Center touts business breaks

As students celebrate UNC's pre-season basketball standings, they might be overlooking another prestigious ranking.

The Princeton Review recently ranked UNC as the No. 1 entrepreneurial university in the country - a result of the University's focus on encouraging everyone on campus, not just those in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, to explore entrepreneurship.

So say members of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

"It's difficult to cross the boundaries of different schools and colleges like Carolina is doing," said Jeff Reid, executive director of the center.

The center is one of 12 in the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, an organization founded within the business school in 1985 to serve society.

Through its centers of excellence, the Kenan Institute focuses on projects that help business turn obstacles into opportunity and aid countries and communities in identifying and capitalizing on their varied competitive strengths.

"The institute tries to take knowledge and help make businesses more competitive," said Cyndy Falgout, director of communications for the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative, one of several subsets of the Kenan Institute.

Other centers within the institute include the Center for Technology Research, which helps businesses manage the impact of technology on the workplace, and the affiliated Kenan Institute Asia, which promotes prosperity and development in Asia.

Reid emphasized that these centers are based on helping improve society at large - exactly the purpose Frank Kenan envisioned when he founded the institute.

"Frank Kenan wanted to make society better. He believed that without free enterprise, it's hard to enjoy the other freedoms we have," Reid said.

"The Kenan Institute started to bring together academia, business and government to create that free enterprise."

Programs such as the new Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative also bridge the gap between the business school and the campus by offering entrepreneurial opportunities to students from a wide range of disciplines.

"Oftentimes, people see the word 'entrepreneurship' and think business," Falgout said. "In fact, CEI is about helping anyone in any discipline who wants to create something of value."

CEI offers opportunities such as the Carolina Challenge, a competition allowing any student or faculty member who has an innovative idea to turn it into a business or social enterprise.

CEI will also bring a series of speakers to campus to address issues of entrepreneurship.

The first speaker is Bill Drayton, who will speak Thursday and provide insight on ideas offered in his new book, "How to Change the World."

Drayton is the chairman and CEO of the Ashoka Foundation, which he founded in 1980 with the goal of fostering social entrepreneurship.

Though he started with a budget of only $50,000, the Foundation now spends $7 million per year to finance social entrepreneurship fellows globally.

"Bill is one of those visionary people who has seen ways to change the world," Reid said. "He sees creativity and innovation as ways to help people."

To further welcome those outside the business school, the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies also plans to develop an entrepreneurship minor in the hopes that the option will be open to all students next fall.

"We want to make sure all people on campus know we're open to them," Falgout said.

Reid said Kenan's original goal has trickled down to the faculty and administrators who hold posts at today's institute.

"The Kenan Institute is a great place to work," he said. "People here feel like they're helping society."

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.