Chancellor Mark Wrighton and Robert Bagby, CEO of A.G. Edwards, announced the creation of a new visiting professorship at Washington University last Tuesday. This act comes as the latest in the University’s on-going effort to foster an entrepreneurial spirit throughout undergraduate studies.
This new professorship will allow for experts of entrepreneurship in some specific area – such as electrical engineering – to come to the University and not only teach classes here for a brief time, but also to use their unique outlook to hopefully improve the teaching methods of the entire department, according to Kenneth Harrington, director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.
“What it will allow us to do is to bring in entrepreneurial scholars and practitioners from around the country,” said Harrington. “It could be a scholar that has strong entrepreneurial and economics backgrounds, or a political science background or particularly strong in technology transfer and engineering, which could benefit engineering or the medical school. So having this world class of people come and interchange with all of our folks would enrich the entire faculty for all the students.”
One of the key focuses of this new professorship is collaboration. A proposed major goal for the University over the past year and a half has been to encourage interdisciplinary cooperation, rather than simply cordoning off aspects of the real world to specific schools; namely, relegating entrepreneurship to only the business school.
“We continue down this road of having entrepreneurship be one of the natural areas that makes it easy for students in different disciplines to intersect and collaborate,” said Harrington. “These visiting professors are an additional catalyst for this intersection and enrich all that it brings.”
Teddy Purnomo, a senior and founder of the foundation for undergraduate studies in entrepreneurship, understands the need for interdisciplinary cooperation.
“Interdisciplinary knowledge can be gained from different areas of academics, and just being exposed to the kind of thought in those.that will train the student to be a natural critical thinker,” said Purnomo. “They will be able to better relate to the environment they are in. Most of the time really relevant entrepreneurial ideas come out in that matter.”
Purnomo also noted that the University legitimately has made strides in building entrepreneurship on campus but still has work to do.
“I think the University has done well in terms of reaching out beyond the business school,” said Purnomo. One thing that I would hope to see more is not so much consolidation of effort, but having a system where all these different developments can be captured within one framework. Say there’s a freshman coming in two or three years from now. By then I’m sure there’s so much entrepreneurship related activities going around on campus that he might not know where to begin.one of the biggest challenges is how the University presents a road map for what is most relevant to him or her.”
Harrington also expounded on one of the more recent examples of interdisciplinary spirit concerning a team of students. Consisting of two MBA students, one third year law student, and two undergraduates, the group is currently working on how to stimulate economic growth while also improving the environment, all without negatively affecting local communities in Madagascar.
“Those five people, along with the Missouri Botanical Gardens, will be taking a [trip for a few weeks] in early March to meet with the village,” said Harrington. “We’re trying to see exactly what happens and if we can replicate that in other villages.”
The first professor to come to the University as a result of this new position has yet to be determined, but is likely to come in the fall semester. A.G. Edwards incorporated, a Saint Louis-based investment firm, established the new position.
“This commitment to Washington University is another step in our company’s overall efforts to enhance financial and economic education in our community. The visiting professorship will be a key component in the University’s efforts to promote and develop a strong entrepreneurial culture across its campus and educate future generations of entrepreneurs, both in the St. Louis region and beyond,” said Bagby, in his official address at the announcement of the professorship.