Fordham Business Establishes Entrepreneurship Center

Fordham Business Establishes Entrepreneurship Center

Fordham Schools of Business have established a Center for Entrepreneurship (FCE) that will focus on family businesses and social entrepreneurship while providing budding entrepreneurs with the skills to start their own businesses.

“The fastest area of growth in business is small business,” said Sharon P. Smith, Ph.D., dean of Fordham University’s Schools of Business. “Understanding the special needs and opportunities of small business is essential for people who want to be entrepreneurs and for people who want to address the needs of entrepreneurs.”

The center will also encourage social entrepreneurships geared toward helping the larger community. This element of the program presents opportunities for partnerships between the Schools of Business and Fordham’s other professional schools, including the Graduate School of Education, the School of Law and the Graduate School of Social Service.

“We are all interested in making the world a better place,” said Robert Hurley, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of the FCE. “What we are doing here is trying to make the world a better place through business by helping to create business enterprises that make a contribution to the society at large.”

Fordham currently offers courses in Entrepreneurship and New Business Ventures, New Venture Startup, and Marketing and Management of the Family-Owned Business.

The FCE curriculum will be based on Bert Twaalfhoven’s “Blocks of Teaching Entrepreneurship” and will include six components: courses in identifying business opportunities, beginning a new venture, acquiring social and financial capital, managing start-ups and growth, managing a family-owned enterprise and realizing value.

Twaalfhoven (CBA ’52) is the founder of the European Foundation for Entrepreneurship Research and is a Fordham University advisory board member. He is also the founder of Indivers B.V., an industrial holding company based in the Netherlands.

Over the next few years, the center will add four more classes to its curriculum, including Innovation and the Entrepreneurial Mindset, Marketing for Entrepreneurs, and Entrepreneurial Financing. These courses will be offered to both graduate and undergraduate students.

Another distinction of Fordham’s program is that it is designed to encourage students to develop business plans and launch businesses rather than focus solely on theory. Students work in teams to critique and improve their classmates’ business models.

“We emphasize helping students start a business rather than just talking about business,” Hurley said.

The center has been made possible by a $10,000 contribution to the Schools of Business from Ed Neff (GBA ’75), president of Computer Equity Corporation.

—Michele Snipe