Enitiative: Connecting forward-looking people.

2009-2011 Enitiative Projects in Neighborhoods

Enitiative funding has been awarded to the following projects that exemplify the vision of entrepreneurial Scholarship in Action in neighborhoods:

Near West Side Property and Facilities Management Company

This project will create a property and facilities management company on the Near West Side of Syracuse that will eventually be owned and operated by Near West Side (NWS) residents. The Near Westside Initiative, Inc. owns and operates nearly 300,000 square feet of mixed-use commercial residential properties on the NWS. Syracuse University faculty and students will collaborate with community members and professionals to create the management company, and NWS residents will constitute the personnel for the company. The project will provide start-up experience to SU students and NWS residents and will create jobs for community members.

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Exploring Our Community Through Maps and Map Making

The Syracuse Community Geography Project at Syracuse University was initiated in 2005 to provide community-based organizations in Central New York access to geographic information technologies (GIT) and spatial analyses. While this approach has proven extremely successful in meeting the mapping and spatial analysis needs of our community, capacity among the community to address its own mapping needs has not been developed through the current model. This Enitiative project will help the Community Geography Project to experiment with a more direct approach of technology and skill transfer by involving university students in designing and implementing community-based GIT workshops and trainings for both local youth and representatives of community-based organizations.

The Syracuse Community Geographer will utilize university students in designing and piloting new GIT training curriculum, conducting community workshops, and evaluating the outcomes of training programs. University students from the five Enitiative institutions, with requisite skills in GIT, will be hired to assist in designing and administering experiential learning activities for local youth involved in afterschool and summer programming.

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Business Writing Workshop

Mary Bulkot, instructor in the English & Humanities Department at Cayuga Community College, will create a new course that includes an experimental "company" (The Business Writing Workshop).

The Workshop will provide writing services to small companies, not-for-profit organizations, and emerging entrepreneurs at a sliding rate scale. The high-quality writing services will be the experiential (hands-on) component of a business writing course. In addition to offering services, students will also be involved in advertising and marketing the services of the Workshop by generating print and web-based promotional literature, further honing their entrepreneurial and writing skills.

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The Hybrid High School Enterprise

Bill Coplin, director and professor in the Public Affairs Program at Syracuse University, will create a class that functions as a company to develop and promote a plan for building hybrid high schools.

This project will attempt to build a large network of like-minded supporters to develop and refine a high school plan that will be promoted through publications, presentations, materials and consultation service. Students will complete a series of work orders to determine the best practices to accomplish the eight principles of hybrid high schools. They will also create materials to guide high school administrators and teaching staff in making the principles operational and market plans to attract those contemplating the creation of a new school or revision of existing programs. Outside experts will come to the class, and members of the class will make field visits to observe the practice of the eight principles.

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Bridging the Gap through Pastoral Entrepreneurship in Underserved Communities

Luvenia Cowart, Professor of Practice in Syracuse University's College of Human Ecology, will connect the SU campus and the community through the Pastor's Health Council by designing a pastoral education and engagement project to promote financial and entrepreneurial literacy.

Pastoral leadership is a key element in empowering minority communities towards engagement in entrepreneurship, economic development and financial sustainability. Currently, while pastors oversee their daily business operations, many are not business savvy, nor are they formally prepared with the knowledge and expertise to promote the success and profitability of their church business concerns. Viable churches, a necessary and pivotal part of our community, must be self-sustaining and stable enough to withstand the harsh realities of declining financial markets and decreasing personal resources (e.g. tithes, offerings). Students will engage African American clergy in a teaching and learning environment to promote entrepreneurial and financial literacy in their churches, communities, and personal business affairs.

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Not-for-Profit Seminars

Renee Downey, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Management at LeMoyne College, has partnered with the Corporate Volunteer Council and the Human Services Leadership Council of Central New York to create a seminar series for not-for-profit organizations in Central New York.

The seminar series will offer leaders and emergent leaders of not-for-profit organizations an opportunity to enhance their leadership capabilities through an ongoing professional development series sponsored by Le Moyne College. Seminar topics will include entrepreneurship, finance, leadership, and retention, among others. Management students will conduct a needs assessment and make session recommendations, as well as market, administer, and evaluate the program.

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Auburn/Cayuga County Film Office Initiative

Steven Keeler, professor of telecommunications and broadcasting at Cayuga Community College, and James Daddabbo, independent film producer, will study the feasibility of creating a film office to serve Auburn and Cayuga County.

This study will examine topics such as what type of support would be necessary to sustain a film office, which agencies would support a film office: city, county, college, independent, or some combination, and whether or not film production companies would actually use Auburn and Cayuga County for film production.

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China's Entrepreneurs

Mary Lovely, associate professor in the Economics Department at Syracuse University, will undertake a research project around Chinese entrepreneurs and their role in Chinese economic development.

