Entrepreneurship curriculum expanding rapidly
Interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education is well under way and growing fast at UDM. Two college-level (graduate and undergraduate) courses currently are being piloted: "Innovation and Creativity" and "Product Entrepreneurship." In addition, a K-12 course, "Entrepreneurship-Venture Creation," is being delivered as part of the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program (DAPCEP) Saturday morning classes on campus.
Entrepreneurship faculty team (from left): Nassif Rayess, Jonathan Weaver and Oswald Mascarenhas, S.J.
"Innovation and Creativity," taught by Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jonathan Weaver and Professor of Business Administration Oswald Mascarenhas, S.J., is an upper level undergraduate/graduate course being taken by combined teams of engineering and business students. It focuses on the creative process using exercises, case studies and examples. It also provides students with an understanding of the innovation landscape, including processes to recognize new market opportunities and generate innovative ideas; pathways to market; and tools for innovation. The students will present a term-long project in which they develop a new product concept using tools and techniques covered in the course.
Fr. Mascarenhas says, "I've been teaching at UDM for 23 years. This is my first truly intercollegiate teaching experience."
Three engineering and three business students are involved in the pilot offering of the "Product Entrepreneurship" course taught by Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Nassif Rayess and Professor of Business Administration Mary Higby. The course unites engineering and business students on a common first semester of the engineering capstone design project.
"The students' project involves developing tools to help with domestic energy conservation," says Rayess.
The DAPCEP course piloted this spring introduced its pre-college participants to the basics of entrepreneurship. Topics included identifying market opportunity and customer needs, concept generation and selection (including benchmarking and patent/intellectual property concerns), detailed design, manufacturing, testing and refinement, launch, distribution/sales, service and after-market considerations. Teams of 6-8 students developed and presented a business plan for a proposed new venture. The instructor and student course materials are now being packaged as part of the Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (PAS) program that is taught in high schools across the nation.
The course, "Interdisciplinary Design, Entrepreneurship and Service" (IDEAS), was piloted last fall and another new course entitled, "The Front End of Innovation," is being planned for the summer.
UDM thanks the Kern Family Foundation for supporting these efforts to develop the entrepreneurial mindset and education at UDM as part of the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network.
