Faculty
Davis Schneiderman
Professor of English
Chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Amanda J. Felkey
Professor of Economics and Business
Kate Jackson
Interim Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program
Gary Johnson
Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
John Pappas
Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Tracy Taylor
Associate Professor of Art
Patricia Thomas
Entrepreneur in Residence
MINOR IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION
No major is currently available, but students wishing to create a major field of study that relies on Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and/or Design-Thinking should talk to Professor Jackson about pursuing that interest through the College’s Self-Designed Major Program.
The minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation was redesigned in 2018. The new requirements will apply to all students who matriculate in Fall Semester 2018 and thereafter (see left navigation bar for Entrepreneurship and Innovation minor requirements before Fall 2018).
Requirements for the Minor:
At least 6 credits, including 5 required courses:
- ENTP 110 Design Thinking & Problem Solving
- ENTP 220 Fundraising & Sales
- Two of the following:
- ENTP 230 Design for Product Market Fit
- ENTP 250 Small Business Leadership and Management
- ENTP 255 Nonprofit Leadership and Management
- ENTP 260 Developing, Protecting and Monetizing Intellectual Property
- ENTP 340 Inclusive Innovation
- ENTP 350 Intrapreneurship: Innovation in Existing Organizations
- ENTP 370 New Venture Design
At least 1 elective, chosen from the following list:
- ENTP 140: Brand You: Building & Monetizing Your Personal Brand
- ENTP/ART/ENGL/MUSC/THTR 285: Creative Arts Entrepreneurship
- ENTP/BUSN 325: Digital Marketing & Analytics
- ENTP/BUSN 360: Global Social Entrepreneurship
- ART 142: Digital Design Foundations
- ART 253: Graphic and Digital Design
- ARTH 238: Curating an Art Collection
- ARTH 338: Contemporary Exhibition Practices
- BUSN 331: Managerial Accounting
- BUSN 345: Organizational Behavior
- BUSN 355: Consumer Behavior
- BUSN 460: Brand Management and Positioning
- CHIN 313: Chinese for International Affairs and Business
- COMM 287: Media Systems and Institutions
- COMM 389: Political Economy of Media
- CSCI 107: Introduction to Web Programming
- CSCI 270: Web Development
- CSCI 325: Artificial Intelligence
- CSCI 417: Algorithms and Algorithm Analysis
- CSCI 450: Computer Vision & Machine Learning
- ENGL 111: Introduction to Professional Writing
- ENGL 329: Advanced Publishing
- ENGL 369: Professional Writing in the Digital Age
- French 228: Oh Là Là: French Stereotypes, Media, & Marketing
- LOOP 202: Professional Development in the 21st Century
- PHIL 310: Communication Ethics
- PSYC 345: Organizational and Industrial Psychology
- SPAN 321: Business Spanish
- THTR 480: The Business of Show Business
- Any internship with an entrepreneurial focus, according to the following stipulations.
- The internship must be cleared with the Program chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation before the internship starts, at which time the student must demonstrate that the internship will have an important connection with the entrepreneurship curriculum. Upon completing the internship, the student must also submit a reflective paper to the Program chair that speaks to the internship’s entrepreneurship experiences. At most one elective can be satisfied with an internship, regardless of whether the internship is for one or two credits.
Business majors or minors must take at least one elective from the above list that they do not also count as a BUSN elective.
Learning Outcomes
The expected Student Learning Outcomes for the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program are:
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation minors will be able to sell themselves and their ideas. Students master oral and visual presentation skills and establish a foundation of confidence in the skills necessary to cause others to act.
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation minors will be able to find problems worth solving. Students advance their skills in customer development, customer validation, competitive analysis, and iteration while utilizing design thinking and process tools to evaluate in real-world problems and projects.
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation minors will be able to mobilize people and resources. Students identify and secure customers, stakeholders, and team members through networks, primary customer research, and competitive and industry analyses in order to prioritize and pursue an initial target market in real-world projects.
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation minors will be able to create value. Students are able to create presentations and business plans that articulate and apply financial, operational, organizational, market, and sales knowledge to identify paths to value creation through 1) company formation (for-profit); 2) social innovation (nonprofit); or 3) intellectual property licensing.
