Teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action:®
An Educator Program for Greater China
Date: The dates for the next offering have not yet been scheduled
Location: Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA
Program Overview
Now more than ever, the world needs entrepreneurs of all kinds who think and act entrepreneurially—who can transform opportunity into reality, and create social and economic value for themselves and for others. Teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® (ET&A) is a 12-day program designed by Babson senior faculty members to assist leading business school professors from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore in meeting the global demand for entrepreneurship education to prepare the current and future generations for a new world that demands entrepreneurial activity more than ever. Entrepreneurial activity is essential to the vitality of economies. Entrepreneurs embrace uncertainty to create new products, services, markets, and organizations, which generate jobs, income, and other social benefits to communities, countries, and the world.
This Babson program advances teaching entrepreneurship as a method of ET&A. The method is a way of thinking and acting, taught using a portfolio of techniques to help students engage in Entrepreneurship of All Kinds™.The method goes beyond understanding, knowing, and talking, and requires action, application, and practice. Babson’s method approach to entrepreneurship education requires new methodologies for teaching, and the seminar builds the necessary teaching competencies to educate high-impact entrepreneurs of all kinds. In addition to articulating ET&A and Entrepreneurship of All Kinds™, participants experience cutting-edge approaches for teaching ET&A, understand how to build academic entrepreneurship ecosystems, including curricular and cocurricular activities, and co-create innovative teaching tools. The seminar also will provide guidance on the creation, development, and tailoring of materials to reflect the specific entrepreneurship opportunities and challenges for students at leading universities throughout the region.
Teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action is designed for faculty members who are playing or will play major roles in building entrepreneurship programs in their respective institutions during the next decade.
Program Objectives
The learning objectives for the program were developed based on Babson’s 27 years of experience in training entrepreneurship educators around the world. These include:
- Understand and integrate Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® and assist academics in the process of updating curricula to accommodate ET&A as a method for teaching Entrepreneurship of All Kinds™.
- Experience a variety of pedagogies that can help students practice entrepreneurship and encourage professors to translate the theoretical into practice-based learning.
- Provide useful Babson teaching resources to accelerate program development throughout the region.
- Cultivate a personal network among the Babson faculty and the faculty of prestigious institutions throughout the region to share “best practices” in entrepreneurship education.
- Collaborate on the development of new teaching methodologies and approaches to building and expanding entrepreneurship programs to meet the regional needs and demand.
Program Format and Curriculum
Teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® is a full-time residential seminar, which takes place on the Babson campus. Throughout the entire program, participants are expected to work 12 to 14 hours a day, and full participation in all activities is required. Participants must remain free of outside distractions and responsibilities throughout the program.
We focus on both content and process issues as Babson believes that how we teach entrepreneurship is just as important as what we teach about entrepreneurship. The 12-day seminar will address the content and process topics listed below.
Content Topics
- The philosophy of Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®
- Components of an academic entrepreneurial ecosystem
- Entrepreneurial identity
- Idea generation
- Design thinking
- Opportunity identification and evaluation
- Market tests
- Business models
- Business planning versus feasibility planning
- Building entrepreneurial teams
- Managing growing businesses
- Financing entrepreneurial ventures
- Corporate entrepreneurship
- New venture creation
- Social entrepreneurship
- Family enterprising
- Tolerating and learning from failure
Process Topics
- The evolution of teaching entrepreneurship
- Teaching entrepreneurship as a method
- Becoming an entrepreneurial teacher
- Teaching with cases
- Using experiential exercises/games in the classroom
- Practicing entrepreneurship through project-based learning
- Developing an entrepreneurial mindset among students
- Effective course development
- Managing the entrepreneurship classroom
- Building a classroom culture
- Cultivating your teaching style
- Classroom observation
- Reflective practice
- Curriculum development and design
- Technology in the classroom
The sessions consist of experiential exercises, case-based discussions, interactive lectures, group work, and project-based learning. All sessions are conducted in English.
Extending the Impact
The seminar is designed as a means to support Asian faculty and their institutions in teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action. In order to achieve this objective, Babson Global launched the Global Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education (GCEE), which offers an annual summit, research, consulting, curriculum, faculty development and cocurricular development for its members. Upon completion of the program, participating institutions are encouraged to join GCEE, as a way to extend and further develop their entrepreneurship education capabilities.
Program Faculty
Teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® will be taught by a team of faculty members whose field-based research, industry involvement, and teaching interests keep them on the cutting edge in their areas of specialization. The program design team is led by Heidi Neck, the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College, and Leonard A. Schlesinger, the president of Babson College. Other key Babson faculty members will include the following:
Candida Brush is a professor, the F.W. Olin Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship, and the chair for Babson’s Entrepreneurship Division. She is well known for her pioneering research in women’s entrepreneurship. She conducted the first and largest study of women entrepreneurs in the early 1980s, resulting in one of the earliest books on the topic. With four other researchers, she founded the Diana Project, a research consortium investigating women’s access to growth capital internationally. Her research investigates resource acquisition, strategy, and financing of new ventures. She is the author of more than 90 articles published in many scholarly journals.
