Calvin Gets Grant to Inspire Entrepreneurs

October 12, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Calvin College has landed a $50,000 grant to instill entrepreneurship in engineering students.

Full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/entrepreneurship.htm

The Calvin College engineering department has landed a $50,000 Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network (KEEN) grant from the Kern Family Foundation to instill a sense of entrepreneurship in engineering students.

"Entrepreneurship is about more than having an idea," said engineering professor Randall Brouwer, who wrote the KEEN grant proposal. "It's about knowing how to move that idea and make it work."

The KEEN grant will allow Calvin engineering faculty to build the entrepreneurial idea into the current curriculum, both through modifying existing classes and devising new ones.

"Business Aspects for Engineers," a required course for engineering students in all concentrations, is one example of a course that would benefit from an injection of entrepreneurship, said Brouwer.

Engineering faculty are also pondering a new Interim that would teach principles of entrepreneurship to students to prepare them for the yearlong Senior Design Project course. That class, the capstone of the Calvin engineering program, culminates in a showcase of innovative senior projects from all concentrations. Many of these senior projects, Brouwer said, could be useful to nonprofits and industries, but relatively few make it into production.

Through the KEEN grant, the engineering department will also sponsor seminars to bring to campus speakers, including alumni, who embody the entrepreneurial spirit. Some part of the KEEN grant will be used to sponsor the engineering department's business plan contest. The event, debuting this year, gives students with an idea to market the opportunity to submit business proposals for competition.

The department is committed to teaching a well-rounded model of entrepreneurship, he added, one that includes both CEO-types and those who work at other tiers of an organization.

"You don't have to be starting your own company or inventing products to be an entrepreneur," said Brouwer. "An entrepreneur is a person who knows how to make the case and make things happen to make things better. An entrepreneur can work in a major corporation improving products created by others."

Brouwer is enthusiastic about lighting the entrepreneurial flame in Calvin engineers.

"I hope that the student gain a sense of calling to take risks that will impact their communities," he said. "We want them to get the sense that their ideas are given to them so that they can make a difference in the world."

Contact Brouwer at 616-526-7078

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Received on Fri Oct 12 10:22:07 2007