Flash

A key difference between Clarkson's business curriculum and the approach in most schools has grown from the idea of "learning business by doing business." In other business schools, students learn about the various facets of business before learning how they fit in the whole. At Clarkson, in their very first semester, all business students must help start up and run an actual business in a course called Introduction to Entrepreneurship.

The experience includes preparing a business plan, convincing a panel of investors to fund it, and running the business. By the end of the year, all of them gain an appreciation of the component areas that must be integrated in a successful company. "We say 'try.' Fail or succeed, make mistakes, but then listen to your professor because you now understand why the theory behind the practice is important," explains Marc Compeau, chief architect and director of Entrepreneurial Programs at Clarkson.

Venture@Moorehouse participant Megan Hazen '07 and Prof. Marc Compeau at Moore House, Clarkson's flagship corporate living/learning residence.
Venture@Moorehouse participant
Megan Hazen '07 and Prof. Marc
Compeau at Moore House, Clarkson's
flagship corporate living/learning
residence.

Venture@Moorehouse

 In their sophomore year, select students are able to participate in a nationally recognized residential program called Venture@Moorehouse, designed to create a corporate culture in a residence hall. Students live and work together on a designated floor to create and operate a more complex company. Resources include a meeting room and project work room with support equipment. Business ventures have ranged from a company to help contractors navigate federal contract bidding, to a college job-recruiting Web site, to creating a teen club.

The Venture course came about through financial support from the Coleman Foundation, Community Bank, former Clarkson trustee George S. Kimmel '57, and LeRoy "Whitey" Hansen '54. The Coleman Foundation also helped strengthen student consulting groups for regional businesses and organizations, and to create My Small Business 101, an entrepreneurship course for local businesses. This spring the Foundation gave a new grant of $150,000 to the entrepreneurship program. It will enable Clarkson to reconfigure the curriculum so students in nonbusiness majors can participate in entrepreneurial programs and to create new courses to facilitate development of concepts initiated in the students' first year. The grant will also expand My Small Business 101 into a mentoring program in which Clarkson students and faculty will work together assisting regional entrepreneurs.

Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization

The Clarkson chapter of the international Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) is an extracurricular means of gaining hands-on business experience. CEO has earned eight national awards in just three years of existence, including three at the organization's national convention: The chapter won Best Business Award and the Best Business Plan Award for the Kiosk in Cheel Arena that sells Clarkson merchandise; and junior Maggie Lander (BT&M) was named the "Most Outstanding Student Leader in the Country" for her leadership roles as general manager of the kiosk and member of the club's e-Board. "Having to manage over 20 employees, four vice presidents, and an inventory of about $15,000 was challenging. I learned a lot about contracts, creative marketing, and organizing an entire business," says Lander.

Clarkson CEO also heads up three other successful business and consulting projects: www.CUOutfitters.com, an online business selling emblematic merchandise; Clarkson/Walsh University CEO Consulting Group, a collaboration with the Ohio-based school that offers consulting services to fledgling CEO student groups; and American Roots, a project to assist a local craftsman to locate outside markets for his handmade products.

Clarkson Consulting Groups

 In their senior year, undergraduates can join one of the Clarkson Consulting Groups to apply their skills to real-world issues faced by regional businesses and organizations. Participants work with graduate students on fee-based contracts with off-campus clients. The latter have ranged from medical and law offices to charities, with organizational and feasibility studies comprising many of the assignments. A project that has drawn wide attention is the contribution of students to assist entrepreneurs technically and in marketing to broaden their markets through the Internet in the Northern Adirondack Trading Cooperative. Championed by U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, the project has been hailed as a model for the nation by the senator.