Professor updates business program 

By Chris Ledermuller
Daily Forty-Niner

Cal State Long Beach has two entrepreneurial sources for students.

One is the Center for Entrepreneurship, a College of Business Administration program, and the other is the Student Entrepreneurial Exchange, a campus club.

Alan Grant, an adjunct professor in the College of Business Administration and interim director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, came to CSULB to set up the program. He has experience in setting up similar centers at the University of Nevada, Reno, San Diego State University and Babson College in Massachusetts.

Babson College has been ranked No. 1 for having the best entrepreneurship program in the country by U.S. News & World.

"I set up the center as a formal university academic center," Grant said. "I introduced entrepreneurial classes. I expanded the entrepreneurship curriculum to four classes offered in the spring."

The CSULB program is modeled after Babson College, Grant said. The International Association for Management Education, which accredits colleges of business administration across the country, recommended that the CSULB create a entrepreneurship program during a review last year.

"Cal State Long Beach is 20 years behind," he said. "Curricula are not up to date."

Grant is taking several steps to help the center expand. He is adding classes, formulating curricula and getting approval from academic committees.

A minor in entrepreneurship is already available to non-business majors.   By 2002, Grant hopes to have it as a concentration for business majors.

Information systems senior, Tim Wells, is skeptical about entrepreneurial classes. He is not convinced that courses can properly train students.

"You can't teach being an entrepreneur," Wells said. "You go into business yourself. You either have the knack of running a business or you don't."

Senior management information systems major Charles Plouff, who already runs a business; thinks entrepreneurship programs should be expanded.

"The university teaches you about the corporate environment and big business, but what it lacks are the ma and pa places," Plouff said. "The university doesn't teach you the smaller, more intricate details of starting a business. There's a lot of legal aspects of a business that I should know."

The Student Entrepreneurial Exchange is an alternative source for students who cannot take the classes, but are interested in starting a business.

"We go over how to write a business plan to present to investors to get money," said Robert Meadows, a senior marketing and management major and the president of the club. "We have local guest speakers who are entrepreneurs. We go to the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce meetings and provide networking with business people in the community."