$25M in Kauffman Grants to Spur Entrepreneurship on Eight Campuses

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation awarded on Monday $25 million in grants to eight U.S. universities that pledged to make entrepreneurship education available across campus. The selected universities, shown with their award amounts, are:

• Florida International University, $3 million;
• Howard University, $3.1 million;
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, $4.5 million;
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, $3.5 million;
• University of Rochester, $3.5 million;
• University of Texas-El Paso, $2 million;
• Wake Forest University, $2.16 million; and,
• Washington University in St. Louis, $3 million.

Because schools must match the grants at least two-to-one, the Kauffman Campuses initiative ultimately directs a minimum of $75 million for the creation of new interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education programs in American higher education. The initiative is believed to be the first such program of its kind.

While entrepreneurship programs traditionally have been the domain of the business school, the eight Kauffman Campuses schools propose to create campus-wide entrepreneurial experiences that could affect hundreds of thousands of students. Plans vary widely including: developing an entrepreneurship minor available to all undergraduate students; housing student entrepreneurs together; developing and training dozens of faculty to teach entrepreneurship; and, creating student-run businesses on campus.

The eight schools were selected by a panel of judges from 15 finalist schools that participated in the six-month Kauffman Campuses competition. In June, each of 15 finalist schools were awarded a $50,000 planning grant by the Kauffman Foundation to develop and submit an innovative, comprehensive five-year plan to inject entrepreneurship training and experiences into the fabric of the university. Additionally, the university president or chancellor from each of the 15 schools led their teams in presenting their plans to judges at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City between Dec. 9 and 11.

The Kauffman Campuses initiative grew out of the foundation's 10-year history of advancing entrepreneurship, which has included substantial support of entrepreneurship education efforts at hundreds of U.S. colleges and universities. Additional background on all eight grant recipients is available at: http://www.emkf.org/pages/397.cfm