The Entrepreneurship program at UDM is expanding at a fast clip with the approval of the minor in Entrepreneurship. The minor, which is open to all students, includes a technical track and a business track with a common core consisting of three courses. The minor in Entrepreneurship is designed with strong emphasis on innovation as well as practical training in interdisciplinary projects and ventures.

The Entrepreneurship program aims to have a broader reach than the segment of students who self-select into the minor. The aim is to instill the entrepreneurial mindset throughout the entire undergraduate engineering student population using a mix of curricular and extra-curricular elements. Inside the classroom, students will be exposed to entrepreneurship through a mix of dedicated classes, modules and case studies.

The modules are designed to be delivered in few lectures and cover a small number of educational outcomes. The case studies illustrate how an entrepreneur has capitalized on his/her knowledge of specific technical/engineering topics covered in the course. They include segments of video interviews where students hear from the entrepreneur directly. Twelve case studies are available at weaverjm.faculty.udmercy.edu. Twelve more are planned, which will allow for an average of three case studies per semester.

The Entrepreneurship program is being developed through a $200,000 grant from the Kern Family Foundation. This third grant aims to emphasize the entrepreneurial mindset to each engineering student. The curriculum development work associated with the grant is scheduled to be completed in 2011. The development is a partnership between faculty from Engineering and Business programs.

Developing the entrepreneurial mindset and competencies was the subject of a breakout session during the recent meeting of the College of Engineering & Science's Board of Advisors.