Wake Forest University
Executive Summary – Kauffman Campuses Proposal
Wake Forest University has been dedicated to the liberal arts for over a century and a half, honoring a commitment to the life of the mind through education in the fundamental fields of human knowledge and achievement. Our motto, Pro Humanitate, embraces the values of service to others, compassion and attention to the individual, as well as excellence in intellectual pursuits. The Kauffman Campuses Initiative (KCI) presents an opportunity for Wake Forest University to enhance its liberal arts educational mission and support these ideals.
We seek to make entrepreneurship an integral and enduring part of the liberal arts college experience. We believe that the Wake Forest philosophy of liberal arts and the nature of entrepreneurship can be mutually reinforcing concepts. To build a sustainable culture of entrepreneurship we will take the following actions:
- elevate the effort to a visible university-level office;
- launch a multi-year communication program to create greater awareness and understanding of entrepreneurship within the liberal arts community;
- create entrepreneurial champions among liberal arts faculty through education, exposure and incentives;
- add courses in entrepreneurship and creativity throughout the curriculum;
- provide cross-disciplinary and experiential learning opportunities related to entrepreneurship;
- add four new faculty positions in the liberal arts to provide enhanced teaching resources for entrepreneurship curriculum initiatives;
- provide enhanced opportunities for students to become involved in social entrepreneurship, consistent with the university's Pro Humanitate motto;
- establish a university center for entrepreneurship to support entrepreneurial efforts outside the normal curriculum; and
- establish a 5th year entrepreneurship institute to support postgraduates completing entrepreneurial projects begun as undergraduates.
The programs envisioned in this proposal seek to weave entrepreneurship into the fabric of the university. We anticipate a five-year time frame for a complete program to develop, culminating in a special "Year of the Entrepreneur" that will spotlight the accomplishments of the fully-developed program. At that point curriculum and resources will support any student from any discipline, from freshman year into the graduate school, who wants to learn about and to pursue entrepreneurship.
Wake Forest possesses a unique ability to develop a model for integrating entrepreneurship with liberal arts education. Our professional schools and faculty in the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy and the Babcock Graduate School of Management provide a strong foundation in entrepreneurship teaching, research, and outreach from which to build a program. Through the Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University's involvement in a regional research park effort in downtown Winston-Salem, institutionally we have a strong and growing base of experience in technology transfer and new venture dynamics. Combining these strengths with its national exposure and core liberal arts mission, the university can serve as a representative model for other liberal arts institutions in the future. Planning for this proposal has involved the president of the university, deans of the College of Arts and Sciences and of the two business schools, a representative selection of arts, sciences, and humanities faculty, entrepreneurship professors from the business schools, faculty from the medical school, undergraduate and graduate students from the liberal arts and the business schools, the university's senior technology transfer officer, and the advancement department. The ideas and programs described in this proposal are thus the culmination of an innovative cross-campus collaboration during the planning grant period.
