Your position at Rowan:
I presently serve as the Executive Director of Rowan’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship where my team and I work to help students from all majors across campus bring their ideas to reality. I also hold the William G. Rohrer Professorial Chair of Entrepreneurship in the Rohrer College of Business and am an Affiliate Associate Professor of Experiential Engineering Education in the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering.
His degrees:
Ph.D., Entrepreneurship – Louisiana State University
MBA, University of South Florida
B.S., Human Resource Management, Florida State University
His area of expertise: My research focuses primarily on entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurship education, though I do work in some related areas as well. My most recent passion project was editing the Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy which will hit shelves in January 2019.
What is your favorite class to teach, and why? I love teaching our Entrepreneurship and Innovation course, especially because we get so many students from a diverse array of majors and disciplines across campus together in the same room. That said, I’d have to say Social Entrepreneurship is my favorite class to teach because I can see the lightbulbs going off in students’ minds as they engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, explore effective altruism, struggle with measuring impact, and ultimately work on new business models to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. I can’t think of anything more rewarding than working to help the next generation change the world, even if my role is really just one small part.
Share with us one aspect of student engagement that you enjoy the most, and why. I love working with our New Venture Accelerator teams helping connect them with industry partners to take their ideas to market. It is always amazing to see how hard our students are willing to work to build their venture and how generously the community is willing to support them. The Rowan entrepreneurial ecosystem is definitely one to engage with if you are looking for active learning and engagement opportunities.
What is one thing you wish people knew about your academic discipline or research focus? I’d want people to know that entrepreneurship isn’t just a business discipline. Rather, it is a compilation of scholarship and activity from many different disciplines including the sciences, psychology, art, math, and many more. The more diverse our perspectives and collaborations are the better and more creative the solutions we create become.
Do you have a favorite Rowan memory? I flew in to Glassboro to attend the Spring 2017 Rohrer New Venture Competition before I formally began working at Rowan. It was a quick trip, 20 hours in total, and I left so energized. The enthusiasm of the students, the excitement of seeing their ideas moving forward to market, and the conversations with the Rohrer College of Business Dean Sue Lehrman and Trustee Linda Rohrer about their shared vision for the future of entrepreneurship at Rowan left me feeling both humbled and excited about what’s to come. It was this moment I knew joining the Rowan family was absolutely the best decision I could have made.
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