Subject: New EIU Entrepreneurship Center

Dear EIU Community,

I would like to report a few changes that have been taking place recently with regards to Entrepreneurship at Eastern Illinois University.

Effective Aug. 15, 2014, the new Sustainable Entrepreneurship through Education and Development (SEED) Center at EIU was established. The former Business Solutions Center (BSC), the entrepreneurship outreach unit that existed previously in the Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences, is now being integrated into the new SEED Center. In other words, the BSC in its original form no longer exists. However, the outreach activities will continue to be offered as part of the new SEED Center. While the full integration will take some time, in addition to various outreach and community partnership activities, the SEED Center will now constitute the new interdisciplinary "home" for entrepreneurial education and research at EIU. The SEED Center is a Presidential initiative and its primary focus is to foster collaboration among students, researchers, and educators, and practicing entrepreneurs to promote, through integrative learning, an understanding of starting and managing a profitable business.

A significant part of the new SEED Center is also the Entrepreneurship Minor, now entering its 5th year on campus. The ENT Minor is open to any EIU student who has completed at least 45 hours, with no other prerequisites to declare the minor. The ENT Minor is specifically designed for students from any major, who contemplate starting their own business, as a supplement to their chosen major. The ENT minor consists of 18 credit hours, with 12 "core" credits taught by faculty from the School of Business, the academic "home" of the ENT Minor. The remaining 6 hours are electives, which consist of a growing list of courses across campus. If you are interest to add courses to the ENT electives, or are generally interested to suggest the Minor to your students, please check out http://www.eiu.edu/entrepreneurship/

As the incoming Director of the new SEED Center, I wanted to inform you about these changes as they are taking shape, and ask for your support as we move forward. We are planting the SEEDs to contribute to new economic development activities in the region by encouraging our students, staff, and faculty, to think "entrepreneurially". I hope I can count on your continued support and collaboration in the future as we move forward with new initiatives focused on Entrepreneurship at EIU and in the region.

With my best wishes,
 
Marko
 
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Dr. Marko Grünhagen
Lumpkin Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship & Professor of Marketing
Director, Sustainable Entrepreneurship through Education and Development (SEED) Center
Eastern Illinois University
School of Business
3105 Lumpkin Hall
Charleston, IL  61920
U.S.A.
+1 (217) 581-6906 (Office)
+1 (217) 581-2913 (SEED Center)
+1 (217) 581-6642 (Fax)
http://www.eiu.edu/~marko
mgrunhagen@eiu.edu