A student continuum
It's hard to change and move along a continuum that involves well established mindsets and behaviors. One way to nudge progress is to take steps in the right direction without being overwhelmed by how far we still have to go. So, for example with students, rather than beginning with, "what kind of start up do you have planned?", we might begin with "what creative endeavor would you like to experience?" and this could take place in a class representing any discipline. In asking students what they are good at during the first week of classes, I have found that many students are at a loss. A good starting place on this student continuum is to help students see what they are capable of creating and remind them that being a creative person is not limited to being skilled in the arts.
A faculty continuum
As I think of my students' future careers, I want to be part of creating an entrepreneurial context so that my classes offer students learning experiences without limits - studio or incubator type experiences that are facilitated but not controlled by me as the teacher. I'll call this "taking the top off the syllabus." I can get students to check the boxes of my stale teacher centered assignments and earn an "A" for convergent thinking about course content, but what if they engage in divergent thinking and design part of their learning experience that represents their own goals?
While I'm part of teams that want to produce and support entrepreneurs (and I do, too!), I believe all of our students will be more marketable (e.g., intrapreneurs) and have a better chance of directing their lives if we reduce (not eliminate) our passive learning models and increase active learning that builds students' identity around their skills and awareness of their potential role in their success while increasing the likelihood that we capture their attention and intrinsic motivation leading to their personal accomplishments of meaningful goals. For example, I have students who wrote and performed a play about gender for a psychology and gender class where participants clearly felt the creative endeavor was a meaningful achievement. The students demonstrated a variety of academic and entrepreneurial skills as they explored and debated course content. This could be contrasted with more typical successes you hear on campuses such as, "Thank God, I got a 91% on my multiple-choice test."
An organizational continuum
We may work in a largely bureaucratic context (it's safe and predictable compared to working for a start up organization), but that does not keep us from offering interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary opportunities so that our students, and our colleges, can move on a continuum toward more entrepreneurial thinking and behavior. In other words, before we open an incubator or find the next 21 year old who is going to sell their new technology for 6 billion dollars, why not offer all of our students a chance to take a step along the continuum - even if they aren't signed up for business classes? This is a first step, and a very easy step, for colleges to become more entrepreneurial because our students are likely to help us expand our ideas of what really is possible when we give them these opportunities.
So, why not straight to entrepreneur?
Some will say that entrepreneurs are born, not made. If so, then we should encourage these genetically blessed individuals to skip school and not waste time and investment dollars on our classes - with their entrepreneurial thinking and behaviors they can get what they need without us. But, if higher education has a role in the teaching and learning of entrepreneurial thinking and behavior, then we should be prepared for students to come to us anywhere along the relevant continuums. And, if we are good at what we do, then we can be part of helping today's creators become tomorrow's entrepreneurs.
