a professor looking over two students' work on a white board

Denver Educator Does a 180 in His Beliefs About Businesspeople

September 19, 2022

  When Adam Melnick was in college, he was sure of one thing: Business people were greedy and never wanted to be one.  Fast forward two decades, and his perspective have shifted by 180 degrees. Although he isn’t currently in business himself, as an assistant professor of management at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, he teaches others the mindset and skills they’ll need to be successful.  “I just completely fell in love with entrepreneurship…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurship Education, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Student Engagement, Student Success, Uncategorized

woman learning outside

A Husband-and-Wife Facilitation Team Strengthens the Entrepreneurial Community in Central Illinois

August 30, 2022

  To get a feel for the Ice House courses facilitated by husband-and-wife team Dr. Jeremy “JK” Morris and Dr. Juanita Morris, just listen to their weekly podcast, Thee Morris Code. The guests laugh and banter, but they’re also willing to display a remarkable degree of vulnerability. This candid nature was especially evident in July when the Morrises spent the month highlighting past Ice House participants at Richland Community College’s EnRich program in Decatur, Illinois. …

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurship Training, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Student Success, Uncategorized

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How the Ice House Model Helps Independence Community College Fulfill Its Economic Development Mission

August 3, 2022

  The small southeastern Kansas community of Independence has a healthy downtown. This is true despite setbacks in industries like coal mining and oil production. Business coach and longtime resident Jim Correll believes the Ice House model deserves a share of the credit because many successful downtown business owners have participated in the Entrepreneurial Mindset course through Independence Community College’s Fab Lab ICC—including the current president of the Chamber of Commerce.  For the past decade,…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Culture, Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurship Education, Entrepreneurship Training, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Student Completion, Student Engagement, Student Success, Uncategorized

a stack of entrepreneurship books

Why A Little Mental Turbulence Can Be a Good Thing for Early-Stage Startups

July 26, 2022

  After welcoming each new cohort of idea-driven participants to Entrepreneurial Mindset Training, facilitator Joel Barrett issues a warning: Turbulence Ahead.  Barrett is a business development consultant with the Missouri Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He and his colleagues use the Ice House model to redefine entrepreneurship as the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others by discovering and solving problems—and he has firsthand experience with the…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Culture, Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurial Workforce, Entrepreneurship Training, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Workforce Development

empty classroom

How the Ice House Program Fits into 30 Years of Entrepreneurship Education at a Kansas College

July 22, 2022

  Johnson County Community College in Kansas City, Kansas, is a pioneer in entrepreneurship education. In fact, many of its students today weren’t even born yet when JCCC launched its entrepreneurship program in 1992.  Adjunct Professor Joe Magnant has been in a prime position to observe the program’s ebbs and flows over the past three decades. For 15 of those years, he’s been riding the current along with the college as one of its go-to…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurship Education, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Student Completion, Student Engagement, Student Success, Uncategorized

prison-education

Tips for Facilitating from the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Department

July 20, 2022

  Many Ice House facilitators say their course participants don’t need facilitators to teach them entrepreneurial skills. The participants possess them already. So the issue is how they’re choosing to apply those skills. Take the participants in the Ice House classes offered by the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Department to the men in its correctional facility. “They do have an entrepreneurial mindset, but they’re using it in a different way because they’re driven by other things,”…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurship Education, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development

black woman working from home

Adding to the Startup ‘Knighthood’ in Florida

July 19, 2022

  As each new cohort enters the Self-Employment Workshop Program in Tampa, Florida, facilitator Carol Minor sets the tone by knighting the participants as finishers.  “You can’t do anything halfway,” she tells the group with her trademark spunk. “You can shift and pivot, but you can’t start something and not see it through.”  Minor starts on an upbeat note, but she’s a realist. She knows not everyone will finish the first eight sessions, where she…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurial Workforce, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Workforce Development

someone writing on a work-wall

Fueling Student Innovation and Growth with an Entrepreneurial Mindset

July 11, 2022

  The St. Vrain Valley School District has been serious about STEM for years. But long before it built the state-of-the-art, 50,000-square-foot Innovation Center in 2018, Assistant Superintendent of Innovation Patty Quinones recognized that equipping students with a mindset that helped them pursue business opportunities was just as important as providing them with all the latest technology.  That’s where Instructional Technologist Jeffrey Lund comes in. He has a background in both education and small business.…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Culture, Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Student Success, Uncategorized

woman in flower shop standing beside a table

Gaining a Sense of Usefulness and Ending the Cycle of Poverty Thanks to a Cincinnati Nonprofit

April 7, 2022

  When the nonprofit Greater Cincinnati Microenterprise Initiative noticed that the individuals it serves needed an extra push beyond the typical business courses to get their ideas off the ground, it introduced the Ice House model to develop their entrepreneurial mindsets.  That addition started a series of shifts within the organization. A community development financial institution or CDFI could help would-be small-business founders access capital and gain skills. Ultimately, it changed how Executive Director Willie…

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Categories: Entrepreneurial Learning, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurship Training, Human Flourishing, Human Potential, Learning & Development, Redefining Entrepreneurship