practicum (3): This is a proposed course. The university wants to build networks, and brought in Wayne Paul, formerly active in the Greater Maryland Better Business Bureau. Students will "job shadow" with an entrepreneur and complete two projects for that entrepreneur. This is service learning, applied.

¥ Business Plan Competition (3): This course is planned to begin in fall 2009.



Hot Interest

Kennedy expects that interest in the track will heat up by the fall 2008 semester. Five new courses will become available, swelling the list of offerings to nearly the planned full complement. Also, a revamped "entrepreneurship 101" course will become available campus-wide. He is hoping that Towson's interest in entrepreneurships will grow to include an entrepreneur in residence program.

"It's very market-based, but tied to the research domain," explained Kennedy, who expects the first graduates in the spring of 2009.

Student reaction has been positive. "One of the best experiences I had while in the business program at Towson was Professor Kennedy's Entrepreneurship Class," said Amanda Keller, a May 2007 business management graduate. "We were put into groups and we had to develop a business plan from scratch for a company. I found it very interesting to see all of the planning and work that was put into this project."

Towson offers other training for entrepreneurs through the Department of Management's flexible curriculum. Organized into tracks for general management, human resource management and international business, courses are designed to provide the knowledge, skills and attitudes students need to become successful managers and develop critical market-based skills that employers seek. Students in the department may select the combination of courses that is most relevant and consistent with their academic goals. Continued curricula development ensures that course offerings in all the tracks reflect current practices and challenges faced by modern organizations. Each track's curriculum receives regular review to ensure that it remains timely and relevant to the marketplace.



Small Business Development Center

The Maryland Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is one more facet of Towson's commitment to educating entrepreneurs. The SBDC is a program of the University of Maryland Center for Applied Policy Studies, the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), Division of Economic and Community Outreach.

SBDC's free, confidential business consulting services help small business owners to develop and refine business plans, solve problems, find sources of capital and develop strategies to support growth and profitability. Most of the certified, professional business counselors have owned or managed successful businesses. SBDC also offers a comprehensive education and training program and a wide range of workshops, conferences, seminars and courses.

SBDC also offers information in print, video and electronic media through its resource libraries and access to SBDCNET, a national business information clearinghouse. The Central Region's SBDC is a part of a national network, founded in 1979, that helps more than 500,000 businesses annually. Students in the Entrepreneurship Track's Consulting Workshop will have an opportunity to work with the SBDC.