The infusion of intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial skills into technician education programs to prepare highly qualified entry level technicians who understand the industry enterprise is an area of interest to the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. This project will support a two-day Conference on the STEM Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneurship Education Spectrum leading to a formal report on conference outcomes. ATE Centers and projects have developed a wide array of innovative responses to this focal area, including Contract Research Organizations, incubators and Virtual Enterprises. This conference will initiate a group discussion on best practices culminating in recommended goals for technician education programs, faculty development seminars and a network-based mentorship. This conference will build consensus on how these practices can become a regular part of STEM technician education programs.
The Institute for Virtual Enterprise (IVE) at the City University of New York (CUNY) has had a successful track record of developing STEM intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship curriculum, performing faculty development and leading discussion in this area. IVE currently hosts an annual summer conference at Baruch College in New York City on intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship that focuses on the Virtual Enterprise pedagogy. The current conference will be expanded in two primary ways: (1) providing support for speakers with expertise in other portions of the STEM Intrapreneurship and Entrepreneurship Education Spectrum beyond Virtual Enterprise; and, (2) disseminating the practices beyond ATE grantees by providing travel stipends with special emphasis on faculty at community colleges that do not currently have ATE grants. This proposal will expand the reach of the practices to new campuses and set an action research framework for future scholarly publications on the topic. Conference participants will join a social network where further campus-to-campus support, mentorship and interaction occur. Participants will be encouraged to take back a platform for STEM intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship, implement it on their campus and study its effects using an action research methodology.
Some of the questions that will be addressed during the conference and discussed in the conference report are: What practices exist at other institutions? How effective are these practices in students' education? What metrics gauge a program's success? What other qualitative and quantitative data are useful for measuring impact? How can faculty design a classroom research study of practices? With whom can faculty network to learn about these practices? How does one make the case for these practices to College Senior Administrators and Governing Boards? What are the legal precedents and complications around encouraging entrepreneurial activity at a public, tax-supported institution? Are there outlets for scholarly publications for work in STEM entrepreneurship education? Are there common milestones in entrepreneurial activity for campuses to track successes?