- Entrepreneurship and Innovation minors will develop and cultivate endurance. Students increase their awareness and deliberately practice the skills and disciplines necessary to increase confidence and agency; foster self-efficacy and self-advocacy; improve communication and problem-solving skills, manage strong impulses and feelings; and identify personal purpose.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Courses
ENTP 110: Design Thinking & Problem Solving
What are the tools and mindset required to be an innovator and an entrepreneur? This introductory course in innovation, design thinking, and entrepreneurship leads students through the processes used for finding problems worth solving, mobilizing the resources to solve them, and defining meaning for one's work in the world. No prerequisites. Students who have taken ENTP 120 cannot take ENTP 110.
ENTP 140: Brand You
ENTP 140: Brand You: Building & Monetizing Your Personal Brand. Central to the class experience are the essential questions: What is the Brand of YOU? How might you craft, communicate, and commercialize your brand via social media platforms? Branding helps us be seen the way we want to be seen. In this course, students will learn how to use marketing and brand-building tactics in the service of their own goals and will be challenged to identify and pursue new professional opportunities. As part of their work in this course, students will create assets related to their developing brand, which may include social media content and a personal website. ENTP 140 is designed for athletes, freelancers, artists, musicians, and individual entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their careers. No prerequisites. (This course satisfies Speaking Intensive.)
ENTP 220: Fundraising & Sales
Central to the class experience is the essential question: How can mastering the skill of asking improve every aspect of our lives? In this course, in addition to learning how to ask, students gain an understanding of how asking is an essential tool to identify and solve problems. Through hands-on exercises, students focus on developing the leadership traits that make successful salespeople and fundraisers with an emphasis on resilience and empathy. The course highlights the differences between fundraising for nonprofit entities and selling in corporate and entrepreneurial environments. Prerequisite: ENTP 110 and Sophomore standing.
cross listed: BUSN 220
ENTP 230: Product Market Fit
How do you know if you have a good and viable solution for a problem? How do you build the creative confidence needed for a 21st-century problem solver? How do you learn quickly and develop your unique insights and points of view to remain relevant and competitive? How do you demonstrate the level of rigor that gives your proposed solution credibility? This is an activity-based deep dive into the mindset, skills, and tools used in an entrepreneurial problem-solving philosophy. Students learn to frame, explore, test, and iterate their ideas before offering them as solutions. This course aims to uncover and understand humans' unmet and often unarticulated needs as the starting point for viable, sustainable, and accessible new products, services, experiences, and policies. This course focuses on understanding, framing, discovering, and validating novel and innovative solutions. Students practice and hone their critical thinking skills through empirical observation, analysis, and creative exploration.
ENTP 250: Small Bus Leadership & Management
(Small Business Leadership and Management.) What knowledge, skills, and discipline are required to successfully start and run a business? This course explores leadership and management, and how the differences impact the purpose and market, as well as the financial, and operational health of a small business. Students learn to use data and set micro-level goals to gain an understanding of the tools, systems, and processes required to run a profitable ongoing entity. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
ENTP 255: Nonprofit Leadership & Management
What knowledge, skills, and discipline are required to successfully start and run a nonprofit venture? This course explores nonprofit leadership and management, and how the differences impact the mission, governance, financial, and operational health of a nonprofit. Students learn to use data and set micro-level goals to gain an understanding of the tools, systems, and processes required to measure impact and build a sustainable nonprofit entity. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
ENTP 260: Develop, Protect & Monetize IP
(Developing, Protecting and Monetizing Intellectual Property.) How does one protect an idea or invention? This course provides the foundations for protecting innovations and inventions (intangible assets) and monetizing those through the sale or license of the asset or through a new venture created to market the asset. Students explore the financial and social impact of each path from the perspective of the creator. This course is taught through case studies, reading, client or student projects, and exposure to industry professionals. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
ENTP 325: Digital Marketing & Analytics
How can being consumer-focused and data-driven improve results? Entrepreneurs, social leaders, professionals, and individuals need digital brand-building skills and marketing acumen to sell themselves and their ideas, products, and services. This course takes a human-centered approach to teaching how end users and their buying decisions are influenced by digital media. The course teaches design thinking, digital tools, web analytics, and growth hacking frameworks through a combination of exposure to industry professionals, readings, and client projects. Prerequisite: ENTP 110 or BUSN 225.
