Education
The College of Business and Behavioral Science offers several undergraduate courses in entrepreneurial leadership that are open to students from all disciplines. Students may choose to study entrepreneurship as a minor, an area of emphasis or a series of electives.
The Spiro Institute will introduce a new class in hybrid entrepreneurship in spring 2011. The class is being developed with the assistance of Will Marre, who recently kicked off the Spiro MBA First Friday Leadership Seminar Series in September 2010 with his presentation, “Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner.”
Marre is continuing to work with members of the Spiro Institute to infuse hybrid entrepreneurship into the curriculum. Hybrid entrepreneurship focuses on the three P’s — People, Planet and Profit. Marre describes it a blend of
- “discipline” of profit maximization techniques,
- “meaning” of social and sustainable values,
- “agility” of entrepreneurship.
One example of the strength of our students’ commitments to social values is demonstrated by the selection of Clemson’s Triune project as a finalist for the coveted TeamMBA Service Award by the Graduate Management Admission Council. Triune is a nondenominational church that ministers with and alongside the homeless. A team of Clemson MBA graduate students developed a computer lab and curriculum that started with beginning keyboarding and moved on to e-mail accounts, Internet searches and Microsoft programs. The first class included 18 people who received certificates of completion at the end of the informal course.
The pilot class in hybrid entrepreneurship is open to undergraduate juniors and seniors. It features an innovative experiential approach whereby each student team will undertake similar “real-life” projects that make a difference. An intrinsic element of each team’s assessment is to make a three-minute video that records their project and provides future students with a road map to success. The instructor for this class is famed video producer and storyteller Bobby Rettew. Watch for the new hybrid entrepreneurship videos coming this spring.