Drury, MSU establish entrepreneurship programs

Drury University announced plans for the Edward Jones Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation on Nov. 13, exactly one month after Missouri State University announced it will offer a Bachelor of Science in entrepreneurship starting in fall 2007.

Robert Wyatt, director of the Breech School of Business Administration at Drury, said college entrepreneurship programs are the wave of the future.

“We know that one out of every three people will wind up working for a small business at some point in their career, if they don’t start one themselves,” he said. “So we really felt like we’re missing the boat if we’re not preparing people for that particular dimension of business.”

Both universities have been offering entrepreneurship classes for at least two years. The success of those classes, in part, inspired the expansions.

MSU Associate Professor of Management Tami Knotts, along with her department head Barry Wisdom, is leading the entrepreneurship curriculum development for the public university. She said they’re expanding on the three entrepreneurship classes already offered and tweaking other classes students must take.

Wyatt also is hammering out details before Drury’s fall 2007 launch. He’s meeting with committees to develop an entrepreneurship-focused master’s program and entrepreneurship seminars for business executives. Drury’s plan should be clearer after they hire a center director in a few months, he said.

Knotts and Wyatt said entrepreneurship classes require students to write business plans and mix disciplines, such as economics and marketing, in a single class to solve problems.

“I think focus is going to be on the decisions that need to be made, versus the more functional kind of approach that most (schools) use,” Wyatt said.

Missouri State students will continue to work with real businesses.

Drury students will be required to travel internationally, while the university actively recruits students from other countries. Wyatt said Drury’s successful Students in Free Enterprise organization has garnered international acclaim, which should help spur the center’s desired growth.

Of course, money will be needed to run programs at both universities. Drury received $2 million in seed money from St. Louis-based financial firm Edward Jones and John and Crystal Beuerlein. John Beuerlein is chairman of the Drury University Board of Trustees and a principal of Edward Jones. The Beuerleins provided $1.5 million of the donation.

“We look at it as a lead gift that will hopefully encourage a number of other people to get excited about the program,” said John Beuerlein, who estimated the center, which will eventually have its own building, would need $12 million to function.

“We think that if we invest in education, that will benefit the community,” he said. “And, partially for selfish reasons, we’d like to get our name better known on the university’s campus so we can attract some of their talent to go to work at our firm.

“We hope it will turn into a successful business incubator for the community,” Beuerlein added.[[In-content Ad]]