cross listed: BUSN 325
ENTP 340: Inclusive Innovation
While entrepreneurs top the list of Forbes richest Americans, diversity does not. Why are women, people of color, and other groups persistently excluded from entrepreneurial resources? How might we make entrepreneurship more inclusive to drive disruptive innovation, help people reach their full potential, and propel positive economic growth? This course surveys the deeper (and often hidden) causal factors that have contributed to and reinforced entrepreneurial exclusion. We examine disparities at the macro- and micro-level (i.e., gender, race, sexuality, geography, ability, age) through case studies, reading, hands-on activities, and student research projects. Students propose their own reasoned and researched solutions to address the business case for access and inclusion not as a charitable cause but as an economic imperative. The course concludes with students pitching their solutions on how to empower an underrepresented group, increase access to high-quality tools to find problems worth solving for this group and the resources to solve them, and create new channels for revenue from a previously underserved and ignored market. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. (This course satisfies Experiential Learning and Domestic Pluralism.)
cross listed: ETHC 339, GSWS 339, LNAM 340
ENTP 350: Intrapreneurship: Innov in Organiz
(Intrapreneurship: Innovation in Existing Organizations) Innovative corporations, institutions, and social organizations require entrepreneurial-minded teams who can identify and create new opportunities, new products, greater value, and more meaningful relationships with their customers. Operationalizing innovation within organizations requires substantial challenges including navigating bureaucracy, risk aversion, political conflicts, intolerance of failure, and lack of leadership support. Through hands-on group exercises, case studies, and real-world experience, students learn to apply Design Thinking and Value Proposition Design frameworks to develop, test, and create value within existing organizations, and learn how to do so in a team-based environment. Prerequisite: One of the following four courses--ENTP 220, ENTP 250, BUSN 225, or BUSN 245. (This course satisfies Experiential Learning.)
cross listed: BUSN 380
ENTP 355: Innovation in Chicago
Chicago is home to many innovative nonprofit organizations solving problems that impact our local, national, and global communities. In this seminar, students explore different approaches to problem solving through direct engagement and virtual field trips (interviews) to some of Chicago's leading social innovators which may include: P33, the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, Interfaith Youth Core, Matter (the health care counterpart to the 1871 incubator), A Better Chicago, and others. This course provides students with the opportunity to: 1) understand how to identify and measure social impact, 2) learn methods and frameworks to stimulate change, 3) use social media as an effective means for story-telling, 4) visually communicate qualitative and quantitative information including the use of digital photography, videography and graphic design, and 5) cultivate essential life - and career - focused skills such as leadership, communication, and creative thinking; all of which can be applied to their interests, internship, and areas of study. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.
cross listed: LOOP 355
ENTP 360: Global Social Entrepreneurship
How does social entrepreneurship affect local and global economics and culture? Social entrepreneurs identify problems that negatively impact a specific demographic and mobilize the resources to solve the problem. The process of social entrepreneurship involves taking direct action and measuring the impact of the solution against a stated mission. This course uses case studies, readings, and lectures to analyze the impact of social ventures while identifying social and environmental problems that are still in need of better solutions.Prerequisite: Any of the following: ENTP 110, ENTP 120, ECON 110, SOAN 110, POLS 110, POLS 120, RELG 118, or permission of instructor. (This course satisfies Global Perspective.)
cross listed: BUSN 360, IREL 316
ENTP 370: New Venture Design
How does one transform a concept into a sustainable business or nonprofit venture? This course is a capstone class to be taken after significant coursework in ENTP. The course takes students through the process of transforming a business or social concept into a mission-led commercial or nonprofit entity. We explore aspects of how teams and resources can be efficiently deployed for sustainable new venture creation. Students define a revenue model, create a plan, establish success metrics, and drive action for a new venture. Prerequisites: ENTP 220; and junior or senior standing; or permission of the instructor. (This course satisfies Experiential Learning and Speaking Intensive.)
ENTP 470: New Venture Launch
How can entrepreneurs rapidly prove their model, scale their venture, and create an infrastructure to accommodate growth? This course is for students who are working on an existing business or social venture projects. Students design organizational structures, define roles and responsibilities, expand their network of stakeholders, and take action to further develop their venture. Weekly topics and case studies will be applied to the students' own work. Prerequisite: ENTP 370. (This course satisfies Senior Studies.)