League for Innovation in the Community College Spring 2020 | Page 20

Thinking Differently About
Teaching Entrepreneurship
BY REBECCA CORBIN
A
dopting an entrepreneurial mindset
within our community colleges is part of a
mission to better serve our students and
communities. However, to spur real entrepreneurial
growth, we, as educators, must ask ourselves the
following questions:
1. How do we instill the principles of this
practice in every student?
2. How do students learn entrepreneurially and
how do we teach entrepreneurship as both
an art and a science?
3. As we work within our own college’s
entrepreneurial ecosystem, how do we
engage our colleagues to think boldly, to
challenge what has historically or politically
persisted, and perhaps even dive deeper into
models that have previously failed but still
hold potential?
Entrepreneurial leadership and teaching
entrepreneurship across disciplines are essential
for colleges, students, and communities to survive.
Through strategic partnerships, many community
college members of NACCE are advancing
entrepreneurial learning through new grant-funded
pilot programs in, for example, financial literacy,
mentoring for young men of color, expanded
STEM education for rural middle school students,
and increasing intellectual property curriculum in
community colleges and universities.
Collaborations with academic and corporate
entities have yielded additional entrepreneurial
grant-funded support for members in several
areas, including:
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League for Innovation in the Community College Innovatus
• Development of a financial management/
entrepreneurship curriculum pilot program;
• Creation of new entrepreneurship spaces;
• Increased technical assistance, open
resources, and growth in entrepreneurship
leadership programs; and
• Expanded communities of practice.
Makerspaces, Fab Labs, Innovation Centers, and
events like pitch competitions that encourage
entrepreneurial engagement and action are
additional examples of hands-on entrepreneurial
learning experiences that engage both teachers and
students to learn by doing.
As educators, we must emphasize the ever-
pressing need for community colleges to prioritize
entrepreneurship to remain relevant as well as
produce the entrepreneurial graduates needed for
the future. To do so, an entrepreneurial education
must be offered broadly and across all disciplines.
Meeting the challenges of the future and the
changing nature of work requires educators to apply
the principles of effectuation, as defined by Saras
Sarasvathy (2001), to entrepreneurship teaching.
Through effectuation, students identify next best
steps to achieve their goals while balancing these
goals with resources and actions. Sarasvathy has
studied the behaviors and traits of entrepreneurs,
and how community college leaders can use these
habits to meet future challenges.