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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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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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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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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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.…
Read morePlanting Seeds of Entrepreneurial Thinking—With a Homegrown Twist
October 13, 2021
One of the preeminent entrepreneurial thinkers in higher education lives and works in an unlikely place: a metro area of 246,000 residents just a couple of hours south of the Canadian border. Bree Langemo, lawyer and educator, exemplifies ELI’s definition of entrepreneurship. That is the self-directed pursuit of opportunities to create value for others, whatever the field or location. Langemo directs the Entrepreneurship Center at Concordia College’s Offutt School of Business in Moorhead, Minnesota.…
Read moreShaping Schools’ Futures Through an Entrepreneurial Mindset
August 13, 2021
Dr. Jacob Pittroff teaches at two historic schools in eastern Missouri, both of which face similar recruitment challenges—and both of which have an entrepreneurial mindset that starts at the top. Christian Brothers College High School (CBC), founded in 1850, is an all-male, Catholic college preparatory high school with more than 800 students. A few miles to the north lies the main campus of Lindenwood University, founded in 1827. Lindenwood has nearly 7,400 undergraduate and…
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Solutions Are Entrepreneurs’ True Currency
March 10, 2021
After interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs, ELI’s Founder, Gary Schoeniger, has found one commonly held assumption that drives their behavior. They assume that by solving problems for others, they can empower themselves. Solving others’ problems is the deceptively simple logic from which all other entrepreneurial attitudes, behaviors, and skills arise. It is also the underlying logic that enables them to recognize opportunities that others overlook. From this perspective, entrepreneurs learn to see problems as opportunities.…
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Go Before You Know: The Power of Learning Through Doing
February 18, 2021
The stories behind many large, established businesses—from Waste Management to Walmart—often start the same way. A young person, motivated by a good idea, pursues small, uncertain niche opportunities. They do so without much capital, research, industry experience, or contacts. How does this happen? How does an inexperienced, cash-strapped entrepreneur manage to transform an unrecognizable idea into a sustainable success? Hint: It isn’t a propensity for taking risks. Origins and Evolutions of New Business Researcher…
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