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By Lanita Withers Goins, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-3890
Posted 11-25-09
GREENSBORO, N.C. — For years, students have flocked to entrepreneurship classes at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Starting in January, students will have the option of majoring in the popular discipline.
The UNC Board of Governors approved a new major in entrepreneurship at UNCG during their meeting this month. The newly approved major is only the second of its kind among the state’s 16 public universities, and the first with a cross-disciplinary focus.
The new major will be built upon the more than 30 entrepreneurship class offerings on campus, said Dr. Dianne H.B. Welsh, the Charles A. Hayes Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Bryan School of Business and Economics, and will spur business and economic development opportunities for the Triad and the state of North Carolina.
“What we know is that 60 percent of people who start businesses have never taken a business course,” Welsh said. “They know their discipline – be it art, science, theatre or music – and they have really great knowledge in those areas, but they need the skill set with entrepreneurship to put that business together.”
Echoing a national trend, entrepreneurial education has boomed in popularity at UNCG in recent years. Of the 667 business administration majors enrolled in fall of 2008, nearly a third of them chose the entrepreneurship/small business concentration, an 85 percent increase over the past five years.
“The new entrepreneurship major will provide our students 21st century skills that will impact their ability to compete worldwide, start and grow businesses or make existing businesses more entrepreneurial through creativity and innovation,” said Dr. Jim Weeks, dean of the Bryan School.
Students in the new major will take half of their courses in the Bryan School and the remainder in the College of Arts and Sciences and other professional schools. Each major must also take at least one course from seven profile areas – which include creative industries, family business, franchising, health care entrepreneurship, international entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship or technology and innovation – and complete a required internship.
"This new cross-disciplinary major will foster the transformation of faculty and student innovative thinking into economic goods in the form of new businesses,” said Provost David Perrin. “It will also create opportunities to develop entrepreneurial initiatives in the form of social entrepreneurship, political entrepreneurship and knowledge entrepreneurship."
The new major furthers the university’s focus on entrepreneurship, which began in 2007 with the creation of the Building Entrepreneurial Learning for Life (BELL) initiative designed to fuel entrepreneurial spirit and ability throughout campus. This fall, UNCG founded the N.C. Center for Entrepreneurship and launched two new minors in the subject – a revamped minor for business majors and a new minor for students in any major.
For more information, contact Welsh at (336) 256-8507 or dhwelsh@uncg.edu.