Diversifying Options How today's campuses are paving the way for minority entrepreneurship

If colleges are at the forefront of entrepreneurial innovation,they are also the places where minority entrepreneurship is gettingsome serious attention. Aimed at tackling the issues faced bytoday's minority entrepreneurial students, these programs arestarting to crop up at universities across the nation."It's really grown out of a need to presententrepreneurship [from] a more diverse perspective," saysStephen Spinelli, vice provost for entrepreneurship at BabsonCollege in Babson Park, Massachusetts.

Babson College, for one, has teamed up with Ford Motor Co. andHistorically Black Colleges and Universities to create a curriculumand seminar series that educates black entrepreneurial students onhow to start businesses. Spinelli noticed black business leaderslacked representation in the case studies taught at Babson, so heand his colleagues began creating a case-study library featuringsuccessful black entrepreneurs.

Since late 2004, the school has incorporated the case studiesalong with seminars dealing with minority-business issues into itsentrepreneurship classes. Entrepreneurial speakers are especiallyinspirational. "The [entrepreneurs'] frankness has beennearly overwhelming; they don't hide their experiences,"says Spinelli. "[They've] overcome some barriers that anumber of students didn't recognize existed." And oncethey complete a full case-study library, he hopes to get theprogram into more colleges and universities. For details, check outwww.babson.edu/eship.

Because most universities have yet to implement similarprograms, it's often the students themselves who are makinginroads toward minority-business initiatives. At the LaBelleEntrepreneurial Center at Central Michigan University in MountPleasant, student Ja'Van Johnson has teamed up with CharlesFitzpatrick, an entrepreneurship professor and director of thecenter, to plan the second annual Minority Institute forEntrepreneurs workshop and lecture series. The event, designed tohelp minority students deal with the challenges of starting abusiness, is tentatively scheduled for fall 2005 and will be opento students nationwide. Johnson, who expects to graduate this yearwith a degree in entrepreneurship, says, "We want to showpeople there's opportunity out there." Visit www.cba.cmich.edu/lec for moreinformation.

That same passion for helping minority students inspired ParisWallace, an alumnus of Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts,to start The Pre-Business Group through his alma mater four yearsago. He felt there was a need for this type of group, sinceminority students and students from different socioeconomic groupsoften have trouble creating a strong network of business contactsby graduation. Held at Amherst during interterm (the six weeksbetween fall and spring semesters), the seminar introduces minoritystudents to the business world through lectures and networkingtrips to major investment-banking houses, and is open to studentsnationwide. For more information, go to www.prebusinessgroup.org.

"It's a way for people who don't have opportunityto create it," says Wallace, who has a full-time job butmanages the group in his free time. "Letting people know thatthere are more options out there--if they have the contacts, ifthey have the networks, they can be successful."