In the summer of 2005, Jack Soper, the Kahl Chair in Entrepreneurship and Mark Hauserman, Director of your Entrepreneurs Association hosted a meeting of the seven sisters; the seven four year degree-conferring business schools in Northeast Ohio.  We talked about the John Carroll academic, student, and business community programs, including the popular CEO program funded by the master members of the EA.  During that academic year a series of informal discussions took place, resulting in a second meeting at Kent State to propose a joint program amongst the schools.  From that, the Entrepreneur Education Consortium or EEC was born and the Entrepreneurship Immersion Week took shape. 

 

The sisters each nominated 5 outstanding juniors, interested in entrepreneurship, to attend the week-long residential program held at CSU the week of August 12^th.  Teams from the schools developed a business idea and established friendships, while being coached by the entrepreneurship Chairs from the seven sisters. At week’s end, the ideas were judged by a panel of entrepreneurs from the community, including EA Master Gordon Priemer.  On Friday at noon, the students were joined by the judges, faculty, funders, and Deans of the schools to celebrate the success of the week and award certificates to the participants.

 

Reflecting the desire of the Chairs to “reach across the Campus”, the John Carroll team consisted of these interesting and difficult majors:  English and Communications; Biology and Chemistry; Management and Philosophy; Sociology and Philosophy; and Finance. 

 

Citing one of the key objectives of the program, Dr. Jack Soper said: “We want to network these bright young students outside of their college peer group and over time develop a cadre of young Northeastern Ohio entrepreneurs who will be the ‘first called’ when an exciting new business opportunity arises”. 

 

 

Bob Simpert of Ashland University, Mark Hauserman of John Carroll and Dan Fox of Ashland University