A Cascade of Job Satisfaction in Oklahoma
June 23, 2022
In an era when workplace dissatisfaction seems to be at an all-time high, Stacey Bolin is a welcome breath of fresh air. She’s an associate professor who teaches entrepreneurship and computer courses at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, and she directs the school’s Wilburn L. Smith Center for Entrepreneurship. “This is the best job in the world,” Bolin said. “I love it.” Her enthusiasm is contagious. Students in Bolin’s courses routinely earn awards…
Read more
How the Ice House Model Underlies a Mission to Engage, Educate, and Empower Entrepreneurs
May 16, 2022
Long before Dr. Cassandra Little ever heard of Uncle Cleve Mormon and the Ice House approach to entrepreneurship, she already knew its power. That’s because her grandfather was an entrepreneur who had only a third-grade education but built a career working on cars and houses. Watching him, she absorbed the same lessons the Ice House model now instills in course participants via the Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce. Little herself is a lifelong…
Read more
How the City of Albuquerque Grows Entrepreneurial Thinking From the Inside Out
January 25, 2022
Many cities have worked to attract entrepreneurs over the past decade. Albuquerque, New Mexico, is among them—but in an innovative twist, the fast-growing Southwestern city also worked to foster an entrepreneurial mindset from the inside out. City leaders aren’t looking for municipal employees to start their own businesses. Instead, they’re following the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative’s definition of entrepreneurship as the self-director pursuit of opportunities to create value for others. Here’s the story of how…
Read more
Tackling Social Injustice Through an Entrepreneurial Mindset
October 27, 2021
The opportunities and resources for Black entrepreneurs and minority-led startups often presuppose a skill set that people who grew up in poverty don’t have. “A lot of the circles of support are for middle-class Black people,” explained Pastor Myron Pierce. Pierce serves as the pastor of the Mission Church in North Omaha, Nebraska. “There’s a language you have to speak, systems and structures and culture you need to know about—and that makes it hard…
Read moreA Florida College Removes Barriers to Entrepreneurship Education
September 10, 2021
The Broward College Entrepreneurship Experience (BCEx) is an ambitious framework designed to expand ideation and value creation among the college’s 63,000 students. In addition to creating thousands of entrepreneurs, the bigger goal is to create a culture shift that instills an entrepreneurial mindset across Broward College—impacting faculty, staff, and students. BCEx uses the Ice House model to introduce entrepreneurship as the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others, whether in their business…
Read more
A Managerial vs. Entrepreneurial Approach to Leadership
August 31, 2021
You might have seen the recent Inside Higher Ed article published in March of 2021 titled “Colleges a ‘Juicy Target” for Cyberextortion.” As if mask mandates (or lack thereof), vaccination hesitancy, the Delta Variant, and all the other disruptions that we’ve seen over the last 18 months aren’t enough, now cybercriminals have our schools in their crosshairs. And it’s not just higher ed institutions that are at risk. Someone could soon find my 5-year-old niece’s…
Read moreWalking Across the Bridge to High School with an Entrepreneurial Mindset
August 18, 2021
At Perry Middle School in Perry, Ohio, students’ transition to high school is marked by a unique ceremony: They walk across the bridge between the two buildings to symbolize their advancement from one learning environment to the next. The district of 1,800 students started implementing entrepreneurship courses at the high school level six years ago. A group of teachers and administrators soon realized that younger students could benefit from a similar program. “We talked…
Read more
Lessons in Economic Recovery from Small-Town America
May 27, 2021
Around 100,000 businesses shut their doors in 2020. Two-thirds of small business owners say it was their most difficult year in business. Now that the worst of the COVID pandemic is behind us, organizations like the bipartisan Economic Innovation Group are watching closely for signs of how the recovery will play out. In their recent analysis of U.S. Census Small Business Pulse Survey data, EIG found that more than a third of businesses anticipate…
Read moreDeveloping an Entrepreneurial Mindset on the Path to Recovery
May 14, 2021
Judy Raper never saw herself as someone whose entrepreneurial mindset would make an impact on her community. She might have pointed to her younger sister, a CEO, as the mover and shaker in the family. Then Raper learned a new definition of entrepreneurship as the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others. She realized that by creating value for others, we empower ourselves. She realized that the Ice House training she…
Read more