Entrepreneurship grant split among 20 SU, local leaders

By: Alex Kish

Posted: 11/1/07

There will soon be a new group of faculty walking around campus with trendy new titles, like "eProfessor."

This week, Syracuse University awarded grant money to 20 professors and business representatives to jumpstart its new Enitiative Project - a cross-campus initiative that will help fuel entrepreneurship within the university and its neighboring community.

The money came from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's "Kauffman Enitiative" and was then distributed at SU's discretion to 20 project leaders from 11 Central New York colleges and community organizations.

The project leaders, who received up to $20,000 each in funding to work on an individual entrepreneurial project, will be referred to as "eProfessors" and "ePractioners." Each recipient will work for two years on his or her project.

The $3 million grant, which was given to SU in December 2006, will be spent during the next five years. And new grants will be approved each year, said Bruce Kingma, associate provost for entrepreneurship and innovation.

Other grant recipients include professors from Le Moyne College, Morrisville State College, Cayuga Community College, Onondaga Community College and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, along with practitioners from five community organizations.

Syracuse is among 14 campuses nationwide that received the Kauffman Enitiative grant, which gives funding to select schools that have started entrepreneurial programs at their institution.

Kingma, who will be in charge of approving each Enitiative project, said Syracuse stood out from other Kauffman grant candidates due to its prior commitment to community engagement.

"SU is really developing a model that's really an envy of other campuses," Kingma said. "We could take real examples to the Kauffman Foundation."

Kingma is also reviewing requests for smaller grants called "eInfusion" and "eGrants."

"eInfusion" grants will run up to $6,000 while "eGrants" will provide up to $12,000 for recipients. Kingma said two student organizations, the Women in Technology Group and the Entrepreneur Club of the School of Information Studies, have requested these grants.

Freshman David Rosen said funding from grants would benefit Syracuse students.

"A lot of students have ideas for businesses, but (the grants) could be a way to turn it into reality," the information and system technologies major said.

Kingma plans to announce the recipients of these smaller grants in two to three weeks.

The Enitiative project will focus on encouraging entrepreneurship in three areas: technology, neighborhoods and art.

David Rezak's entrepreneurship project falls under the art group. Rezak, director of Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries, received $20,000 in grant money to help bring new speakers to the Soyars Leadership Lecture Series.

The series, which is part of Bandier's curriculum, brings major players in the music industry to Syracuse. With his improved budget for the program, Rezak said he hopes to use the money to attract entrepreneurs to campus such as singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, who created her own record label, and Napster creator Shawn Fanning.

"I'd like to try to bring in some young people who are really relevant, who are free thinkers," Rezak said.

Rezak also plans to use the grant to bring students to the Billboard Digital Live Music Conference, in which speakers discuss progressive music industry policy and help student-run record labels create digital commerce.

Rezak said all of SU should look for ways to find entrepreneurial opportunities.

"Entrepreneurship doesn't end at the walls of the Whitman school," Rezak said.

The city of Syracuse is a target for the Enitiative project because it is already economically challenged, said Michael Morris, an SU entrepreneurship professor.

"The challenges are unique and some of the difficulties are tougher (than other cities), but I think that's why entrepreneurship is especially critical," Morris said. "Entrepreneurship is about disruption, it's about change, it's about challenging the existing order."

Morris also remarked about the university's plans to implement entrepreneurial modules in courses across campus.

"I see a day when there is a course called arts entrepreneurship," Morris said.

Sophomore Evan Brown said incorporating new modules would be beneficial for SU students. Although he is taking an introductory entrepreneurship course through Whitman, the broadcast journalism major agreed that campus-wide modules would stimulate knowledge of the field.

"So many people these days don't know what it is," Brown said of entrepreneurship. "By incorporating the concept of entrepreneurship across campus, I think it can do nothing but enrich our curriculum experience."