Joins other college presidents at Atlanta forum
President James Wright was
one of three college and university presidents making presentations at a
National Policy Forum on Minority Entrepreneurship Education April 8 in
Atlanta.
Wright focused on the example offered by Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, which has
operated its highly successful Minority
Business Executive Education program for more than 25 years.
"The business climate is continually evolving," he said. "We
live in an increasingly complex global environment, and the Tuck program helps
minority executives succeed within this environment." He noted that more
than 3,000 individuals have participated in the program, representing 2,400
businesses with 102,000 employees, and that, as a result, the vast majority of
the participants have reported making improvements in all dimensions of
operating their businesses and creating new jobs.
Other campus presidents speaking were Beverly Tatum, president of Spelman College, and James Moeser,
chancellor of the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. The roundtable discussion focused on minority entrepreneurship
education and how it may benefit African American students. Wright was asked to
speak from the perspective of a specialist in American political history who is
also president of a leading college strongly committed to diversity. Other
participants were Mohammad Bhuiyan, president and CEO of Minority
Entrepreneurship Education, Inc., and Judith Cone, senior vice president of the
Kauffman Foundation.
Wright also stressed the important role colleges and universities must play in
promoting minority entrepreneurship. "This is an important topic, for the
black community and indeed for all of higher education," he said. "We
need to have our faculty and staff taking risks and continually innovating, to
serve as models of the sort of behavior we want our minority students to
see."
Sponsored by the Minority Entrepreneurship, Inc., and Opportunity Funding
Corporation, the forum was designed to address particularly the
entrepreneurship education of students at historically black colleges and
universities. Participants included the presidents of 25 such institutions,
more than 120 top students from those institutions along with deans and faculty
members, presidents of six major foundations (including the Kauffman
Foundation, KPMG Foundation, and the Georgia Pacific Foundation), 35 CEOs and
senior vice presidents of Fortune 500 companies, and successful
entrepreneurs.
Minority Entrepreneurship, Inc., and Opportunity Funding Corporation work to
help historically black colleges and universities develop comprehensive
entrepreneurship curricula that are particularly relevant in preparing young
African American men and women to become entrepreneurs. The program also aims
to stimulate student interest in entrepreneurship and to give students the
experience of conceiving business ventures and presenting business plans.
During Wright's administration, Dartmouth has responded to growing interest
in entrepreneurial activities among its students and faculty in a number of
ways, including establishment in 2001 of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial
Network (DEN). DEN offers educational opportunities in entrepreneurship as
well as service to start-ups seeking guidance about their ventures and is open
to all faculty, students, and alumni of Dartmouth, and to start-up businesses
in the Upper Valley on a case-by-case basis.
By ROLAND ADAMS
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