Les Charm is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at Babson, and has been a partner in the firm of Youngman & Charm since 1972. The firm specializes in directorship functions for firms owned and operated by entrepreneurs and in assisting companies that are experiencing operating and/or financial problems. From 1977 through 1990, he was chairman and president of a major distributor and specialty retail chain. He has taught throughout the world on a variety of topics regarding entrepreneurship and governance. He is on the President’s Council at Babson, and is the recipient of the Appel Award for Entrepreneurship.
Patricia G. Greene is a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson, where she also is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship. Her current assignment is to lead the curriculum design team for the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses initiative. She previously served as provost at Babson, and before that as the dean of the Undergraduate School. Her research focuses on the identification, acquisition, and combination of entrepreneurial resources, particularly by women and minority entrepreneurs. She is a founding member of the Diana Project, a research group focusing on women and the venture capital industry.
Heidi Neck is the Jeffry A. Timmons Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson. As faculty director of the Babson Symposium for Entrepreneurship Educators (SEE), she passionately works to improve the pedagogy of entrepreneurship education because new venture creation is the engine of society. She has published numerous book chapters, research monographs, and refereed articles in such journals as Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, and International Journal of Entrepreneurship Education. Recognized for her contributions to innovative teaching and curriculum developments, she has received numerous awards including Babson’s Deans’ Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Angelo Santinelli is an experienced leader and innovator in creating business strategy, marketing, and delivering results. His more than 20 years of business experience covers a broad range of disciplines and responsibilities, including business development, strategic planning, M&A, IPO, private equity financing, customer service, all aspects of marketing, and international operations. He has served on numerous boards of directors participating in both audit and compensation committees, and is the founder of Dakin Management, a strategy consultancy focusing on small- to medium-sized businesses. He was previously a partner with North Bridge Venture Partners, where he began his investing career in 1998.
Leonard A. Schlesinger became Babson’s 12th president on July 1, 2008, bringing to the College leadership experience in academia and industry. He formulated the conversations that led to the development of today’s strategy, starting with a community-wide discussion and decisions around Babson’s strategic direction. That work resulted in a strategy focused on Entrepreneurial Thought & Action as the core of Babson’s distinctive expertise and culture; integrating social, environmental, economic responsibility, and sustainability into the core of the curriculum and educational experience; building a generation of leaders representing Entrepreneurship of All Kinds™; and creating a Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Education to disseminate Entrepreneurial Thought & Action to the world through a network of educators and institutions.
Andrew “Zach” Zacharakis is the John H. Muller Jr. Chair in Entrepreneurship at Babson. His primary research areas include the venture capital process and entrepreneurial growth strategies. The editors of Journal of Small Business Management selected “Differing Perceptions of New Venture Failure” as the 1999 best article. His dissertation, The Venture Capital Investment Decision, received the 1995 Certificate of Distinction from the Academy of Management and Mr. Edgar F. Heizer, recognizing outstanding research in the field of new enterprise development. He has taught seminars to leading corporations, such as Boeing, Met Life, Lucent, and Intel.
Campus Facilities
Participants are housed in private rooms on campus at the award-winning Babson Executive Conference Center, and meals are provided during their stay. The center features comprehensive amenities including state-of-the-art technological capabilities, a fitness center, and a lounge. All sessions take place in amphitheater classrooms.
Babson College’s campus is located on 370 acres of wooded, landscaped grounds just 20 minutes from downtown Boston. Logan International Airport in Boston provides a convenient location for international flights. Our staff can advise you on transportation logistics between the airport and Babson.
Admission Requirements
Professional achievement and institutional responsibility are the main criteria for admission. Proficiency in spoken and written English is essential, as participants will be required to contribute to fast-moving discussions during classroom sessions and peer-discussion groups.
Participants must have full institutional sponsorship. Sponsoring schools agree to assume all fees, provide for reasonable additional expenses, and relieve participants of their work responsibilities for the length of the program.
Invited schools are encouraged to nominate participants to the program. All participants are required to be full-time faculty members of the school. The Babson Admissions Committee will select the most qualified and diverse group from the pool of candidates in order to ensure an interactive and invigorating learning experience for all participants, as well as to enhance the program’s takeaway value for their supporting schools.
Upon the successful completion of the program, a Certificate of Participation will be issued to participants.
Application Process
Completed Application Forms and Dean Recommendation Forms must be submitted by November 1, 2011. Applications will be reviewed in the order that they are received. It is expected that there might be more qualified applicants than spaces available, so early application is strongly recommended.
Please note that applications are not considered complete until both the Application Form and the Dean Recommendation Form are received.
Application Form (pdf)
Program Dates
The program is offered on the Babson campus from March 11–24, 2012.
Program Fee
The program fee for Teaching Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® is $9,800 U.S., which includes tuition, study materials, accommodations, and meals on the Babson campus from March 11–24, 2012. Fees are due within 30 days of the invoice date, or upon receipt of the invoice if admission is within 30 days of the program start date. Cancellation policies are outlined in the information provided to applicants upon admission.
Contact
If you have any questions about the program, please contact:
John Chen
Vice President, Asia Pacific, Babson Global
Telephone: + 1 781-239-4319