AEM120, "Principles of Entrepreneurship and Business" and AEM121, "Guest Speaker Series on Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise", are first-year introductory courses to entrepreneurial concepts and practice which aim at orienting students towards, and giving them permission to engage in, entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship activity (and, therefore, entrepreneurship education) is vital for the transformation of scientific and technological advances into innovations; for the generation of business activity; and for increasing the likelihood of personal success. In the recent past, the Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise program (EPE) has attempted to reach as many students as possible with judicious use of modest resources. But, while the results of the efforts are remarkable, they still reach only a small percentage of the Cornell community.

Creation of two introductory courses to entrepreneurship. AEM120, "Principles of Entrepreneurship and Business", is a 2-credit course which emphasizes recognition of business opportunity and the use of Web-based learning tools. AEM121, "Guest Speaker Series on Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise", is a 1-credit speaker series with puts students in contact with successful, active entrepreneurs.

The response to the courses has been superb, with about 890 students taking AEM120 and 2200 students taking AEM121 between Fall 2004 and Fall 2006 (the course was offered both semesters of the academic year 2005-2006). More than half of the students in each course state that they would recommend these courses strongly to fellow students. The ongoing success has resulted in a new course patterned after AEM121, AEM122, a guest speaker series focused on entrepreneurship in biotechnology and other sciences. AEM122 is being offered for the first time in Spring 2007.

entrepreneurship@Cornell and Selzer funds...

John Jaquette (e@C)