By Zack Sampson, News Staff
Northeastern announced this week a plan for a new Center for Entrepreneurship Education that will combine the university’s existing offerings with new initiatives to centralize the school’s growing entrepreneurship program.
Trustee Alan S. McKim, who received his master’s in business administration from Northeastern in 1988, made a $5 million investment to support the center, according to the university website. Students already involved in entrepreneurship at Northeastern praised the plan, saying it shows the school cares about the subject and that it will open up the university’s programs to more people.
“I think it’ll make the program itself just more accessible to students,” said James Gorman, a junior finance major and head coach in IDEA – a student-run venture accelerator at the university.
Northeastern has billed the center as a way of bringing classes, extracurricular work and co-op opportunities together – a method that Gorman said will make it easier for students to engage in entrepreneurship.
Varun Tarapore, a sophomore international business student and operations officer in IDEA, said the center legitimizes the university’s entrepreneurship program.
“I think it’s fantastic because it kind of puts everybody on the same page,” which will make communication easier, he said.
The center will also offer opportunities to alumni and graduate students, according to the university, with initiatives such as “startup boot camps” for alumni and a “Lab to Ventures” program to help graduate researchers turn their work into successful business efforts.
But the undergraduate program will stand out, said Marc Meyer, the Robert Shillman professor of entrepreneurship. Along with other faculty, including IDEA’s advisor, Dan Gregory, Meyer will direct the creation of the center.
“It’s a very rich learning experience for the undergrads,” he said. “I don’t think you can find any other place in the US [like it] for entrepreneurship.”
Last fall, The Princeton Review ranked Northeastern the nation’s ninth best college for undergraduate entrepreneurship. The new center could boost the university’s profile further, said Christopher Wolfel, a junior business administration major and IDEA’s chief executive officer.
“I believe making classes in entrepreneurship and the skills that go along with it available to multiple facets of the university and alumni base will catapult us up even higher in the rankings,” he said in an email to The News.
The members of IDEA also said they hope the new center will attract more students to their program. Gregory, the faculty advisor, said it “will connect IDEA to far more students across campus,” while still preserving its student-run, peer-to-peer operations.
Though the university is expanding and creating this center, Meyer said students will largely remain in charge of much of the entrepreneurship program.
“The students are behind the wheel,” he said. “The center is just providing them what they need to be successful.”
