US Northeast

Babson College

Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship

Trish Costello, Director

Program Overview

The mission of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College is to lead the global advancement of entrepreneurship education and practice through the development of academic, research, and outreach initiatives that inspire entrepreneurial thinking and cultivate entrepreneurial leadership in all organizations and society.

Entrepreneurship at Babson

Entrepreneurship is at the core of the undergraduate, graduate and executive education programs at Babson College, and the Arthur M. Blank Center is the nucleus for the entrepreneurship curriculum, research, programs, and events on campus and in our outreach. With a total faculty of more than 50 educators, including tenured, tenure-track, and adjunct or entrepreneur faculty members, Babson has one of the largest dedicated entrepreneurship faculty bodies in the world.

Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate curriculum incorporates a cross-disciplinary integration of learning experiences in management and the liberal arts. Two important experiences for undergraduates are: Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship, a year-long, required course in which first-year students establish and run an actual business with seed funding from the College; the Accelerated Curriculum for Entrepreneurship, a program designed for undergraduate students exhibiting high entrepreneurial potential and an interest in developing an early foundation for understanding entrepreneurship. There are also a number of courses offered for students from the neighboring F.W. Olin College of Engineering.

Graduate Program

The first year of the Two-Year, and the first semester of the One-Year, MBA programs center on developing and using entrepreneurial skills to solve actual business problems. Student learning mirrors the business cycle: creativity, opportunity recognition, the invention or discovery of a product or service, assessment of the business opportunity, the building the market and delivery systems, and growth and renewal. In addition, Babson offers the Entrepreneurship Intensity Track (EIT). This innovative curriculum, to which Babson MBA students are admitted after a rigorous application process, is designed for students who are committed to starting a business by the time they graduate. Full-time, Evening, and One-Year MBAs all participate in the EIT. We recently added the “Fast Track” MBA for working professionals.

Executive Education Program

The Executive Education Program utilizes Babson’s entrepreneurial culture to develop custom programs and open enrollment courses that help a wide array of students – from recent college graduates to experienced CEOs of Fortune 500 companies – to think and act more entrepreneurially. The unique management curriculum in the Corporate Entrepreneurship course, for instance, examines the key skills, lessons, tactics, and strategies that will help companies create and lead successful entrepreneurial ventures. The Family Controlled Enterprises course provides owners and managers of family-controlled enterprises with a roadmap for continuous growth and family harmony.

Entrepreneurship Courses

There are nearly 60 elective courses offered by the entrepreneurship faculty which include: Entrepreneurship and New Ventures; Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures; Managing A Growing Business; Venture Growth Strategies; Living the Entrepreneurial Experience; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Mergers & Acquisitions for Entrepreneurs; Venture and Growth Capital; VCs, Angels & Incubators; Social Entrepreneurship; Franchising, Licensing, and Distributorships; Marketing for Entrepreneurs; Corporate Culture and Entrepreneurship; Corporate Venturing/Negotiation; and Family Business Management.

Thought Leadership

Babson faculty members are leading providers of global entrepreneurship intellectual capital. Their pioneering entrepreneurship research defines, shapes, and advances the field throughout the world. Published faculty research can be found in leading academic journals and best selling textbooks. This intellectual capital is infused into our academic programs through teaching cases.

As thought leaders, our Faculty partner with other academics, policy makers, and the business community. Babson, in partnership with the London School of Business, conducts the world’s largest and longest standing, globally-focused entrepreneurship research, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). More than 200 scholars and researchers are currently participating in the GEM project. The results of GEM data analysis are used as a key benchmarking indicator by regional, national and supranational authorities around the world.

The Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) Project, another Babson-led global research effort, explores the entrepreneurial process within family businesses and powerful practices for building legacies of social and economic wealth across many generations.

Babson faculty also research underrepresented populations in entrepreneurship. We are partners on the Diana Project, a multi-year and multi-university study of women business owners and business growth activities. We also founded the Babson/Historically Black Colleges and Universities Entrepreneurship Consortium which is focused on creating teaching cases featuring African American entrepreneurs.

For 27 consecutive years we have invited academic leaders in entrepreneurship from around the world to participate in the preeminent research conference for entrepreneurship, Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC). BCERC attendees hear the latest research and network with peers – the best papers from the conference are published annually in Frontiers of Entrepreneurship.

Resources for our Student Entrepreneurs

Babson Business Development Hatchery

The Graduate Hatchery (1998) and Undergraduate Hatchery (2001) offer student businesses a professional and semi-private workspace, allowing them to virtually "run their business" between classes. Perhaps more importantly than the physical space, the Hatchery creates a vibrant atmosphere that is conducive to sharing of ideas and information among student teams and faculty, as well as alumni and visiting entrepreneurs.

Babson Seed Fund

Thanks to the generous support of a small group of alumni, the Babson College Seed Fund was created in 1999. The Fund supports the start-up endeavors of current students and recent alumni, both from the graduate and undergraduate programs. The primary objective of the Babson Seed Fund is to allow student entrepreneurs who have demonstrated an intense interest in new venture creation and have manifested that commitment in a business plan to explore and refine their opportunity.

Outreach

At Babson, we believe in combining entrepreneurship theory and practice, real-world exposure and experience. To provide this exposure, we bring entrepreneurial leaders to campus to share their stories with our community. Many elite entrepreneurs are members of our Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs, the world’s first entrepreneurship “hall of fame.” These members often are inducted on Founder’s Day, our oldest tradition and annual celebration of entrepreneurship. On Founder’s Day, we also hold our business plan competitions, the first ever established for students. On a separate date, we hold a Rocket Pitch competition where our students and alumni are challenged to pitch their business opportunities in three minutes or less to peers, faculty, alumni, and the business community.

To share our experience in teaching entrepreneurship with educators from other institutions, we created our Symposia for Entrepreneurship Educators. Since 1984, more than 2,000 entrepreneurship educators from over 500 academic institutions, government organizations, and foundations in 50 countries have participated in SEE programs and are currently teaching tens of thousands of students each year. In 2005, we launched a sister program, the Symposium for Entrepreneurship Engineering Educators (SyE3) , and we  have delivered international versions of the SEE program with partner schools in countries around the globe including Argentina, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, Russia, and Venezuela.

In the News

• For fifteen consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has named Babson’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business No. 1 in Entrepreneurship.
• U.S. News & World Report has also recognized Babson as the No.1 school for undergraduate entrepreneurship education every year the ranking has taken place
• The Financial Times ranked Babson No.1 in entrepreneurship globally.
• Entrepreneur magazine ranked Babson No. 1 in Entrepreneurship.
• In 2007, Fortune Small Business ranked Babson as a Top Entrepreneurship College in the following categories: Undergraduate, MBA, Executive Education, Social Responsibility, Family Enterprising, Double Majors, Best in Massachusetts, and Top Entrepreneurship Professors.
• Babson College entrepreneurship professor and division chair, Candida Brush was named a 21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow of the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC), a group of scholars committed to advancing the cause of entrepreneurship research worldwide.

For More Information: www.babson.edu/eship

Janet Strimaitis, Associate Director

Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson College, Wellesley, MA 02457

Phone: 781-239-5023; Fax: 781-239-4178; jstrimaitis@babson.edu