While Kauffman-sponsored research has begun to provide details on entrepreneurship in America, little is known about the role that entrepreneurs play in the economic transitions underway in the set of developing countries known as "the new globalizers." This project will make available to English-speaking researchers an untapped source of information on Chinese entrepreneurs and provide an analysis of who they are, where they come from, how they compare to managers at state-owned enterprises, and the constraints and opportunities they face for business growth in China.

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Sustainable Entrepreneurship at Cayuga Community College

Cayuga Community College (CCC) is using an Enitiative Sustainable Entrepreneurship grant to further develop three previously funded endeavors.

This grant will go toward sustaining Cayuga Records, an initiative that created a student enterprise comprised of a record company, record label and music publishing. Cayuga Records was created to enable students to gain "real world" skills and transfer those skills to entrepreneurial activities. Additional funding will support a faculty advisor and two student employees.

CCC will continue to explore a Wine Studies program. CCC has decided to target degree programs in Wine Marketing and Enology and this grant will support research into creation of those degree programs and development of a Wine Studies Facility on the campus.

CCC will also further their Center for Service-Learning and Civic Entrepreneurship project. A credit bearing class on civic engagement will be offered and funding will be used to provide college staff the resources to make needed connections in the community.

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Women's Entrepreneurial Resource Center

Tom Paczkowski, professor of business and economics at Cayuga Community College, will partner with the city and community of Auburn to complete a feasibility study that will identify the needs of women business owners and entrepreneurs in Cayuga County to determine if their educational and mentoring needs are being adequately met.

The study will address topics such as what services are being provided in the county specific to women's business owners and entrepreneurs, gaps between client's expectations of these services and their perceptions of the services they received, and will determine if there is a need for a centralized Women's Resource Center in Cayuga County to meet the social and educational needs of women in business. If research determines there are unmet needs, the study will suggest methods in which those needs can be met - possibly including creation of a centralized Women's Resource Center.

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Community College Entrepreneurship Initiative

Morrisville State College has been awarded an Enitiative Sustainable Entrepreneurship grant to expand its BBA in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management to Cayuga Community College and Onondaga Community College.

This program will be structured to allow for a seamless transfer from associate degree programs that may have no explicit business or entrepreneurship requirements. Cayuga and Onondaga Community Colleges will offer the lower-division courses that comprise Morrisville's BBA requirements. Expansion of the BBA program in this way will allow for local facilities and human resources to be leveraged efficiently to formally educate the next generation of entrepreneurs in these communities.

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La Casita Cultural Center

Inmaculada Lara Bonilla, assistant professor in Syracuse University's Latino/Latin American Studies program, and Silvio Torres-Saillant, professor in SU's English Department, partnered to create La Casita.

La Casita Cultural Center will establish a physical gathering place on Syracuse's West Side to foster campus-community conversations and serve as an intellectual and artistic bridge linking various communities, including Latino populations across and beyond Syracuse. The project will work in partnership with a variety of community organizations and with institutional support from the Near Westside Initiative. La Casita will aid the revitalization of the West Side by rehabilitating unused urban spaces and fostering scholarly and creative activities in the areas of art, culture, entrepreneurship and education.

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Say Yes: A New and Innovative Approach to Explore Entrepreneurship In Syracuse

Craig Watters, assistant professor in entrepreneurial practice at SU's Whitman School of Management, along with the Falcone Center, has created 17 new green business ideas for junior and high school students participating in the Say Yes program in the Syracuse City school district.

Students will turn the business ideas into real ventures, which will complement the school curriculums, teach the mechanics of value creation, costs vs. prices, revenue generation, show the importance of markets, etc. In "doing" entrepreneurship, students will be engaged in a way that keeps them in school and able to take advantage of the Say Yes college offer. An SU student will be assigned to each of the ventures to assist in creating a business plan, operations manual/guide, and to mentor the Say Yes students.

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Mitigating Bright Flight: How to Retain Students in the Upstate Region

Many students come to Ithaca, Rochester, and Syracuse to attend the universities, but most students leave these areas after graduation. Syracuse University's COLAB, in the College of Visual & Performing Arts, will host a charrette aimed at retaining students in the Upstate New York region after graduation. Students and faculty from Cornell University, the University of Rochester, and Syracuse University will participate in a 3-day intense charrette and propose innovative solutions for keeping university graduates local.

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Syracuse Entrepreneurship Classroom

The Syracuse Entrepreneurship Classroom is an intense program designed to provide non-business faculty who recently started teaching entrepreneurship courses in a college or university setting an opportunity to learn from experienced entrepreneurship educators. The Classroom provides an ideal platform for educators from all disciplinary backgrounds to share trials and tribulations, exchange ideas, and acquire different perspectives on how to fuse entrepreneurship and any other discipline.

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Enitiative
Kauffman Campuses Initiative
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