Entrepreneurship as a method: Instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in the next generation of business owners and employees

By Stephanie Meador, posted Sep 26, 2024 on BizFayetteville.com

FTCC has an existing partnership with Maseno University in Kenya and intends to further that collaboration to offer
business students additional opportunities for learning through practical experience. Photo by Natasha Brown, FTCC Media Services.

Entrepreneurship is now an official department in Fayetteville Technical Community College's Business Programs curriculum. Students can earn an associate degree in Entrepreneurship that will help ground them in the vital skills and knowledge they will need to move forward in the business world as both business owners and employees.

“[Entrepreneurship education] has application beyond just people that want to open a small business. It’s definitely more in line with creating entrepreneurs instead of creating entrepreneurial situations and outcomes, because we think one leads to another as opposed to the other, the old way of doing things,” shared Dr. J. Scott Keen, Chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship.

The Department of Entrepreneurship was officially created about a month and a half ago. The faculty already have great expectations and goals for the department.

“We have an opportunity to focus on building a community of entrepreneurs…having more or less a hub of educational resources where students can come and drill down into certain aspects of entrepreneurship and walk away with not just one skill, they’ve experienced a conglomerate of skills, and that’s what we wanted, to centralize, to bring in the community aspect…that’s the essence of entrepreneurship, it’s community,” shared Dr. Corey O. Fair, Division Chair of Business Programs at FTCC.

FTCC’s entrepreneurship program focuses on relevance, innovation, partnership and tangible value for students. One of the keystones of the program is promoting an entrepreneurial mindset.

“‘Entrepreneurship as a method’ is one of the hot phrases, but it basically just means approaching things in a problem-solving and micro experimentation, iterative manner. So everything that we do is going to be focused on solving problems, meeting needs and refining that through constant improvement,” shared Keen.

Keen shared that he aims to see the success of his students through beyond their degree program into their career.

“One of the things that I want to really make sure that the program handles is connecting people that finish with us to those resources where they can actually put their plans and their dreams into action,” stated Keen.

SOME OF THE INITIATIVES THAT THE PROGRAM IS TAKING TO REACH NEW HEIGHTS MOVING FORWARD INCLUDE:

Reenvisioning entrepreneurship for both FTCC curriculum programs and short-term training
Growing entrepreneurship application to Career & Technical Education fields
Building new resource networks focused on outcomes and further integrating with FTCC’s community-based Small Business Center
Providing students with international business experience and exposure– specifically through collaboration with a university in Kenya

“Whenever we're talking about how to really expand entrepreneurship from just small business ownership, it’s looking in that problem identification, opportunity recognition, pursuit of a solution and then the process of testing, revising, implementing, testing, revising, implementing...And so if we teach people at the base level, think like an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter if you’re working for yourself or somebody else, if you’re working in a department and you see an issue and you can identify the issue, chart it out, plan it out, figure it out, then that’s only going to help in the long run, no matter where you’re planted,” shared Keen.

Part of expanding the department’s reach includes implementing a cross-disciplinary overlay. From the skilled trades to tech to independent contractors, it is helpful for new professionals to have a basic understanding of business operations.

“Too often, entrepreneurship was looked at as just the department and the isolated program that you could get into and maybe get a certificate or a degree. But a lot of what I saw [in my research] was taking that and applying it cross-disciplinary,” explained Keen.

As the department grows, Keen intends to maintain consistent communication with local businesses and local entrepreneurs to learn what it is our specific community is lacking in to help design their programming and offerings in response to the community.

“One of my goals over the next year is to actually get out and talk with a lot of the business leaders, business owners, resource providers, ecosystem members, to find out, ‘What are your needs? Are we meeting those needs? How can we meet those needs better?’” said Keen.

FTCC is an agile, community-based institution and the Department of Entrepreneurship is no exception to that. By fostering stronger entrepreneurship education the department is helping ensure the longevity and success of the local economy.

“One of the things that’s great is the trustees, Dr. Sorrells, everybody in our department, we’re all in on this…We’re all in on it because we want economic mobility, stability, people meeting their dreams, everything like that. We just want to be able to say, ‘Let us provide the ecosystem that will help you in any way that you need,’” remarked Keen.

To learn more about the programming offered by FTCC’s Department of Entrepreneurship visit www.faytechcc.edu/ academics/business-programs/entrepreneurship.

Copyright © 2024 Enhanced Media Management Inc. dba Greater Fayetteville Business Journal
This story may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal, noncommercial use only and in accordance with our Terms of Service located at https://bizfayetteville.com/useragreement.