Grant to boost Purdue entrepreneurship

BYLINE: MAX SHOWALTER mshowalter@journalandcourier.com

A private grant of $1.5 million will help Purdue University make entrepreneurship education a more common and accessible opportunity.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced the allocation Friday to Purdue's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship in Discovery Park. The grant is part of a $200 million effort to transform entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities across the country.

"Purdue, along with the other new Kauffman campuses, will empower all students ... to access the skills, orientation and networks that can lead to greater individual opportunities and to the creation of jobs, innovation and prosperity for America," said Carl Schramm, president and chief executive officer of the Kauffman Foundation.

Purdue was selected for the grant based on criteria including:

*The ability to create a culture of entrepreneurship that permeates the campus.

*The potential to create new representative models.

*The ability to collaborate with other foundations and partners.

"Entrepreneurship is fast becoming the hottest ticket on campus with the demand for education is this area growing exponentially in the past few decades," said Alan Rebar, executive director of Discovery Park and interim director of the Burton Morgan Center. "The ... grant will energize entrepreneurship on the Purdue campus through all of our disciplines.

"We see the Kauffman campus initiative as an enormous opportunity ... to build on an already very strong foundation and to take entrepreneurship to a signature level that we believe has never been seen at a major research university."

In the fall of 2005, Purdue and the center created an undergraduate certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation program. The first class had 40 students and grew to more than 600 this fall. Rebar said the program is on target to reach its goal of 1,000 students by the fall of 2008.

The center also serves as a resource for Purdue researchers to commercialize their discoveries and as the intellectual center of education on, and discussion of, entrepreneurial philosophy and issues.

The university also hosts annual life sciences and business plan competitions and will sponsor several events from Feb. 22 to March 3 in connection with Entrepreneurship Week USA, a national event co-sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation.

"We know there's an entrepreneurial spirit sweeping across college campuses ..., and we're thrilled to build on this momentum so that entrepreneurship becomes a natural and vital aspect of the ... education experience," said Judith Cone, the foundation's vice president of entrepreneurship. "Our goal is to make the entire university system more entrepreneurial."